Abstract
The India–Zimbabwe relations are rampant with obdurate omissions, commissions, misinformation, and proper attention, hence dismally productive. This investigation pins down the dismal relations to Zimbabwe’s economic quagmire, the inseparable China–Zimbabwe relations, Zimbabwe’s diplomatic isolation and the effects of sanctions enacted by the US and other Western countries. With both primary and secondary sources, an interpretive approach is used to generate and analyse data. The study outlines prospects that can recalibrate India–Zimbabwe relations, especially in the new dispensation era of Zimbabwe after Mugabe. The possibilities include leveraging the available business opportunities, energy and mineral resources, security, regional cooperation and conflict management, knowledge exchange, institutional building, and social cohesion.
Introduction
The Indian sub-continent and Africa are increasingly connecting through trade, technology, ideas on the reformation of global governance, and emerging areas in aeronautics and homoeopathy (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India 2019). India is making capacity building and human resource development a reality for several African countries. Conversely, Africa is providing resources to sustain India’s burgeoning economy. Other shared interests lie in combating piracy, terrorism, and peacebuilding. India–Africa collaboration, if cherished, is a perfect seedbed for shared development. On a particular note, the India–Zimbabwe relations have maladies; it is rampant with obdurate omissions, commissions, and misinformation that require redress.
The ab initio understanding of India–Zimbabwe relations is through oral history. In scholarly parlance, the accretion of oral history can be inimically shallow, hence misinforming, making the authenticity and veracity mumbo-jumbo. The conventional political, economic, and social approach in examining India–Zimbabwe relations lacks critical intellectual rigor. This investigation expands the social inquiry to include archaeology while deepening the economic and political links to reconstruct a better official representation than given. Though theories help analyse all social processes, for the India–Zimbabwe relations, there is a concern that it can lead to a narrower understanding, hence, minimally used.
Zimbabwe was a land and later a country of many names. Before it became a sovereign territory, it was known as South Zambezia, a landlocked area between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers in Alkebulan. 1 Further, it was once the land of the grandest southern African Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe, with the capital Dzimba-hwe or Dzimbadzemabwe (the house of stone) (Roland and Atmore 1975). It was also under the Munhumutapa kingdom and later the Rozvi state, whose capital was never located.
The arrival of the colonial ‘Pioneer Column’ in 1890 under the British South Africa Company saw the land named Rhodesia in 1895. The local people got agitated and mounted a battle, commonly known as the First Chimurenga, in 1896. Unfortunately, due to inferior weapons, bows, and arrows, they were defeated in 1897, and the defeat was followed by a name change to Southern Rhodesia in 1898. The name change was a bureaucratic arrangement separating it from the other captured lands in the north: Zambia and Malawi.
Southern Rhodesia was granted self-governing status under the British crown, and afterwards, the settler colony created the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953. The Federation was a transnational buffer zone to minimize the South African economic hegemony. Another battle, the Second Chimurenga, was mounted by the local people in 1964, demanding political independence, economic justice, and taking back their land. The locals were also protesting against harsh laws, for instance, the Land Apportionment Act, which confines the native people to less productive land.
When the white settlers lacked support to prosecute the war, they went rogue and announced the ‘self-declaration of independence’, cutting ties with London in 1965 (Watts 2012). Détente existed between 1974 and 1976, with negotiations happening before total war ensued again. The tension was thawed by signing the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, and it sealed the end of the war. A name change happened to Zimbabwe–Rhodesia as a sign of inclusivity between the whites and the local people. After independence in 1980, the last name change happened, with the independent state named Zimbabwe. Perceptively, the name Zimbabwe encompasses the remnants and legacies of the imagined glorious precolonial history that is being used to shape the state’s postcolonial identity.
The pre-independence India–Zimbabwe relations go beyond the ‘Munhumutapa state’ and ‘Dom Miguel’ links (Embassy of India, Harare 2017). This narrative has omissions. Instead, the Great Zimbabwe Kingdom had already established links, and for instance, there was an archaeological discovery of glass beads, copper and gold coins from India; there is evidence of Indian writings on hard surfaces such as stones or terracotta around Great Zimbabwe ruins (Bruder 2008). Great Zimbabwe was established in 950 AD and abandoned in 1500 AD, with Mutapa, an offshoot that developed between 1200 and 1450 (Summers 1971).
India’s link with Zimbabwe, arguably, is interwoven with the Portuguese, and this understanding can be analyzed to articulate the dynamics. The Portuguese made the first connections with the Mutapa after a hurtle response to the news about the discovery of the fabled ‘gold mines of King Solomon’ (Haggard 1885). Zimbabwe has highly diversified mineral resources: close to forty exploitable minerals, and they include platinum group metals, gold, chromium, diamond, coal, cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, iron ore, and rare earth metals, among others.
While during the Mutapa link, Nenzou (a person tasked to receive all presents brought to the Court and in charge of fazenda [foreign trade]) heard highly about the Jesuit priests in India. It is from the Indians that Mutapa learned that priests were not only holy men of great virtue, but they were also men of noblest rank and were most notable persons (Froes 1561: 37–43).
