Advent of a ‘Game Changer’?: India’s Economic,Political and Strategic Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1991 until 2014

Abstract

In her position as a rising power, India has reassessed and reinvigorated the entirety of her relations with Africa in the past decade. These relations cover the economic, political and the security spheres. They are the result of India’s ideational foreign policy change, her economic growth trajectory, looming energy insecurity and India’s role as an increasingly important international stakeholder. The main argument of the article is that India has successfully worked out her own policies, institutional structures and inter-regional development schemes with unique characteristics to develop and deepen linkages with sub-Saharan Africa. The article concludes that India now has a potential of assuming the role of ‘game changer’ in the new scramble for Africa’s resources and the struggle for votes and support of African states in international institutions and fora.

Keywords

International relations rising powers regional powers India’s foreign policy sub-Sahara Africa security energy

Introduction

For almost 20 years now, a scholarly debate about the new and influential role of regions and regional powers, regional order in world politics and rising powers has taken place (Acharya 2007; Breslin et al. 2002; Fawcett and Hurrell 1995; Fawn 2009; Hurrell 2007; Katzenstein 2005), with the analysis revolving around such thematic focal points as the regional projection of power, regional hegemony (Alden and Schoemann 2003), leadership of regional powers in international organisations (Narlikar and Tussie 2004), the evolution of regional security complexes (Adler and Greve 2009; Buzan and Waever 2002) and the relationship between rising powers and old powers. In this debate, China’s role as a rising power and Chinese strategies outside the immediate sphere of influence have been at the centre of analysis. Yet, while there is no dearth of empirical research on Chinese engagement in sub-Saharan Africa (Alden and Viera 2005; Ampiah and Naidu 2010; Brautigam 2009; Taylor 2004; Tull 2006), the gradual, yet inexorable rise of India in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years has received much less attention, and it has not been analysed with a view to the global economic and security implications (Beri 2005; Desai 2009; Pham 2007; Taylor 2012; Vines 2010).

From a comparative perspective, India’s leaders have explicitly made it known that India’s foreign policy is not trying to emulate the Chinese, nor that this policy is directed against China. In speeches of leading Indian politicians and diplomats, the special ‘Indian way’ or ‘Indian method’ has been highlighted time and again: Jairam Ramesh, the then Indian Minister of State for Commerce, declared at the first Africa–India Forum Summit in 2008 that ‘the first principle of India’s involvement in Africa is unlike that of China’ (Vines 2010, 15). This was seconded by the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, who stated that:

We don’t seek to impose any pattern in Africa. It’s for the African people to decide on their future…We are not in any race or competition with China or any other country. The desire of India and Africa to work together is not new. (Singh 2008)

And an official Indian representative who wanted to remain anonymous commented that ‘while we also have energy considerations etc., our model is different’ (cited in Narlikar 2010, 456 and fn. 5).

This article wants to contribute to the debate on the ‘extra-regional’ foreign policy of regional and rising powers and seeks to assess the methods, the extent and the potential impact of India’s sub-Saharan Africa engagement. It argues that the empirical evidence available on India’s engagement in Africa allows to deduce that India has successfully implemented new policies, new institutional structures and inter-regional development schemes. A uniquely ‘Indian approach’ towards sub-Saharan Africa has emerged that has the potential of transforming India into a ‘game changer’ in the scramble for sub-Saharan African resources and support in international institutions.

As regards past Indian engagement in Africa, for much of the twentieth century, India’s relationship with Africa was mostly of a rhetorical kind, based upon solidarity with the African anti-colonial and liberation movements. Traditionally, India’s efforts at deepening South–South cooperation have always been a major pillar of her foreign policy and diplomacy, reflecting classic Nehruvian ideational orientations. For Nehru, Africa was India’s sister continent. However, with the demise of colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa, India’s interest in the African continent waned and India began to neglect sub-Saharan Africa after the 1960s (Dubey 1988). In 1962, to India’s surprise and disappointment, several sub-Saharan African states also did not publicly support India during and after the border conflict with China, which led India to realise that it ‘did not have the strong ally it had hoped for in Africa and therefore actively worked towards countering Chinese penetration in Africa’ (Serpa 1994, 187). There was therefore a disenchantment with sub-Saharan Africa—one of the reasons for Indian inactivity in this region. Sub-Saharan Africa only became a priority in India’s foreign policy again in the beginning of the twenty-first century, with India’s economy now annually reaching new record growth rates. Also, there was an observable change in India’s ideational foreign policy orientation. This was best exemplified by India crossing the ‘nuclear rubicon’ (Mohan 2003) in 1998, which was the most palpable break with the Nehruvian past. While India’s first Prime Minister, Nehru, had laid the foundations of India’s foreign policy in ideational terms—focusing on the primacy of sovereignty, morality, multilateralism and world peace—the India of post-1998 replaced idealism and her moralist bearing with economic pragmatism (Michael 2013, 21–47).

