Paper short abstract:

The rise and imprint of India in Africa will be discussed through the identification of "competing visions" of the country's power, status and interactations within the international system.

Paper long abstract:

India's foreign policy in Africa has historically been primarily associated with the projection of "soft power": a number of African nationalists drew inspiration from Gandhi, while post-colonial support focused on liberation movements and non-alignment. By the late 1990, interactions and mutual representations were at their lowest ebb, due to a much more pragmatic definition of India's foreign policy interests and the adoption of trade liberalization policies that shaped new priorities. Since then, Africa has turned to become reappraised as a frontier and a pioneering front. Africa's representation as a new frontier, initially stimulated by concern at securing access to new energy supplies, reflects on patterns of trade and investment that carry their own specificity and imprint. The disconnect between pragmatic and ideological concerns has become a hallmark of the reengagement of India in Africa. Parallels are frequently drawn with the simultaneous build up of China-Africa relationships, but these, besides the obvious emphasis on scale, deserve to be more carefully appraised disentangled on the basis of distinctive trajectories and ambitions.

India's interactions with Africa cannot be reduced to the somewhat elusive quest for a coherent foreign policy. The plurality of players and the complexity of the patterns of interaction resulting from their distinctive goals and modus operandi will be discussed through the review of distinctive Indian intellectual traditions which relate to "competing visions" of the country's power and status within the international system.