Portuguese history provides an extensive breadth to understanding India–Zimbabwe relations; for instance, Monclaro (1922: 202–253) made comparative resource endowments between India and Mutapa. He said that in the Mutapa, there were few fruits, and the best were those resembling plums, which have no stones, only small kernels or little seeds. Monclaro added that the fruits were called sangomas, better than those of India and abundant in the thickets.
During the civil war in the Mutapa, India became a refuge for Gatsi Rusere’s two sons, whom he offered to the Portuguese captain Madeira to be christened and educated in India. However, the two sons were quickly brought back to stay and study Portuguese in Mozambique. The eldest was christened Dom Fillipe and the youngest was Dom Diogo, adding to the legacy of Dom Miguel, who stayed in India as a priest and intellectual.
However, the first big wave of indentured labors of the nineteenth century who settled in Zimbabwe came through East Africa, where they were engaged with rail construction, and South Africa, where they worked in the plantations. In the twentieth century, Patel (2021) says Gujarat peasants voluntarily migrated to Zimbabwe following the ‘Solomon gold prospectives’. They arrived in Zimbabwe from the east through Mozambique and the south through South Africa. Gujarat migrants quickly brought their wives and families.
The early Indians to settle in Zimbabwe were classified by the colonial government as ‘Asiatic’. However, the first Southern Rhodesian Government Census (1911) showed the classification change to ‘Asians’, grouped alongside Europeans, and were less than two percent of the country’s population. During the colonial era, Indians endured felix culpa. They fought against Whites and were applauded resistors of the colonial project. Nevertheless, because they were classified along with Europeans, they were sometimes seen as collaborators, which made them experience varying indignities.
During the 1970s and 1980s, India provided political, financial, material, and technical support to countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa (Pham 2011). To this end, India’s foreign policies towards Africa during the Cold War had no significant impact, although it increased after the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
India and Zimbabwe shared NAM objectives, including anti-imperialism, decolonization, and a strong desire to promote and maintain south–south cooperation (Harshe 1990: 399–405). Zimbabwe joined NAM in 1979, while India is a founding member. At the 8th Non-Aligned Summit in Harare, Rajiv Gandhi pioneered the formation of the Action for Resisting Invasion, Colonialism and Apartheid (AFRICA) Fund in 1986 (Non-Aligned Movement 1986). Rajiv became the first chairperson of the AFRICA Fund, which aimed to help frontline states to cushion the impacts of apartheid. India contributed US40 million of the US70 million initial capital required.
Leaders of India and Zimbabwe exchanged visits and goodwill. For example, the Embassy of India in Harare (2017) shows that Indira Gandhi graced the independence celebration day of Zimbabwe in 1980. Mugabe was given the Jawaharlal Nehru Award in 1989. Prime Minister Gowda visited Zimbabwe in 1996, attending the G-15 summit. On the other side, a high delegation from Zimbabwe visited Delhi in 1994, attending the G-15 summit. Mugabe visited Delhi in 2015, attending the India–Africa Forum Summit, and Vice Presidents, Chiwenga and Naidu visited India and Zimbabwe in 2018, respectively.
The Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2013) shows that in multilateral fora, Zimbabwe supported India’s election into the UN Economic and Social Council and the Human Rights Committee in 2002. Zimbabwe supported India’s election into the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions in 2011. Conversely, India supported Zimbabwe’s election into the UN Commission on Human Rights. India became the first Asian full member of the African Capacity Building Foundation in 2005, which is based in Harare, and it donated one million dollars towards sustainable development and poverty alleviation.
India and Zimbabwe bilaterally signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a ‘Three Hall in a Wall’ electronic learning station in 2011. India extended a line of credit worth 28.6 million to refurbish the Deka pumping station and the Hwange Thermal Power Station (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India 2020). India and Zimbabwe signed several Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, particularly in 1999, 2009, and 2014, to boost investment relations (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India 2019). The boosting of investor confidence was buttressed by the establishment of the India–Zimbabwe Chamber of Commerce in 2011. Trade between India and Zimbabwe is estimated at US181 million, although in favor of India (World Bank 2018).
Efforts to increase cooperation are added through the establishment of Foreign Office Consultations. The first consultation was held in 2017 in Harare (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India 2019), where trade, investments, politics, consular, cultural, and developmental cooperation issues were discussed.
Zimbabwe has known a single leader in the form of Mugabe from 1980 to 2017. Observably, Mugabe’s secret weapons were eloquence in speech and bravery. His reluctance to implement reforms is one of his legacies that transformed him out of power. He would spend much of his time flexing up as the strong man of Africa and a radical trailblazer of black empowerment. For instance, he deployed Zimbabwe’s Army to the Democratic Republic of Congo tensions, awarded hefty compensation to war veterans, and fought against imperialism and neo-imperialism, and this bled the treasury to the core.
When the pressure to reform mounted whilst the government was bankrupt, Mugabe used to resort to unordinary measures mixed with crockery and violence. One strand of how Zimbabwe fell from being the Crown Jewel of Africa is Mugabe’s appetite for power without reforms, which led to violence. In 2000, the electorates voted down Mugabe’s backed draft constitution. Subsequently, he lost his temper and invited anarchy. War veterans violently stormed to grab land possessed by white farmers without compensation or the government’s permission. Mugabe allowed them, saying the land belonged to them, and should not be removed.
