Meanwhile: As PM eyes new horizons in Africa, China factor looms

When was the last time an Indian Prime Minister travelled to four African countries in one stretch? This question has been asked with a tinge of anguish many a time in Africa circles, but with Prime Minister Narendra Modi heading to Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania early this week, it’s going to be replaced by what’s next. While there are many aspects to Mr Modi’s trip to these African countries, the importance of his African odyssey lies in the fact that it’s actually happening and on this scale. Mr Modi’s visits to the four African countries, barely nine months after hosting the largest gathering of African leaders on the Indian soil, therefore, is doubly welcome. Some sceptics may say that Mr Modi has turned attention late towards a rising continent as he travels to the African mainland after visiting over 40 countries.

But such quibbles miss the central point: in the last two decades, this is the first time a slew of high-profile visits are taking place from India to Africa, signalling sentiments of Afro-optimism in India’s diplomatic-strategic circles. Mr Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh visited the US at least half a dozen times, but in his 10-year tenure he made standalone bilateral visits to only a handful of African countries. This had created summit-level diplomacy deficit between India and Africa, fuelling narratives of a neglect of Africa by India and India’s West fixation. This lack of high-level visits stood out in stark contrast to top Chinese leaders, including President, vice-president and foreign minister, visiting African countries frequently.

Mr Modi’s visit to Africa, preceded by President Pranab Mukherjee’s visits to Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Namibia and vice-president Hamid Ansari’s trips to Morocco and Tunisia, end this prolonged period of diplomatic drought, and send a powerful message across to a resurgent continent that India is finally serious about pushing India-Africa relations onto a higher trajectory. These trips signal Mr Modi’s strategic design to engage all the regions of Africa through his triple S mantra of skill, scale and speed, and position Africa as an important pole in his foreign policy calculus.

Mr Modi’s engagements with all these countries are expected to be substantive and showcase key facets of India-Africa strategic partnership, as enunciated in the 2015 Delhi Declaration. The choice of the four countries by Mr Modi shows calibrated strategic thinking. The well-entrenched Indian diaspora in eastern and southern Africa is a powerful asset in India’s diplomatic toolkit, although it remains under-leveraged and has not received the kind of attention its counterpart in the West has got. Some may think the comparison between India and China is gratuitous, but it can’t be wished away. In terms of diaspora and soft power, India has clear advantages compared to China: although the number of Chinese working in African countries is increasing, there is no long-standing Chinese diaspora, giving India a distinct advantage in this area. Besides, there is no Chinese equivalent of Bollywood, which is popular from Marrakesh to Maputo and Durban to Dakar. Not surprisingly,

Mr Modi has chosen Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa as part of his first tour to the continent. Diaspora engagements will be high on the agenda, and Mr Modi is set to flaunt his Gujarat connection to create an emotive connect to predominantly Gujarati community in all these countries. The show in Durban, if frenzied preparations are anything to go by, is going to compare favourably with his more spectacular shows in Western capitals. While diaspora-centric engagements will be high on optics and steal the limelight, there will be quiet purposeful diplomacy focused on key areas of mutual concern and interest in all these capitals. Enhancing development cooperation, pivoted on India’s core strengths in capacity building training and knowledge industries, will be high on the agenda.

Another top priority of Mr Modi will be to dovetail the narratives of a rising India and African economic resurgence. Uncertain global economic situation and dramatic decline in commodity prices due to China’s economic slowdown may have adversely impacted Africa’s economic outlook, but despite these discouraging trends, Africa remains a zone of opportunity. Better infrastructure, improved governance, growth of the service sector combined with the expanding middle-class consumer market have enhanced the attractiveness quotient of Africa. The four countries chosen for Mr Modi’s trip score high on all these indices, and therefore provide a base for India to upgrade and galvanise trade and investment across the spectrum.

Providing more heft to the burgeoning strategic partnership will be an important priority. Against the backdrop of the rising tide of radicalism and terrorism in the large swathes of the continent, Mr Modi’s talks with the top leadership in the four African capitals will focus on intensifying counter-terror cooperation. The Mumbai-like terror attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi and the expanding footprints of terror syndicates like Al Qaeda in Maghreb, Boko Haram and Al Shabaab underscore the imperative for India to firm up structured counter-terror cooperation through intelligence-sharing.

Enhancing maritime cooperation will be another priority as the blue economy dream, unveiled by Mr Modi at the IAFS-III, can’t be realised without proactive maritime cooperation with littoral African countries located on the Indian Ocean seaboard. Besides bilateral issues, Mr Modi will, therefore, be looking to engage the leadership in Maputo, Pretoria, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on a range of cross-cutting global issues, including the UN Security Council reform, climate change and sustainable development. The stasis in the African Union consensus on the UNSC reforms has impeded the momentum in the long-standing quest to create a more democratic UNSC, which is in tune with contemporary geo-economic realities. At the IAFS-III, the two sides supported each other’s UNSC aspirations, but it’s time to end prevarication and join hands resolutely to re-fashion global institutions of governance anew.

Mr Modi’s visit will be closely watched in key capitals of the world and especially in Beijing. While it’s distorting to portray Africa as the hub of a new great game or neo-colonial scramble, it can’t be denied that the continent has emerged as a beacon of hope amid the prolonged global slowdown. The established as well as emerging partners of Africa are upping their game, and burnishing their strategy to score in this high-stakes safari. US President Barack Obama hosted a grand summit with African countries in 2014, and China has raised the bar by pledging $60 billion for Africa at FOCAC-II in Johannesburg in 2015. India has pushed the envelope by hosting its first-ever summit with the whole of Africa in October 2015, which was attended by more than 40 African leaders and representatives of the African continent. Mr Modi’s trips to the four African countries are part of this mutually nourishing journey, and one can only hope that there are no full stops on the way.