India’s Growing Role

INTRODUCTION

The world’s two most populous countries, China and India, are now seriously competing with each other to engage resource-rich Africa, thereby imparting a new dimension to South-South relations. Last April, New Delhi hosted heads of government of 12 African nation-states and a similar number of regional economic groupings. Many see this as a modest answer by India to the grand Africa summit that Beijing hosted in 2006.

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While this was the first time India organized such a large summit of African leaders, this country has had long links with the continent. “Indian traders once sold glass beads to an eager African market (and) now its expertise centers on science and technology,” observes a media release of the Johannesburg-based South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). The release added: “China’s inroads into Africa are well known; India’s approach has been much quieter. The India-Africa Forum meets for the first time offering a fresh insight into this modern-day scramble for Africa.”

A government of India official told IPS, who may not be named according to briefing rules, that unlike “China’s greed for Africa’s oil, copper and other minerals quota, India is more interested in longer-term economic partnerships that are mutually beneficial and do not replicate colonial systems of exploitation of African wealth.” This official pointed out that India had for long supported South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement because of the personal involvement of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the ‘father’ of the Indian nation, who had cut his political teeth in that country. More recently, India was the first country to send United Nations sponsored troops to Congo.

The Indian government has, in addition, supported technical exchange and training programs in most African countries. For more than four decades now, 1,000 individuals from sub-Saharan countries have been provided technical training in India each year. Besides, there are an estimated 15,000 students of African origin currently studying in Indian universities and educational institutions, many of them on government scholarships.

Pointing out that the “waters of the Indian Ocean united us” and that India and Africa had a lot of common civilizational heritage and shared experience of colonialism,” India’s Minister for External Affairs, Pranab Mukherjee, recently said, “our commitment to solutions based on common but differentiated responsibility and respective capability remains steadfast.”

Ethiopia’s Minister of State for Trade and Industry Tadesse Haile, on a visit to India last year, said this country should be a ‘’shareholder and not just a stakeholder in Africa’s development process.” India has participated in projects relating to rural electrification in Mozambique and Ethiopia, railways in Senegal and Mali, cement in Congo and computer training in Lesotho. Indian companies are involved in building Ghana’s National Assembly and military barracks in Sierra Leone.

Private corporate groups in India have had long-standing ties with African countries. For instance, the Tata group has a presence in 14 countries in areas such as hotels, telecommunications, hydropower and transportation. The word ‘Tata’ is synonymous with ‘bus’ in a country like Uganda, writes Seema Sirohi, Indian journalist for the ‘Outlook’ magazine who was recently in Johannesburg.

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