In the past years, innumerable concurrent developments have begun to take place in India’s sub-Saharan Africa policy. An analysis of contemporary India–sub-Saharan Africa relations therefore has to take into consideration mutual cooperation and direct Indian engagement in the economic, security and cultural/scientific spheres. Accordingly, the analysis and discussion of the empirical data is carried out as follows. The first three sections discuss India’s economic diplomacy in Africa, followed by an examination of India’s political engagement. The section after that further broadens the analytical angle and covers India’s pan-African projects and strategies. A concluding section summarises the consequences of India’s engagement in sub-Saharan Africa.

India’s Economic Diplomacy in Africa, 1: Trade and Investment Programmes

Until 2009, the Indian economy was estimated to increase somewhere between 8 per cent and 10 per cent annually. Since then, rates have actually hovered around 5 per cent. Nevertheless, India is already the world’s fourth-largest economy. According to a study by Goldman Sachs (2008), by 2020, India will boast the third-largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world after China and the United States (US), and its consumption-oriented middle class will have increased substantially. In line with the aforementioned new foreign policy orientations, India has initiated and started to finance a number of investment schemes and programmes in Africa, all of which aim at strengthening and deepening her economic engagement with the continent. Four prominent economic initiatives have taken place so far: first, the ‘Focus Africa’ programme, launched in March 2002, is administered by the Export–Import Bank (EXIM) of India and encourages trade with Africa through identifying areas of bilateral trade and investment, with a total sum of US$ 550 million for the first five years. It was extended after 2007 and offers export subsidies to Indian companies trading with African countries and offers lines of credit (LoC) to African governments and regional organisations. Initially, the programme focused on the sub-Saharan region with added emphasis on seven major trading partners, namely, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania; it now covers 24 African countries.¹

Second, the ‘Techno-Economic Approach for Africa–India Movement’ initiative (‘Team-9 initiative’), launched in 2004, focuses on nine African countries, namely, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The programme aims to broaden commercial relations with this region, with cooperation taking place at the state as well as private levels. A US$ 500 million LoC was extended, which was directly linked to the purchase of Indian goods and services. The programme covers, among others, transfer of technologies, support of small-scale industries, information technology (IT), telecommunications, transport and energy. The somewhat delicate nexus between development assistance and India’s resource interest in this particular region has been aptly summarised as follows: ‘India has focused development lending initiatives on the resource-rich countries of West Africa whose [national oil companies] are keen to gain deals’ (Mitchell and Lahn 2007, 9).

Third, on the occasion of the first Africa–India Forum Summit in 2008 (see section ‘India’s pan-African Engagement’), India announced to grant preferential market access to exports from 34 least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa and pledged to increase its LoCs to Africa to US$ 5.4 billion, and to also increase the ‘Aid to Africa’ budget by investing over US$ 500 million in capacity-building and human resource development projects. In addition to those economic initiatives, India has supported the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative with a US$ 200 million LoC for promoting projects related to African economic integration.

In line with these various initiatives, two of India’s largest state-owned engineering and infrastructure companies have been granted concessions and have started projects in the sub-Saharan African rail and road development sector, their involvement having been facilitated by official Indian development assistance: Senegal was given a grant by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in 2008 to hire RITES railway consultancy—owned by the Indian Ministry of Railways—for a feasibility study in the railway sector. RITES has also been involved in similar projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. Besides, IRCON International—also owned by the Indian Ministry of Railways—has been contracted to build railways in Algeria, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan and Zambia. Another prominent case of Indian investment is a US$ 450 million LoC for infrastructure projects in Sudan, especially for the development of power plants since 2006.

Fourth, private sector Indian companies—for example, Apollo Tyres, ArcelorMittal, Bharti Enterprises, the Essar Group, the Godrej Group, the Mahindra Group, Reliance Industries or the Tata Group—are also heavily engaged in several African projects. The Tata Group possesses an almost pan-African presence, being involved in such diverse projects as infrastructure development, energy and hospitality services, financial, communication and automotive outputs operation, especially in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. KEC International, the overseas arm of Kamani Engineering Corporation—an infrastructure-building conglomerate—has projects in Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia.