In response, the Bretton Woods institutions and other European countries withdrew financial support to Zimbabwe and enacted sanctions. Mugabe did not have a soft spot on all countries that sanctioned Zimbabwe; he called them illegal dealers. It can be noted that Mugabe tried to rally other countries to support him in making the sanctions removed, but he failed. As a tradition, India is not easily dragged to meddle in far-flung tensions, and perhaps with the need to remain in cordial relations with other Western countries, it did not support Zimbabwe.
Conversely, Zimbabwe was bleeding, running short of taxes and revenues. Mugabe ordered the printing of more money, which resultantly drove inflation up. In January 2008, the inflation was at 100,000 percent; it skyrocketed to 100 million percent by May and 250 million percent by July of the same year. Suggestively, Mugabe’s mental abilities have lately failed him due to ageing, and corruption and incompetence were happening under his watch, leading to one of the best African economies stalling.
One point of reflection that emerged from this investigation is the overt inroads made by China in Zimbabwe. China provides soft loans, political and strategic partnerships, infrastructural development, market, and value addition to mineral resources. Arguing along this line entails that the presence of China in Zimbabwe is impacting India’s commitments, and the reasons backdate to their Asian geopolitical fights, for example, the 1962 war, that shook India’s influence within NAM. As a way forward, India and China should cooperate and redound Zimbabwe as a shared ally.
This study is interpretive. It uses both primary and secondary sources. The investigation starts by exploring how India–Zimbabwe relations are impacted by the Zimbabwe economic crisis, China–Zimbabwe relations, and Zimbabwe’s diplomatic isolation. These identified issues are recurring themes in the reviewed literature and are central to Zimbabwe’s international relations. Afterwards, the investigation outlines the prospects of India–Zimbabwe relations in the new dispensation of Zimbabwe, and finally, the conclusion.
Zimbabwe’s Economic Challenges
A healthy economy is essential in international relations (Strange 1970: 304–315). To some extent, the economic quagmire of Zimbabwe polarised India–Zimbabwe relations, especially between 2005 and 2018. Zimbabwe recorded negative economic growth, the balance of payments, and hyperinflation, which caused currency revaluations and continuous removal of zeros (Parliament of Zimbabwe 2019). As not enough, the economy was burdened by periodic outbreaks of cholera. Zimbabwe faced droughts and the annus horibilis 2008 and 2018 presidential elections, among other economic burdens.
From 2008 to 2018, Zimbabwe’s economy underwent several confusing changes. The changes include the increased dependency on primary products, deindustrialization, and the informalization of the economy, dissaving and depressed investment levels, weak budgets, unsustainable expenditure mix, rising domestic debt, and debt overhang. Some of the factors are discussed below.
The Increased Dependence on Primary Goods
Zimbabwe’s economy has been nosediving since the advent of the new millennium. However, it recovered from 2009 to 2012 (Chitiyo et al. 2016). Analytically, the recovery was empowered by mining and agriculture, which were backed by high global prices. Zimbabwe took advantage of its plenty-plus minerals and became a lead exporter of gold, diamond and platinum.
For example, in the US14 billion revenue generated between 2009 and 2013, 93 percent of the exports were primary commodities (Kanyenze et al. 2017). A similar pattern was noticed in 2015 and 2016, where, of the US5 billion realized, 80 percent were primary commodities. The over-dependence on primary commodities has a negative implication because the economy is critically exposed to risks associated with primary commodity cycles. Also, overreliance on primary commodities makes the economy more capital-intensive.
On top of relying on primary goods, the economy relied on the overvalued US dollar as the main currency. Observably, the US dollar undermined the competitiveness of exports as imports became cheaper than local goods. The impact of these factors led the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) (2018) to lowly position Zimbabwe at 132 out of 144 countries in 2012/2013 and 130 out of 145 in 2016/2017 (Schwab 2018).
The GCI outlines Zimbabwe’s investment condition strengths as of 2018, including soft factors such as female participation in the labor force, reliance on professional management, a high-quality education system, low inflation levels, protection of minority shareholders and a proper taxation model. Conversely, Zimbabwe ranks low on hard factors, including national savings, property rights observance, breadth of value chains, venture capital availability, and quality of electricity and water supply, among other indicators.
Pushing back to 2012 and 2013, the GCI shows a picture that surprises in Zimbabwe’s economy arises not from the rankings but policy disconnect, precisely the unwillingness of the policymakers to tackle challenges identified on hard factors, opting to focus on soft factors only, which do not necessarily add value in lifting the competitive ranking (Schwab 2012).
Deindustrialization and the Informalization of the Economy
The World Bank asserts that reallocating jobs across sectors is central to structural changes and upgrading productivity (Martins 2014). Thus, the growth of labor productivity can be realized either from reorganizing production within sectors (the adoption of new machines and innovative technology that may raise outputs without changing labor) or the reallocation of jobs (structural changes), where workers move from low-to-high productivity sectors.
Structural changes are crucial for the sustainable enhancement of the standard of living because they enable more people to benefit from higher productivity. They reduce poverty in both the short- and long-term run, and they are even associated with the cross-sector labor productivity component of growth: the speed at which vulnerable employment and poverty are reduced (African Development Bank 2013, International Labor Organization 2013, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 2015).
