The India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) ended with a globally relevant declaration. But following the summit, an obvious question has emerged over the larger message that the summit sent out.
Though India and African countries meet often in international platforms, IAFS 2015 will remain unique because it was the first time that India appeared before Africa speaking the language of pure economic development and finance capital, in a departure from the ideology-dominant days of Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s.
The economic diplomacy of India is sending the indication that like India, which has reached out to engage Africa in a robust manner, Africa too is unafraid of antagonising China as it explores India’s seriousness on reaching out to Africa.
The summit was important because Africans have realised that it is necessary to let China know that the Africans too have an alternative to China, said former Indian High Commissioner to Kenya, T.P. Sreenivasan. Mr. Sreenivasan believes that the Africans have been unable to deal with China’s robust presence in several mineral-rich African countries, where Chinese interest has reportedly begun to interfere with the national political process.
However, a casualty of pure economic diplomacy has been ideological commitment to democracy and freedom that India refused to project into Africa during the summit.
A Sudanese political activist now in India said that African human rights activists were disturbed by the fact that despite being the largest democracy of the world, India avoided showing any interest in advising African countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and several others on how to resolve conflicts and end discriminations.
“India-China rivalry over Africa cannot be the reason to push down political disputes and oppression inside Africa. Issues of inter-tribe rivalry, resource allocation, boundary disputes, and denial of democratic rights are major issues that can jeopardise Africa’s future as well as India’s investments in Africa. So, these issues need to be discussed in big international platform,” said the Sudanese activist.Ajay Dubey of JNU’s Centre for Africa Studies, however, believes that the Chinese deal with Africa bureaucratically by prioritising business interest. But, he said India would have to highlight its people power also while showing the Africans that India’s approach to business with Africa would be different from China’s.
