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- Convenors:
-
Kenneth King
(Edinburgh University)
Meera Venkatachalam (University of Mumbai)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- Economy and Development
- Location:
- 50 George Square, G.02
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Papers on all aspects of India's aid & soft power connections with Africa, including capacity-building via South-South cooperation, cultural diplomacy, FDI, & African agency.
Long Abstract:
India's discourse about its history and civilizational links with Africa has remained constant; but redefined by its 90s economic liberalisation, its series of India-Africa Forum Summits, and Modi's 10 principles of African engagement.
Human resource development has been the heart of India's cooperation since 1947, reinforced by India's Technical & Economic Cooperation support from 1964 to civil and military training in India; by scholarships; and by much institutional development in Africa. Modi's principles strongly underline the building of 'as much local capacity as possible'.
India's comparative advantage in information technology (IT) is illustrated across Africa in IT centres of excellence, and in the connectivities of the flagship Pan-African E-Network, now relaunched as India's Global Education & Health.
In the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (2016), India partners with Japan to enhance capacity & skills, and people-to-people partnership as two of four key pillars.
India's NGOs are increasingly present in Africa, while India's multinational brands are now continent-wide, though India-Africa skills transfer was evident from 1920s. Meanwhile India's soft power in Africa is promoted through state economic support, media, film, and its diasporic connections.
Papers are encouraged on these and other aspects of India's aid and soft power in Africa, but equally on African agency and symmetry in India's south-south cooperation. India now has an Africa policy. But does Africa have an India policy?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
India's soft power in Africa is usually pitted against that of the US and China. Yet, like the two, its soft power rests on making use of attributes such as political ideals at home, aid in its variant forms, culture and foreign policy, without conforming to Washington or Beijing's way.
Paper long abstract:
Ever since Joseph Nye introduced the idea of soft power in academia in the early 1990s, it has attracted keen interest especially in the emerging economies. Perhaps aware of their hard power deficit, soft power has been embraced as an important element of influence in countries which are looking to charm the globe. It is in this context that India's soft power in East Africa is discussed. This paper seeks to understand New Delhi's soft power potential in the African sub region at the time when the Asian country is engaging Africa with rejuvenated rigor and vigor. The potential of India's soft power in Africa is usually pitted against that of the United States on one hand, and China on the other. Indeed India's soft power in Africa is attributed to New Delhi's ability to attract essentially without having to conform to the American or the Chinese way. In practice, however, India's third way, like that of Washington and Beijing, manifests by making use of a combination of attributes such as its political ideals at home, aid in its variant forms, culture and foreign policy. This paper therefore investigates the extent to which these attributes are shaping the relations between India and East African countries by focusing on the "soft aspects" of the relationship. To arrive to this end, the paper also identifies and discusses the challenges facing India in its soft power promotion in East Africa.
Paper short abstract:
Even though it may appear that "India is sleep walking in Africa", and that the scope of its economic engagement is still a fraction of China's, New Delhi has awakened to the reality that Africa is a strategic priority.
Paper long abstract:
Econ20 India's aid and soft power in Africa (Panel)
Facing Up to China: India's evolving policy towards Africa;
Insights from India's Engagement in Ethiopia
Professor Fantu Cheru (Emeritus)
Senior Researcher, African Studies Centre
Leiden University
Even though it may appear that "India is sleep walking in Africa", and that the scope of its economic engagement is still a fraction of China's, New Delhi has awakened to the reality that Africa is a strategic priority in its global commercial expansion. While India's Africa policy appears to be different from that of China's, when stripped of its rhetoric, it is hard to ignore the similarities that underpin the Africa strategies of India and China, namely the demand for resource security, trade and investment in a highly competitive globalized economy. The nuances of its political and economic engagement suggest that, like China, there are inherent risks to the relationship. This paper brings to the fore these inherent tensions by drawing empirical evidence from Ethiopia, where both India and China are key development partners. One key distinctive factor between India and China is the role of the state in formulating and executing foreign economic policy proactively. China has the system of formulating and implementing decisions swiftly, whereas Indian decision-making must go a lengthy democratic process which at times proves slow to exploit a favorable external situation for its own benefit. While sticking to its democratic tradition, India must find a new way of making decisions proactively in order to effectively faceup to China's influence in Africa.
Paper short abstract:
India has cultivated a new identity as a nation with a civilisational duty, a process which began at economic liberalisation and was amplified with the ascent of Modi's Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). How this process has reconfigured India's African educational outreach is examined.