Instead of initiating structural changes, Zimbabwe is experiencing structural degeneration, causing deindustrialization and the informalization of the economy. The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) reports between 2007 - 2015 record unstable and sharp decrease trends in the industry capacity utilization from 36 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2007 and below 10 percent in 2008 (World Bank 2021). Capacity utilization intermittently shot to 57 percent in 2011 before receding to 34 and 32 percent in 2015 and 2018, respectively. From 2011 to 2014, the CZI recorded that 4610 firms closed down while more than 55,443 workers were retrenched.
The Manufacturing Survey of the CZI (2014: 6) states that industries in Zimbabwe are under serious threat because deindustrialization has reached catastrophic levels and is impacting the economy. Some of the causes of deindustrialization were the high costs of and access to capital, competition from low costs and quality imports mainly from China, low local demand, high costs of doing business, and frequent antiquated machinery breakdowns.
Deindustrialization increasingly informalized the economy. For instance, in 2004, Zimbabwe had an 80 percent informal employment rate that surged to 84 percent in 2011, 95 percent in 2014, and 97 percent in 2018 (Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency 2020). Further, the Fin Scope Survey (2012) shows that 85 percent of the 3.5 million small and medium enterprises in Zimbabwe are unregistered. The challenge with informal businesses is their motive for subsistence production (survival thrust), and they barely involve their transaction with mainstream economic transactions.
The informalization of industries causes the majority of the informal workers, most of them who are at the bottom of the economic and social ladder, to suffer from the deficit of decent work, with the work they get being casual, hence excluded, unprotected, and unrepresented in the mainstream labor rights and social welfare. The informalization of industries increases the government’s cost of providing social services while decreasing the availability of investment capital, which can affect international trade.
Dissaving and Depressed Investment Levels
Savings and investments are crucial elements of economic growth (Gidigbi and Donga 2020). Unfortunately, in Zimbabwe, savings and investments were deteriorating. According to the World Bank (2017), savings sharply declines from 146 percent between 1980 and 1989 to 16 percent between 1990 and 1999. It declined to −1 percent between 2000 and 2008 before immensely declining to −11 percent during the Government of National Unity (2009–2013). Comparatively, Zimbabwe’s domestic savings, estimated −11 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, was far below other regional economies; for instance, Botswana’s 38 percent, Angola and Tanzania had over 20 percent and South Africa 12 percent.
The foreign direct investment in Zimbabwe remains depressed, with inflows amounting to 1.7 billion from 1980 to 2013, compared to neighbors like Zambia with 7.7 billion and Mozambique with 15.8 billion (Sikwila et al. 2017: 43–52). From a policy perspective, the CZI (2015: 7) survey states that the dismal economic performance of Zimbabwe is a result of unclear signaling through contradicting positions taken by different arms of the government. The CZI added that the government lacks clarity and fairness on the Indigenization and Economic Policy, for example, the requirement of foreign investors with more than US500 000 capital investment to cede 51 percent of the shares to the indigenous people.
As highlighted, the economic environment of Zimbabwe brings clarity that with an underperforming economy, engagement with other states may not provide the best expectation of mutual benefits and economic growth. For the past three decades, India has been engaging Zimbabwe, which is plagued with a weak economy.
The China–Zimbabwe Relations
China is Zimbabwe’s best friend forever (Youde 2007). Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle history documents China as an ally. In 2005, the ‘Look East policy’ formalized the Sino–Zimbabwe relations and the policy also comprised countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia. The Look East policy, especially to China, was pursued actively and aggressively as an alternative first and later a priority since there was a diplomatic tiff with the Western states such as Britain and the US.
Mugabe curated the Look East policy, arguing that the people in those regions think like Zimbabweans; they have the same history of colonialism but now have organized their economies well than most of the African countries and are willing to have a fair and reciprocal friendship than the West (Herald 2005: 1).
The targeting of China, at some point, accrued positive economic and political gains. Economically, it provided a new and significant flow of revenue when other trade relations were depleting due to sanctions. Reciprocally, China found readily available business opportunities in Zimbabwe. China has become the largest tobacco buyer and a prominent player in manufacturing and selling digital machines and accessories. Chinese ventures in Zimbabwe have expanded and show a monopoly in healthcare and infrastructure development (Lyman 2005).
The government of China facilitates Chinese investors to turn their interests to Zimbabwe through business to business contacts and tourism. China sponsored the Air Zimbabwe flight to take a route to China (Xinhua 2005). The government of China advertises and promotes tourism in Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe has made the process of acquiring a visa simple for Chinese citizens (Alden 2005: 147–164).
China is receiving decent mineral resource concessions in Zimbabwe. The minerals used for concession include diamond, platinum and copper deposits which are largely undeveloped, and this exchange seemingly gives lucrative economic windfall for both countries (Eisenman 2005: 9 – 11). For China, securing resources is a priority to sustain its fast-paced developing economy.
Zimbabwe is receiving grants and loans, aid and technical know-how without conditions from China (Hodzi et al. 2012: 79–103). On top of that, China is offering a thick clout of protection against Zimbabwe’s international criticism and enactment of sanctions based on its purported grave record of human rights violations (Zhakata 2008).