Summarising, India’s major trade exchanges² with Africa takes place with a group of 12 priority countries, with Nigeria and South Africa being the top two.³ Bilateral trade with Nigeria in 2013 was valued at US$ 16.6 billion, while bilateral trade with South Africa came to nearly US$ 14 billion in 2013 (a doubling of trade compared with US$ 7.5 billion in 2008–2009). Trade between India and, for example, Zimbabwe has also reached a new record high with US$ 186 million in 2013, which also signifies a doubling of trade within only four years. All in all, trade between India and Africa has grown rapidly, from US$ 967 million per year in the mid-1960s to US$ 40 billion in 2008–2009, and in 2011, it reached US$ 57 billion (The Economic Times 2012a). India now intends to increase it to US$ 90 billion by 2015.

India’s Economic Diplomacy in Africa, 2: Development Cooperation and Capacity Building under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme

India’s development cooperation started in the 1950s on a somewhat limited scale, first supporting projects in its neighbouring South Asian countries. Development cooperation remained an almost insignificant foreign policy instrument in the 1960s and the 1970s, and in the 1980s and the 1990s, it almost vanished completely. Since the 2000s, India has changed course and has slowly built up its development cooperation as an instrument to further its goals in Africa, with—as was pointed out earlier—the drastic extension of LoCs as one form of development assistance. Another aspect of development assistance is direct aid. In 2010, various African countries received a total of US$ 24.6 million from India. India is not part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and therefore, does not base her aid programmes on the safeguarding of OECD rules by the receiving states.

The one major programme which distinguishes the Indian involvement in sub-Saharan Africa from that of other countries is the ‘ITEC’ programme. Launched in 1964, the programme was originally devised to extend bilateral assistance and cooperation to developing countries in general, and has provided support to more than 150 states since its inception (Price 2004). According to the MEA (2012), India annually transfers INR 500 million through this programme under different schemes. Indian capacity building via ITEC in Africa takes place in several different areas of assistance, for example, agriculture, capacity building through training (civil and military) and consultancy services. The ITEC programme also provides several different sorts of special training courses. Annually, more than 1,000 people from sub-Saharan Africa have been involved in some sort of training in India since 1964. In 2008, on the occasion of the first Africa–India Forum Summit, India announced that it intended to increase the number of slots under technical assistance programmes from 1,100 to 1,600 every year for sub-Saharan Africa. In total, India has spent more than US$ 1 billion for such assistance in the past, including training, deputation of experts and implementation of projects in African countries. In 1994, the Indian government launched a programme for the development of small-scale industries in African countries under the umbrella of ITEC, with India offering to finance the implementation of these programmes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-administered ‘Institute for Capacity Building in Africa’, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) offers training programmes in Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar and Ghana. In the same manner, the ‘Entrepreneurship, Development and Training Centre’ in Senegal, the ‘IT Training Centre’ in Ghana and the ‘Plastic Technology Training Centre’ in Namibia have been financed by Indian capacity building institutions under the umbrella of ITEC. Also, India has financed the ‘India–Africa Institute of Foreign Trade’ in Uganda, the ‘India–Africa Institute of Information Technology’ in Ghana, the ‘India Africa Diamond Institute’ in Botswana and the ‘India–Africa Institute of Education, Planning and Administration’ in Burundi.

In addition, there is the ‘Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme’ (SCAAP)—practically an ITEC sister programme—which reaches out to all 19 African countries of the Commonwealth and provides bilateral training and assistance. As part of India’s development cooperation programme, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has a scholarship scheme for overseas students (covering, for example, professional courses, university courses and courses related to Indian music, dance and art). With regard to the field of higher education, each year almost 15,000 African students from sub-Saharan Africa study in India, either through government scholarships, bilateral scholarships or self-financed.

