At a time when India is trying to reclaim its sphere of influence in Africa, Zambia’s First President Kenneth Kaunda on Thursday said Indian investment in his country should be aimed at value addition. Welcoming Indian investments in Zambia, the founding father of this Southern African nation said investors from India should work in partnership with Zambian entrepreneurs to engage in value addition by processing the raw materials locally.
Mr. Kaunda drew the broad parameters for the Indian engagement in Zambia when Vice-President Hamid Ansari called on him at his Kabulonga office here. This assertion by Mr. Kaunda comes at a time when he is under attack for dabbling in the country’s politics and trying to influence policy.
Criticism
Meeting Mr. Ansari in the middle of a raging controversy over his criticism of a former Defence Minister, Mr. Kaunda side-stepped attempts by the local media to get him to speak on the issue after the Vice-Presidents entourage left the premises. He has been accused of being a “tension-building catalyst” and a “divisive failure” instead of emulating the likes of late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Nelson Mandela of South Africa who “remained stabilizing factors in their countries post-retirement.”
Belying his 85 years but for the hint of a stoop and a shuffle in his gait, Mr. Kaunda remains a presence in Zambia 18 years after he signed out of active politics though people no longer chant ‘God in heaven; on earth, Kaunda. Still, he is referred to as the First President and his office has been institutionalised as the ‘Office of the First President.’
A familiar figure in India along with the African pantheon of Nyerere, Mr. Mandela and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Mr. Kaunda is heralded not just for leading Zambia to independence but also uniting the country’s 73 tribes under the slogan on ‘One Zambia, One Nation.’
Hence, there is considerable disquiet among commoners over the controversy with his critics also feeling that Mr. Kaunda should be left alone in his “sunset years; however wrong he may be. “Spare him and he is our most cherished asset left” are oft-heard refrains whenever the issue is discussed while the more critical feel he should just confine himself to work on the HIV/AIDS front. This was another issue that came up during his meeting with Mr. Ansari.
Seeks India’s help
Stating that Southern Africa was bearing the heaviest brunt of the AIDS pandemic, he appealed for Indian assistance in fighting the disease that claimed one of his sons. But for this appeal and the contours for Indian investment, Mr. Kaunda chose to walk down nostalgia lane with Mr. Ansari as both recalled the common spiritual father the two nations had in Mahatma Gandhi.