In the defense and security sector, China supplies security arms and military hardware, which includes MIG jet fighters, tanks, armored vehicles and riffles (Mujuru 2015). During the Mugabe era, some would argue that China’s presence in Zimbabwe was to protect his interest, which among other things, was to redirect public imagination, confuse domestic and international oppositions, and ultimately remain in power. This argument appeals, especially when Mugabe was awarded the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, yet politically and economically, Zimbabwe was unstable (Spencer 2015). However, even after Mugabe, China still has cordial relations with Zimbabwe.
The Look East policy did not stop Zimbabwe’s economic free fall; for example, the country’s GDP fell 11 years in a row (2007–2018); unemployment competed with the literacy rate at 95 percent, whilst inflation and exchange rates went beyond any sustainable business transaction (International Monetary Fund 2019). Zimbabwe’s dismal economy raises questions: If the engagement with China on the market is not paying dividends, why is it still being pursued?
An Afro Barometer Survey demonstrates that Zimbabweans have a negative feeling about the government’s economic reforms that put China at the forefront. The survey states that 90 percent are ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘very dissatisfied’ (Bratton et al. 2005). As observed, Zimbabweans resent Chinese presence and deals.
Complaints about Chinese are also registered in Namibia, where they mix aid and business, causing their conduct to be branded selfish and morally bankrupt (Amadhila 2012). In South Africa, trade is tilting in favor of the Chinese. China is providing unmatched competition to small and medium enterprises, something believed detrimental to the hard-fought democratic gains expected by South Africans (Gumede 2012).
A country-wide general debate is going on where some think that continuously entertaining China makes it easy to mortgage Zimbabwe’s future. This line of thinking needs examination because China has managed to strike deals for mineral exploitation and value-addition licenses in Zimbabwe (China Daily 2019). Despite the goodwill that China tries to portray, the cost to Zimbabwe of mortgaging the future through mineral concessions is disturbing, considering more than 250 Chinese enterprises seem not to have long-term plans or involve in community social responsibility of a reasonable magnitude without international pressure (Tan-Mullins and Hofman 2014: 3–18).
Garnaut (2011) sees Chinese investors as a new breed of capitalists supported by the government through state corruption, violence, and the new left. Under this pretext, today’s China has nothing to do with the China that Zimbabwe wants to befriend. Suppose today’s China wants to be profit-driven rather than ideology-centric. In that case, it is proof of the myopic vision of Zimbabwe as China is in disguise to plunder its resources.
One of the most significant infrastructures constructed by China is the US 140 million Zimbabwean parliament, inaugurated in 2023. However, Chinese infrastructure, services and goods are lowly ranked in quality. The goods are shoddy and rhetorically named zhing-zhong (useless products) (Moyo and Mdlongwa 2015: 76–82). Further concerns arise in China’s new investments and their subsequent employment creation. Job security is limited, and wages are meagre despite long hours of hard service (Mde and Brown 2005: 2).
The dependency theory can shed light on the China–Zimbabwe relations, taking notes from a case study by Santos (1970: 231–236) conducted in Latin America. According to Santos, dependency means a phenomenon in which the economy of a particular country is heavily conditioned by the development of another economy to which it is subjected. Santos further notes that dependency happens when dominant countries can self-sustain and expand. However, the dependent ones can only do the same as a reflection of the dominant, which can positively or negatively affect immediate or long-term development. Zimbabwe is overly dependent on China. However, there is little reflection in economic growth compared to China, which deserves further investigation.
Diplomatic Isolation and Sanctions
Zimbabwe is burdened with sanctions from the US, a host of European countries, and international institutions, including that of the Bretton Woods. The first batch of sanctions, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), came in 2001. The sanctions were imposed after reports of prolonged undemocratic practices, human rights abuses and economic mismanagement. ZIDERA restricts the US from supporting Zimbabwe until the country makes specific reforms on governance.
Afterwards, targeted financial sanctions were put by the US Department of the Treasury in 2003 following widespread state-sponsored violence. This sanction was tailormade to specific individuals and entities that were perpetuating human rights violations, political repression, and corruption. When the Mugabe administration failed to repent, the US suspended nonhumanitarian aid from the government-to-government level, banned the transfer of defense equipment, and put travel restrictions on selected people causing human rights problems (US Department of State 2020).
To this end, sanctions did not dilute the appetite for Mugabe to lead the same old ways, but there was a clear shift in the foreign policy portrayal of Zimbabwe. Mugabe started the patrimonialism of foreign policies, riding on the fame of being a liberator and a solid defender of Zimbabwean democracy. Mugabe’s reluctance to reform and sharp change of foreign policy focus sees him framed as a dictator (Townsend and Capson 2005).
One of the worst diplomatic conflicts happened with Britain after Zimbabwe was suspended from the British-led Council of Commonwealth in 2002 before Mugabe quit in 2003 (White 2003). Mugabe showed unconcern while he increased his verbal grenades and punches of decoloniality against Britain. In response, Britain revoked the knighthood of Mugabe (Tran 2008). Critically, this is the period when Zimbabwe’s cutting-edge foreign policies, not only to Britain but other Western countries, lost their salt and vinegar. The diplomatic machine of Zimbabwe started to stall, and a series of missteps and policy inconsistencies heightened the ineffectiveness of Zimbabwe’s diplomacy.