Further, since 2005, India has been a member of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Together with the Southern African Development Community (SADC), India has begun to focus and invest in areas such as agricultural technologies, biotechnology, water resources development, human resource development (HRD), including capacity building and training, and trade, industry and finance. Within the framework of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, India also agreed to write off debts totalling US$ 24 million for Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. All things considered, sub-Saharan Africa today is the largest recipient of ITEC aid, which has left a substantial Indian ‘imprint’ on overall HRD in Africa. According to the MEA, Indian development assistance to Africa in 2009–2010 amounted to US$ 16.8 million for ITEC, US$ 1.8 million for SCAAP and US$ 24.6 million for Aid to Sub-Saharan African countries (Vines 2010). In all, ITEC translates into a well-established Indian foreign policy instrument of empowerment and capacity building for sub-Saharan Africa.

India’s Economic Diplomacy in Africa, 3: Hydrocarbons and Natural Resources Exploration and Purchase

Besides trade and development assistance, the exploration or purchase of hydrocarbons as well as natural resources can be regarded as the third major pillar of India’s economic engagement in sub-Saharan Africa. At this point, India is already the fifth-largest consumer of energy in the world, which equals about 3.7 per cent of total global consumption. It is projected that India will almost double its energy consumption by 2030. India would then overtake Russia and Japan and become the world’s third-largest consumer of energy, only to be surpassed by the US and China (Madan 2006). According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), India already has to import about 75 per cent of its oil, with actual domestic petroleum reserves being less than 0.5 per cent of the world total. The IEA predicts that with constant growth rates, India will have to import 90 per cent of its petroleum supply by 2025 (IEA 2004). The Middle East region is still the most important supplier of oil and gas for India and presently accounts for two-thirds of her imports. However, India needs to considerably diversify her supply in view of the current and enduring political instability of the region. A disruption in the supply of oil and gas from this region could, almost immediately, unfold a crippling effect on the Indian economy. An oil and gas ‘pivot’ towards the resources of sub-Saharan Africa is therefore a necessity.

In 2012, for example, around 20 per cent of India’s crude oil imports already came from the region, mainly from Nigeria (Global Research 2012). In recent years, especially Sudan and the countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea have been emerging as major alternative sources of hydrocarbons. Indian oil companies—such as India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)—have attempted, sometimes in direct competition with Chinese state-backed companies, to secure oil and gas fields and exploration contracts there. By far, the largest Indian actor in this field and India’s principal energy company is ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas division of ONGC. The company can look back on some impressive forays into the African oil market, but has also failed in some instances. The examples of Angola, Nigeria and Sudan shed light on the difficulties of a rising power to wield influence outside its immediate sphere of influence, and it evident that cooperation as well as conflict, especially between India and, for example, China, have become a permanent element of Indian engagement with regard to African oilfields.

In Angola, in 2003–2004, OVL was forced to abort a deal with Royal Dutch Shell. It tried to acquire 50 per cent of their equity in one of Angola’s major offshore oil blocks for US$ 600 million; however, Sonangol, the state-owned oil company of the Government of Angola, exercised a pre-emption right to prevent OVL to purchase this half-ownership due to Chinese pressure and the latter’s diplomatic and economic leverage. In this case, China clearly outbid India with a state-backed US$ 2 billion oil deal (Sethuraman 2005). Also, India’s offer of a sum of US$ 310 million for infrastructure development was eclipsed by a US$ 725 million bid from China. This ‘defeat’ was a learning experience for India. In 2010, after lengthy negotiations, two different memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed between Sonangol and OVL, which now enable OVL to explore and produce oil in Angola without restrictions, both in onshore and offshore blocks, while at the same time creating a constructive environment for investments by Indian companies.

In the case of Nigeria, in 2005, OVL lost a bid for a stake in Nigeria’s two large deep offshore blocks to KNOC, a South Korean company. The reason was that India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs forbade the US$ 2 billion deal on due-diligence grounds. As a consequence, and to be able to better compete against Chinese and South Korean competitors, OVL entered a consortium with Mittal (now ArcelorMittal) to form ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd (OMEL). In an exchange for oil exploration rights in three blocks, OMEL signed an infrastructure deal with the Nigerian government that amounted to US$ 6 billion in May 2006. This deal included strengthening India’s bid as an infrastructure provider, with a commitment to construct a refinery and a power plant. In 2007, an official visit to Nigeria by the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was the first by an Indian prime minister since 1962 and clearly indicated the growing significance of the links between India and Nigeria.