Paper long abstract:
India's diplomacy was framed in the context of 'South-South Cooperation' and 'Non-alignment' during the Nehruvian era (1949-64). The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program, inaugurated in 1964, declares itself to be "demand-driven", according to the needs of the partnering country, engaging in "cooperation" for "mutual benefit". Under the Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme (SCAAP), "more than 160 countries are invited to share India's developmental experience acquired over six decades of her existence as a free nation." After liberalisation in 1991, as the Indian economy reported double digit growth, Indian political actors began rebranding their place in the world, especially vis-à-vis Africa. India-Africa relations were rejuvenated with the triannual India-Africa Forum Summits (IAFS)s from 2008. A new unit, the Development Partnership Agency (DPA), was set up in 2012 within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), for governing outgoing aid projects. Modi's premiership (2014-), has seen an aggressive Africa outreach: in 2015, he announced 50,000 new scholarships, and Lines of Credit (LOCs) amounting to USD 10 billion, over 5 years. The rationale for India's engagement with Africa also changed, as a reinvention of Indian culture and reconceptualisation of the nation's past civilisational role in the world ensued, against the backdrop of the right-wing Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)'s ascent to power. This paper looks at how the 'Indianisation' of the educational system plays out with reference to India's African educational outreach, in terms of marketing India in Africa, student recruitment, modalities of skill and knowledge transmissions, and return contributions.
Paper short abstract:
Gandhi has been a staple of India's soft-power, especially in Africa. By looking at Ghana's responses to the gifting of a Gandhi statue to the University of Legon in Accra and the controversy that it ensued this paper points to the challenges to India's Africa's policy and its soft-power strategy.
Paper long abstract:
In June 2016, the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee unveiled a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the Legon Campus of the University of Accra to symbolise the friendship between the two countries. However, a controversy quickly ensued, and the government of Ghana hastily removed the statue from campus.
Historical monuments are expressions of power and are often subject to contestations, but as diplomatic gifts go, the Gandhi statue was not an unconventional present. Statues of the Mahatma have regularly been gifted by the Indian government and have been staples of its soft-power strategy, especially in Africa. Yet, in this instance, the gifting of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was extremely significant and controversial.
This paper makes three main arguments. Foregrounding the importance of the politics of statues and commemorations in Indian politics, it places this event within a broader strategy by Hindutva - the Hindu nationalist ideology India Prime Minister Narendra Modi ascribes to - at reclaiming symbolic ownership of the Mahatma and his legacy in Africa.
Secondly, taking a constructivist approach, this paper argues that the gifting of the statue of Gandhi to the University of Legon was an attempt at reimagining, not simply India's national narrative, but ultimately, at rewriting the history of India-Africa relations and reshaping South-South discourse.
Lastly, and more importantly, in view of other more recent opposition to the construction of a Gandhi statue in Africa (Malawi, 2018), the paper considers the potential of Mahatma Gandhi as a soft-power tool to cement India-Africa relations.
Paper short abstract:
Human resource development is claimed to be at the heart of India's engagement with Africa, whether in training, scholarships, institutional or non-state development. African perspectives on India's engagement with Africa are reviewed through data from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and India.
Paper long abstract:
From Nehru to Modi, human resource development has been claimed to be at the heart of India's engagement with Africa. This can be illustrated from the thousands of African civil and military professionals annually in India for courses through Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, the thousands of public and private long-term students in India, and the Indian NGO training schemes in Africa such as Solar Mamas, as well as the wide range of Indo-African specialist institutes pledged by India to the African Union since 2008. Furthermore, the roll-out of the re-worked Pan-African E-Network as Indian Global Health and Global Education takes place in 2019, but will continue to target Africa amongst other continents. India's cultural and social media presence in Africa is also increasing. Although India, unlike China, does not have an official African Policy, a great deal more is known about India's discourse on Africa, including on its involvement with Japan in the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, than is known about African policies towards India, whether at state, regional or African Union levels. The present research reports on African perspectives on Indian engagement with the continent from a variety of users of or participants in India's aid and soft power. These include publicly and privately funded African students in India, as well as returnees in Africa, private sector partners, India-Africa institutional collaborations, and non-governmental organisations. The data are drawn from fieldwork in India, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Paper short abstract:
Three Indian capacity building initiatives across Africa are examined: the role of ICRISAT, Hyderabad; SEWA (Ahmadabad, Gujarat) and the Barefoot College (Tilonia, Rajasthan), and their contribution towards enhancing food security, gender empowerment and promoting solar energy, respectively.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation offers three micro-studies on; the role of International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, Hyderabad); the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA in Ahmadabad, Gujarat) and the Barefoot College (Tilonia, Rajasthan), and their contribution towards enhancing food security, gender empowerment and solar energy, respectively, across the African continent. ICRISAT (Hyderabad), a global agricultural research institute focuses on five nutritious, drought-tolerant crops - chickpea, pigeonpea, pearl millet, sorghum and groundnut which grow in semi- arid regions of Africa and Asia. ICRISAT has been exchanging research findings on germplasm and breeding materials with African countries to develop varieties suitable to semi- arid agro-ecologies in Africa. SEWA and the Barefoot College are both not-for-profit organizations concerned with poverty alleviation. SEWA has engaged with the empowerment of small and marginal woman farmers through enhancing food production with modern technology, and building supply and value chains. It also works towards the empowerment of female workers in the informal sector workers through social mobilization and collective action, by offering woman-to-woman learning and sharing of experiences in Africa. The Barefoot College is best known for training women, young and old, semi-literate or those unable to read and write into 'Solar Mamas': solar engineers capable of lighting their homes/streets in several countries in Africa after a short training program in Tilonia. This research is based on field visits to the above referred in organizations in India.