After diplomatic severances with the West, Mugabe tried to create a new identity for Zimbabwe by redirecting the public imagination of international order and governance. It is debatable whether such an attempt was not a matter of desperation or the need of the time. Zimbabwe was regarded as a pariah state, but Mugabe was adamant that Britain and other Western countries were fueling instability in Zimbabwe (ITV News 2013). For Britain, Mugabe said it had a dereliction in funding the land redistribution program as agreed at the Lancaster House Conference in 1979.
When Zimbabwe’s isolation was eminent, inversely, its international visibility increased. Zimbabwe changed her foreign policy sources and projections and was portrayed robustly, actively, and daringly. Diplomacy was done skillfully in cooperation with other states willing to advance Zimbabwe’s interest and, at that point, to oppose Western hegemony towards small states (Nkiwane 1999). The revised foreign policies are anticipated to portray a new image of Zimbabwe.
The reader’s critical analysis of a selection of Mugabe’s domestic and international speeches between 2001 and 2017 carried a narrative towards Third World countriesʼ empowerment. The speeches further revealed that Asia is the real deal, a continent of bountiful opportunities. At the same time, Mugabe was reminding the Western countries, especially Britain and the US, that their time of hegemony was over.
Perceptively, Mugabe failed to checkmate the West’s power, influence, and hegemony and rally other states to support him. His end goal was to see the sanctions removed. Far from it, the sanctions become more biting, causing Zimbabwe to be diplomatically isolated, with some countries maintaining benign neglect or cooperation of non-commitment or non-interference to Zimbabwe’s quest of soiling the West.
The isolation was self-immolating Zimbabwe economically and politically. Mugabe was a person every leader was forced to respond. It was evident that he had the support of other African leaders since they did not oppose him and his policies. African leaders have a symbiotic solidarity of rarely commenting about fellow leaders’ actions in public, and due to seniority, some leaders are untouchable no matter how wayward they are. For example, the African Peer-Review Mechanism, the brainchild of Mugabe, was established to address African political crises but remained his property and was never used against him.
Diplomatic isolation and sanctions caused many states, including India, to fail to maintain good relations with Zimbabwe. Arguably, these states were also concerned with protecting and leveraging their interests with other Western states. Zimbabwe’s isolation is evident through decreased international trade, sporadic diplomatic visits, and cutting aid and grant assistance by donor countries. The impacts of diplomatic isolation saw the opportunity to solidify India–Zimbabwe relations slipping. However, courtesy of the resignation of Mugabe in 2017, the new government have the prospect of recalibrating the India–Zimbabwe relations.
India and Zimbabwe’s Prospects in the New Dispensation
After Mugabe resigned in November 2017, Emerson Mnangagwa took over as the President of Zimbabwe and promised structural and institutional changes. Since 2017, Zimbabwe has managed to join various organizations, including the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization, and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, the World Trade Organization, African Regional Intellectual Property Organization among others. These platforms facilitate multilateral connections, investments and trade.
According to the Working Paper from the Export-Import Bank of India (2019), Zimbabwe is ranked number 27 out of 47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa on investments from India. Efforts to cover this gap or improve the ranking can promote good relations. Some of the opportunities and goals to pursue the strengthening of India–Zimbabwe relations are through business and investments, access to energy and mineral resources, social cohesion, and security guarantee. These factors are discussed below.
Energy and Mineral Resources
Zimbabwe is battling an energy crisis caused by the ageing of the main power stations of Kariba and Hwange. The visit of Venkaiah Naidu in 2018 resulted in India extending a line of credit worth US310 million towards refurbishing the Hwange station. Also, two previous lines of credit were enhanced to US23 million and US19 million for the Bulawayo thermal power project and Deka pumping station, respectively, so the projects can be completed quickly. India supports Zimbabwe in the Mini and Micro Grid, Smart Grids, and Hybrid Renewable Energy Technologies establishment.
In the recent past, Zimbabwe discovered gas deposits in Lupane and Muzarabani. India does not only have the technology and know-how to explore gas; it needs to secure gas as a source of energy for various reasons. As an example, the economy of India is growing at a rate of eight to nine percent for the next two decades (Poddar and Yi 2003). It is the fourth largest economy in the world, where 17 percent of the world population lives, and half of the population is youth under 25 years (Smith 2007).
The International Energy Agency (2006) asserts that India’s petroleum reserve is stagnant at 0.5 percent of the world’s total reserve despite increasing industrialization and population. Currently, a third of India’s energy is met by traditional sources of fuel that include cow dung, wood and crop residues. India also imports 75 percent of its oil from the Middle East, a region with an unpredictable political climate that cannot give security to its energy requirements.
Henceforth, the gas in Zimbabwe will lessen the security headache for India, and it can further lessen the over-reliance on the few suppliers and traditional energy sources that heavily pollute the environment. Zimbabwe’s gas project is new, and both India and Zimbabwe have the opportunity to participate in all phases of energy production: extraction, refining, storage, transporting and selling of extra gas.