In Sudan, in 2003, OVL paid US$ 750 million to acquire a 25 per cent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). This was again met with initial fierce resistance, this time by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which itself holds a 40 per cent ownership in the project. Subsequently, OVL acquired a number of other minority interests in different blocks in Sudan as well. Because of its 25 per cent share, today India receives 3.24 million tons of oil from GNPOC annually. In 2008, India invested US$ 200 million for the completion of an oil pipeline linking Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

In addition to its engagement in Angola, Nigeria and Sudan, OVL is also active in Cote d’Ivoire with a 23.5 per cent interest in an offshore block, a 49 per cent interest in two onshore oil exploration blocks in Libya, a concession agreement to explore oil in Egypt’s North Ramadan Block and oil and gas properties in Gabon, with projected investment of US$ 500 million. OVL also obtained permission to conduct geological studies in the exclusive economic zone of Mauritius. Altogether, OVL is currently active in eight African countries and has invested ‘as much as US$3 billion in overseas exploration and energy projects’ (Ganguly 2007).

Besides these countries which receive a large share of Indian investments, Indian oil companies are also active—though on a considerably smaller scale—in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Senegal. As all the given examples show, India has invested significantly in exploration and production of hydrocarbon resources, while providing these countries with a market for export of their crude oil. India is also engaged with Africa in the field of retail of petroleum products, building of oil storage terminals, refinery modernisation and consultancy services.

From a long-term strategic perspective, India has decided to create an energy panel whose task is to deliberate on future ways of consolidating India’s oil interests in those sub-Saharan African countries that are becoming important suppliers (Dutta 2007). In addition, India has initiated an institutionalised pan-African dialogue for partnership in the hydrocarbon sector. The Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), organised the first ‘India–Africa Hydrocarbons Conference’ (IAHC) in 2007 (Desai 2009, 424), which was conceptualised ‘with the objective to foster bilateral trade relations in the hydrocarbon sector, understand policy and regulatory frameworks and offer opportunities for investment in upstream and downstream sector of the two regions’ (IAHC 2012). Until 2013, three conferences had taken place.

Besides hydrocarbons, there are several other natural resources which Indian companies mine and purchase, all of which are necessary elements to guarantee production in India. Indian companies have, for example, been involved in exploitation of uranium, copper and iron ore. Vedanta Resources has invested more than US$ 750 million in Zambian copper mines. In 2008, ArcelorMittal began to invest in a US$ 1 billion iron ore mining project in Liberia, offering local employment for up to 20,000 workers. In Libya and Nigeria, ArcelorMittal manages a US$ 900 million project for iron ore reserves and US$ 30 million steel refinery. In Senegal, an Indian group of investors (a public–private partnership) invested US$ 250 million in order to buy a stake in the Industries Chimiques du Senegal.

This list could be continued; the given data show that small-scale investments are flanked by large-scale investments and that Indian investment in Africa stems both from the public and the private sector, and that it has evolved and grown considerably. As regards composition of exports since 2004, petroleum products have emerged as the largest item with a share of 26 per cent of total exports to Africa. Sudan and Mauritius are now among the top five foreign direct investment (FDI) destinations for India, both accounting for about 18 per cent of India’s total FDI flows. In the case of Sudan, this represents OVL’ investment in oil-related ventures, while FDI flows into Mauritius are actually only a function of rerouting Indian investment using the tax benefits in Mauritius (Confederation of Indian Industries [CII] 2009).

From all this, a new dimension of India’s foreign policy emerges, namely, the motivation to play the role of an active entrepreneur who is willing to compete with China, while at the same time following traditional methods of a genuine Nehruvian flair.

India’s Political and Strategic Engagement in Africa

India’s rising economic engagement in Africa is flanked by her extensive military and political engagement in which four distinct elements can be discerned: providing Indian soldiers for United Nations (UN) missions in Africa; training African officers in India; the involvement of the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean; and the involvement of the Indian defence industry in Africa.

India now has the world’s third-largest army, fourth-largest air force and seventh largest navy (Dormandy 2007). First, this enables India to play the role of an active participant in UN peacekeeping operations, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa. With some 7,000 troops, India has the distinction of being the largest provider of troops, police or military observers at the moment in sub-Saharan Africa (Singh 2007). In the past, Indian forces have participated in missions in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Somalia. Indian blue-helmet soldiers in the UN Missions in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE, 1,400 soldiers) and in the DRC (MONUC, 4,400 troops) made up the largest national contingent forces.

