India started the process of reaching out to the African continent by convening an India-Africa forum a year ago and the turnout of African political and business leaders was impressive. India has more than 70 billion dollars of trade with Africa and a large Indian origin diaspora — more than a million in South Africa alone. Now Prime Minister Modi has been on a four nation tour of Africa—Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. He has offered 10 billion dollars in loans and he got a red carpet rousing reception throughout his tour. His outreach to the Indian diaspora was enthusiastically reciprocated as were his offers of trade and joint ventures by all the countries that he visited.
India gets a boost in its foreign relations because of the multi-faceted India-US alliance that has been put together over a period spanning several years. India is, of course, set to record a growth rate of 7.5 percent and as a policy it is using its economic muscle to project soft power even as it builds up military power with inordinate expenditure on arms acquisitions and rapid strides in nuclear and missile fields. This is evident from the outcome of the Prime Ministers visits to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Gulf countries. India has also benefitted enormously from the discriminatory US-India Agreement on Nuclear Technology — besides keeping its military use facilities out of an inspection regime it has been able to reach out to Australia and Japan and several other countries including the US for trade in nuclear materials and power plants and to Europe for military hardware e.g. France and UK. By aligning with the US on the South China issue India has developed military ties with the Philippines, Viet Nam, Malaysia and Indonesia. India’s economy fuelled soft power projection policy includes an active covert policy that seeks to isolate Pakistan internationally, destabilise it internally and make it the focus of international counter terror activity. India’s declared no first use policy and silent espousal of the Fissile Military Control Regime masks its feverish activities and here too India pushes the thinking on terrorists gaining access to WMD in Pakistan — even though there are few takers given the strong structures that Pakistan has put in place and its successful counter terror policies.
As part of its ‘endearment to the west’ policy India is firmly in the US camp on the overall US strategy to contain China. To offset concerns over its massively destabilizing conventional force buildup India projects the view that it views the threat from China as a joint Pakistan-China threat. This enables it to counter Pakistan’s positive proposal for a restraint regime and its offer of institutionalised dialogue to resolve bilateral disputes. It is in this context that India’s outreach to Africa must be viewed. Also significant is India’s aim for a United Nations Security Council seat, and entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regimes — ambitions that are fully supported by the US. African countries are unlikely to support India’s UN ambition unless Africa also gets representation.
In spite of a huge volume of trade between China and India and a long standing border dispute there is no doubt that India and China are rivals and competitors for resources internationally. Against India’s 70 billion dollar figure China’s trade with Africa is over 200 billion dollars — twice that of the US. India projects China’s ventures in Africa as being extractive by saying that in the infrastructure projects that China has undertaken it prefers its own labor instead of employing local Africans while Indian ventures enhance local capacity and participation. India’s strong footprint in the pharmaceutical industry is cited as an example. India also touts its private sector participation in partnerships and joint ventures while it says China uses state controlled corporations. With China’s economy slowing there is a trend to look towards India and India is exploiting this to the hilt to gain an advantage under the benign shadow of its alliance with the US. China is of course fully alive to the evolving situation and the Indian need for energy but China is way ahead of India and unlike India it is not ignoring its own internal infrastructure requirements and governance imperatives. China’s rise is far more inclusive and comprehensive and China does not have interventionist tendencies.