Business Opportunities
Speaking with the former Indian Ambassador to Zimbabwe in Harare (on 13 December 2017), Rungsung Masakui, he was enthused with the new dispensation and believed there is a vast potential for cooperation because the Government of Zimbabwe is ‘now very open’. Masakui banked on the minimum bad speculation and limited negative political pressures Zimbabwe could enjoy. He foresees the evaporation of bad international publicity as a precedence that more venture capitalists from India can sprout in Zimbabwe.
While touring India in 2018, the Vice President of Zimbabwe, Chiwenga, told the 13th Confederation of Indian Industry and` CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership to consider investing in Zimbabwe, taking advantage of the pro-reform business agenda (The Herald 2018). Zimbabwe is sprucing up the process of doing business.
For example, Zimbabwe ranked highly on the ten-point analysis of the World Bank (2020). The ten-point analysis, among other issues, focuses on starting a business, registration, fees to register a company, minimum capital requirements, and the availability of electricity. On top of the positive rankings, Zimbabwe boasts low tax rates and stricter laws to protect minority investors. Foreign investors can register property and transfer it at a lower cost. Digitalizing operations and upgrading infrastructure are reducing border and ports of entry time. Zimbabwe established a commercial court to deal with investment disputes.
India can invest in greenfield and brownfield, construction, transportation, broadcasting services, health, and manufacturing industries. Some of the low-hanging fruits include the resuscitation of the railway industry of Zimbabwe that collapsed over a decade ago. Zimbabwe has few telecommunication service providers providing substandard services at a high cost. Coronavirus has exposed the need for the country to invest in digital communication.
Comparatively, India can cheaply provide mechanized agricultural tools to increase production. In exchange, arrangements can be made for farmers, for example, those who stay in dry regions such as Punjab and Amritsar Valley, to lease farming land in Zimbabwe to increase food security. Zimbabwe has good arable lands.
Diplomatic Influence, Cooperation, and Conflict Management
India is an influential actor in the international system. The vitality of India is evident in some of the Global South associations it is a member of, for instance, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (IBSA) and Non Aligned Movement (NAM), among others. Nevertheless, chindia 2 is causing a dent in India as a committed global actor.
China and India are Asian neighbors with the world’s largest populations and fast-growing economies. Suggestively, their tensions are detrimental, not only in the Asian region but as far as Zimbabwe. Counteractively, Zimbabwe can strategically use its space and agency as a neutral actor to make China and India engage each other peacefully. Zimbabwe’s diplomatic history shows that it promotes dialogue; it also prides itself on good information management and tight preservation of interests, and these factors are crucial to make the two Asian giants attain new perspectives.
In Zimbabwe, the goodwill of India is highly emulated, something that can be traced to the Mutapa era. Therefore, India can help other actors, such as the US or EU, who are trying hard to engage and build trust with Zimbabwe. The US has many initiatives that it wants to use to engage with Zimbabwe, and some of them include the Millenium Corporation, President’s Malaria Initiative, and President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, of which India has no similar initiatives. The ability to help the US can see India accruing influence and publicity. However, India should have a fruitful relationship with Zimbabwe to consider such a collaboration. Also, suppose India engages the US in Zimbabwe. In that case, it should protect itself from being used as a conduit, the same that happened during the Mutapa period, where the mercantilist Portuguese exploited them with little recognition.
Security and Regional Stability
The Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2019) shows that India doubled the number of Zimbabwe’s defense personnel receiving training in India under the ITEC program from four to eight, starting in December 2018. India encouraged Zimbabwe to support curbing terrorism through its Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Cyber Security. Conversely, Zimbabwe is willing to keep sourcing defense equipment from India, and deploying a Defense Attaché at the Zimbabwean embassy in Delhi shows the intention.
Good India–Zimbabwe relations can provide spillover effects that help the security and stability of the region, with particular focus on the Indian Ocean rim that India is a stakeholder. India has the potential to provide security because it has the third largest army in the world; its Airforce is ranked fourth, and the Navy is the seventh largest (Dormandy 2007: 117–130). These statistics may not assure some Africans of the readiness and willingness of India to act. Nevertheless, Cardozo (2007) gives further assurances when he traces the selfless sacrifice of India’s military participation in 18 United Nations Peacekeeping Missions in Africa since 1960.
Indian military did not only participate in peacekeeping missions, but, at times, the officers held strategic positions. Lieutenant General Chander Prakash was the Force Commander in the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2010 to 2013. Brigadier Lakhibinder Singh Lidder held the Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in the Mission of Sudan. Damodar Gautam Sawang was appointed Police Commissioner during the Liberian Mission. The Indian military also trained other African military units, such as the South African National Defense Forces, for peacekeeping missions.
Not all efforts by the Indian security forces are praised. The contretemps of Major General Vijay Jetley as the United Nations Commander of the Sierra Leone Mission (Chawla 2000: 1745–1755) is obnoxiously legendary in the history of peacekeeping. India can still show its commitment outside regional peacekeeping missions by engaging regional blocs such as African Union, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern Africa Development Community and Southern Africa Customs Union. Engaging some of these blocs may enable India to learn about areas it requires investment, either militarily, politically or economically, while helping Africa.