Second, as part of Indian capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa (with a clear military component), India has used its military expertise and provided military training to countries of Anglophone Africa since the 1960s. Between 1991 and 2001, approximately 800 officers and Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) from 12 African countries⁴ were trained by the Indian Army under the ITEC scheme (Desai 2009, 419). The training took place in the academies of India’s three service branches, as well as the post-graduate National Defence College in New Delhi and Defence Services Staff College in Wellington. Political analyst Pham notes:

among the beneficiaries of this type of advanced training was Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria until this past May [2007], who, during both his tenures in the presidency (military ruler, 1976–1979; civilian president, 1999–2007), hosted Indian military chiefs of staff for talks aimed at strengthening defence cooperation. As a result of these ties, India was involved in the transformation of the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna into the tertiary-level, degree-granting Nigerian Military University. (Pham 2007, 347)

Besides military capacity building, India was also instrumental in terms of military institution building and set up the Harare Military Academy in Ethiopia. Furthermore, India has sent military training teams to various sub-Saharan African countries like Botswana, Zambia and Lesotho, and has also helped train the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) for peacekeeping missions. And going beyond on-the-ground military training and institution building, India has entered defence agreements with Mozambique, Madagascar and the Seychelles in the past few years.

Third, India has become an increasingly active player in the Indian Ocean. The majority of India’s imports and exports travel by ship and consequently, monitoring the waters off Africa’s east coast protects the security of India’s energy supplies from across the Indian Ocean. This was most prominently expressed in 2007 by Pranab Mukherjee, India’s then Minister of External Affairs and since July 2012, the President of India, who commented on the Indian interests in the Indian Ocean: ‘We have a strong stake in the security and stability of these waters, which is linked to energy security, since a large percentage of Asian oil and gas is shipped through the Indian Ocean’ (South China Morning Post 2007). Consequently, the Indian Navy is now active in protecting the sea lanes along the shores of Africa. In October 2008, for example, the Indian Navy sent the INS Tabar to the Gulf of Aden as an immediate reaction to complaints by Indian shipping companies about attacks on Indian vessels. Until 2010, Indian naval ships had prevented 15 piracy attempts on merchant vessels (Vines 2010). India’s updated 2009 Maritime Doctrine (Indian Navy 2009, chapter 3), for the first time now, incorporates a new security dimension in operations for the navy, including counter-terrorism operations and anti-piracy missions. India’s intention is obviously to demonstrate her ability to project military force into the Indian Ocean which she has always regarded as her own ‘backyard’.

In addition, South Africa and India have discussed mechanisms for cooperation between the two countries for regional security in the Indian Ocean, particularly for dealing with terrorism and piracy. They conducted their first joint naval exercise in 2008, in the frame of the ‘India–Brazil–South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum’, called India–Brazil–South Africa Maritime (IBSAMAR) exercise. Here, the objective was to establish procedural interoperability of Indian, Brazilian and South African forces. This represented the first major military cooperation exercise in the sphere of South–South cooperation and now takes place biannually. India is also currently in discussions with the Mauritian government on a long-term lease of the Agalega Islands, based on the south-east coast of Africa, with the potential to monitor the shipping lanes of the Mozambique Channel, which is an important route for goods travelling between Africa and India (Forsberg 2007). In the same vein, New Delhi has rented land in Madagascar from the Government of Madagascar in order to construct a radar surveillance station to monitor shipping movements (The Indian Express 2007).

As a fourth element of India’s political and military engagement, India’s defence industrial sector, although very small compared to the US, Chinese and European counterparts, has nonetheless supplied patrol vessels and light helicopters to several African states (Beri 2003). In turn, India herself has become a customer for South Africa’s arms exports (National Intelligence Council 2001).

These elements of Indian military engagement are buttressed by India’s classic diplomacy, the impact of her soft power,⁵ in conjunction with an already substantial and ever increasing Indian diaspora in sub-Saharan Africa. In the realm of diplomacy, India has increased her diplomatic presence and strength on the continent. After India had decided to close down several of her diplomatic missions in Africa for financial reasons in the 1990s, today, it again has 25 missions on the continent, with several more scheduled to open over the next years. In the realm of multilateralism, India is working together with various sub-Saharan African countries through the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), the G-20, the G-77 and the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA)-11. With South Africa, India regularly holds meetings and works together in the frame of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) (since 2010) and the above-mentioned IBSA (Alden and Viera 2005; Mokoena 2007).

More importantly, and unlike any other major power in Africa, India possesses the political capital of soft power, that is, ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments’ (Nye 2004, x), which includes culture, values and foreign policy. In terms of culture and values, the image of Indian political and social ideas (especially the Gandhian legacy) and the example of Indian leaders has been very strong since India’s independence: India was the co-founder and long-time leader of the NAM, and it vocally supported anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid movements during the period of political liberation on the continent. India’s cultural influence and attraction can be found in several forms of popular culture, including Bollywood films, Indian music and food, all of which are popular particularly in East Africa.

And finally, the sizable Indian diaspora—particularly in East and southern Africa—is another factor that has started to serve as an economic and political transmission belt between India and Africa and is a unique Indian characteristic in sub-Saharan Africa. Out of 25 million people of Indian origin (PIO) living outside India, 6 million of them are estimated to live in sub-Saharan Africa (Dubey 2010, xi). This large diaspora in sub-Saharan Africa forms a valuable resource not only in terms of remittances, development and business opportunities, but also in terms of an overall Indian cultural impact. This special resource was recognised somewhat belatedly by India, since the official state policy towards PIO only changed with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming into power in 1998. The BJP implemented a volte-face towards PIO, effectively moving away from a Nehruvian policy of active dissociation with PIO (Dubey 2010, 18) to an active and overt association as a genuine new foreign policy objective. The BJP initiated the organisation of the first conference of ‘Parliamentarians of Indian Origin’ in New Delhi in 1998, and India has since been an overt and active supporter of its large African diaspora. Incidentally, the significance of the Indian diaspora and their contributions and role as a special form of Indian heritage has been especially recognised since 2003 with the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Non-resident Indian Day) that is held in India on 9 January each year (Bhagwati 2010).

India’s pan-African Engagement

Another element of India’s new sub-Saharan Africa engagement is her pan-African-level engagement that has five dimensions: (i) business-to-business via the India–Africa partnership conclave; (ii) the IAHC (mentioned earlier); (iii) the Africa–India Forum Summits; (iv) institutionalised cooperation with African Regional Economic Communities (RECs); and (v) the Pan-African e-Network as the Indian flagship project.

In October 2006, a CII-sponsored ‘Conclave on India–Africa Project Partnership’ in New Delhi resulted in business deals worth US$ 17 billion (CII 2006). The conclave—a private sector initiative—was meant to create a business-to-business platform, enabling African companies and financial agencies to come together and strike deals with Indian companies, covering the whole range of business, especially those active in the sector of construction, engineering consultancy or turnkey projects. This first conclave has been followed, annually, by conclaves in India where the number of participating companies has reached more than 600, along with participation of over 483 African delegates. Besides the conclave in India, 11 follow-up ‘Regional Conclaves’ in Africa have been held in Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The conclaves have been instrumental in increasing the private sector dialogue between India and Africa. Until 2014, there have been 10 CII conclave meetings, with each meeting practically resulting in an increase in the number of participating countries and delegates (The Economic Times 2012b).⁶

Besides this private sector pan-African initiative, interaction on the state level has resulted in two Africa–India Forum Summits (April 2008 and May 2011). Fourteen leaders of African countries, representatives of eight African RECs and the African Union (AU) Commission came to India for the first summit, and agreed on two documents which structured and institutionalised the (future) dialogue and intensified and diversified cooperation between India and Africa: the Delhi Declaration; and the Framework for Africa–India Cooperation. These all-embracing documents cover almost every conceivable area of partnership, ranging from agriculture, trade and infrastructure to energy, science and technology and cultural exchanges.

Also at the pan-African level, India has developed institutional relationships with various African RECs. India has established an India–SADC Forum, linking India with 14 countries from southern Africa. India has also offered capacity building to support the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC) with whom India has also signed MoUs for cooperation. In addition, India has become a member of the AU Partners Group. Since its establishment in July 2002, the group has met periodically in Addis Ababa, with India regularly participating in the AU’s formerly annual, now biannual, summits.

The project with the largest visibility and pan-African impact is the Pan-African e-Network, a US$ 116 million joint venture together with the AU, at the initiative of former President of India, Dr Abdul Kalam (The Hindu 2007). The e-Network project was officially inaugurated on 26 February 2009 in New Delhi. It aims at eventually implementing an Africa-wide network for tele-education, tele-medicine, Internet, video-conferencing and Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, by connecting major universities and hospitals in India and Africa—connecting 53 university centres and 53 hospitals in Africa via satellite, fibre optics and wireless links to 12 Indian super specialty hospitals and seven Indian universities. It will also provide instant connectivity between the 53 members of the AU through a secure closed satellite network by setting up a VVIP network.