Knowledge Exchange, Institutional Building, and Social Cohesion
Under the new dispensation, Zimbabwe prioritizes building and restructuring institutions. India has a good track record; for example, it established the Export Credit Guarantee Company. Also, India is collaborating with Zimbabwe to curate a blueprint for the Export–Import Bank of Zimbabwe. The bank can create institutional linkages. Additionally, India commits to upgrading the Indo–Zim Technology Centre, the Vocational Training Centre, and the Mahatma Gandhi Convention Centre. These facilities can help the exchange of knowledge and culture between India and Zimbabwe.
In 2018, India and Zimbabwe renewed the expired cultural relations in the Arts, Culture and Heritage. The Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2019) says Zimbabwe send cultural troupes to India to participate in events such as the Ahmedabad International Dance, Surajkhund mela and the Manipur Sangai festivals. The Indian cultural troupes reciprocally participate in cultural festivals in Zimbabwe, including the Harare International Carnival and Sunshine City Festival.
Indian universities are providing scholars from Zimbabwe with training. The government of Zimbabwe appreciates the quality of instruction and training of Indian universities and their low tuition fees. Previously, Zimbabwe was concerned with sending scholars to Europe and America. However, due to the need to diversify learning, India has emerged as a perfect destination. On completion, the scholars have the potential to promote India–Zimbabwe relations, owing to the links they develop.
Zimbabwe is gaining with India’s initiatives in Africa. Unfortunately, some projects are partially abandoned or not being expanded evenly across Africa to increase their influence. For example, the Pan-African E-Network is practically forgotten, and the same applies to the Techno-Economic Approach for Africa–India Movement (Team 9). The initiatives are becoming redundant due to infrequent use and a lack of changes responding to time. Perhaps, the India–Africa Forum Summit shall consolidate some of the initiatives.
A critical history of Zimbabwe can help India think about some of its internal issues, such as national consciousness and the idea of a state. Zimbabwe consolidated its pre-colonial history to build a national identity and instill national consciousness. At the moment, it is not hard to define a Zimbabwean and the philosophy of the people: pahukama 3 and ubuntu. 4 Arguably, India, a seven-decade-old state with more than 1652 mother tongues, has a limited sense of national consciousness. However, this does not hold when India faces Pakistan. Instead of engaging Pakistan from the point of hatred, India should try pahukama and ubuntu values. These values fit because, before the partition, the two countries lived on a single territory. Further, India can use these philosophies to handle the divides created by religion, for example, Muslims within its borders.
In the new dispensation of Zimbabwe, the prospects for India and Zimbabwe are many. India can take advantage of business opportunities in Zimbabwe, get access to gas, and revitalize its diplomatic influence and social cohesion. Zimbabwe can gain from Indian experts in institutional restructuring, security, mechanization to increase agricultural production, and setting investment hubs. The relations between India and Zimbabwe can induce a sense of seeing endless possibilities in things previously a pain in the development of people, economy and good governance.
Conclusion
The history of India–Zimbabwe relations is replete with omissions requiring in-depth analysis. Contrary to the formally presented understanding that India–Zimbabwe relations date back to Mutapa, this investigation pushed it backwards to include Great Zimbabwe. However, part of India’s connection with pre-independence Zimbabwe is interwoven with that of the Portuguese, who used to have their capital in Goa. The Portuguese mercantilist behavior and Indian interest in trading, together with their coexistence in Goa, perceptively inspired Indians to link with Zimbabwe. However, this line of thinking needs further investigation.
India–Zimbabwe relations are dismally performing and have numerous maladies. This investigation argues that, to a greater extent, Zimbabwe played a significant role in the collapse of the relationship with India. Zimbabwe’s economy deteriorated and became overdependent on primary goods, suffering from the effects of deindustrialization and informalization, dissaving, and depressed investment levels. Further, the diplomatic isolation and sanctions darkly colored the India and Zimbabwe relations. There is also the presence of China in Zimbabwe, which provides thick clout, no strings attached loans, and infrastructure building, among other projects. India and China’s relations are lukewarm, which this study presents as a factor in the poor India–Zimbabwe relations.
The new dispensation provides prospects to recalibrate India–Zimbabwe relations by leveraging energy and mineral resources, utilizing available business opportunities, increasing diplomatic influence, cooperation and conflict management, maintaining security and regional stability, exchanging knowledge, institutional building, and social cohesion.
India can learn from Zimbabwean indigenous philosophies of pahukama and ubuntu to deal with other issues that are a pain, such as the relations with Pakistan and the Muslim population in its territory. India can take Zimbabwe as a space and actor where chindia is mediated. Generally, the two countries contesting relations are detrimental, especially as leading economies of the Global South.
Summarily, the India–Zimbabwe relations should be worked beyond formal economies and politics. However, in politics, Zimbabwe should lessen the local discord and facilitate international reintegration to give confidence to allies and investors. As a suggestion, Zimbabwe can emulate the five-year Global Political Agreement of 2009–2013 that aimed to lessen political violence but later led to increased investment, production, growth of the economy, and international thawing of tensions. India should support its diaspora, especially in their quest to be involved in the nation-building process of Zimbabwe.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.