The project has been financed under a total grant of US$ 1.1 billion, with the Government of India covering the total costs of installation, testing, hardware and software, end-to-end connectivity and satellite bandwidth for five years. As of now, 54 African countries have signed agreements to participate in the project. The project is also equipped to offer e-governance, e-commerce, infotainment, resource mapping and meteorological and similar services for participating countries. The total number of students to be covered under this tele-education project in all Africa for the first five years is projected to be 10,000, which translates into 2,000 students per year for all Africa. The first phase covering 12 countries was inaugurated in February 2010 and has since then been constantly upgraded.

Conclusion: Advent of a Game Changer?

With a view to a specific ‘Indian way’ of dealing with sub-Saharan Africa, a study by World Bank advisor, Harry Broadman, came to the conclusion that Indian firms encourage the local integration of their workers and that Indian immigrants are substantially more integrated into the African business community than are Chinese immigrants (Broadman 2007). Also, Chinese companies ‘create business entities that are vertically integrated, buying supplies from China rather than local markets, and selling in Africa mostly to government entities. They rarely facilitate the integration of their workers into the African socioeconomic fabric’ (Broadman 2008, 98). Political analyst Karen Monaghan seconds this view and points out that ‘Indian companies are much more integrated into African society and the African economy’, hiring locally and emphasising training Africans how to maintain and repair the plants they build (Monaghan 2007).

Besides this special ‘Indian way’ of dealing with African partners and employees on the ground, the enumerated official state-sponsored programmes and investment schemes also allow to deduce a political objective, depicting a novel feature of India’s foreign policy, namely, the integration of commercial diplomacy with political diplomacy (Sridharan 2002). However, this new feature of Indian foreign policy is also a necessity. Compared to China, the other major rising power active in sub-Saharan Africa, India has been a laggard and bystander in the great game for African resources and support by African states, and has also trailed the European Union (EU) and the US in terms of rates of investment and institutionalised dialogue. Since the first Africa–India Forum Summit in 2008, there has been a visible jump in trade and investment volumes between India and sub-Saharan Africa. This would not have been possible without the help of the Indian private sector (for example, through CII and FICCI) that has been able to step into the gap which exists in Indian state policy. India can now reach out to every single African state, either bilaterally in the frame of a REC or in pan-Africa projects. From a plethora of HRD projects in the frame of ITEC focusing on HRD (civilian as well as military) to a pan-African satellite project potentially benefitting the whole continent, India has deepened and widened her relationship with Africa. The latter, India’s technical assistance flagship project in Africa, together with its pan-African sister projects of the Africa–India Forum Summit, the IAHC and the business enclave, show how much India has progressed in her relations with sub-Saharan Africa. The Africa–India Forum Summit was, in a sense, a pinnacle of the growing partnership and shows the rise of India as an economic and knowledge power for Africa.

With India’s pan-Africa strategies and engagement becoming more complex and pronounced each year, sub-Saharan Africa’s concomitant support for India could considerably increase India’s international leverage and bargaining power in her position as an international stakeholder, and this novel position could lead to a concomitant weakening of other countries’ influence on the implementation of concepts such as good governance (for example, the EU and the US) and the securing of resources and markets (China).Whether India deals with democratic governments or autocratic regimes does not matter in the frame of her sub-Saharan investment programmes.

In international fora, this special relationship is contributing to leaving an imprint with lasting repercussions: when India entered into oil deals with Sudan, it avoided criticising the Khartoum government on the situation in Darfur; in November 2006, India voted against a resolution proposed in the UN Human Rights Council that would have held Khartoum responsible for ending the violence in the Darfur region. India has also worked in close coordination with a number of African countries on the Doha round negotiations, especially those concerned with agriculture. And India’s bid for the UN Security Council seat and her World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations depend on support by a large number of states. In 2006, the chair of the Council of Ministers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Foreign Minister Aı¨chatou Mindaoudou of Niger, promised to support India’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council (Indo-Asian News Service [IANS] 2006). Clearly, India’s prior engagement with ECOWAS did influence this position. And in May 2011, The Economic Times reported:

African countries today came out in support of India becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council and appreciated its unstinted assistance towards their all-round developmental programmes. The backing for India’s aspirations for a Security Council permanent seat came during the retreat chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the side-lines of the Second Africa–India Forum Summit here.

India is also emerging as a major development donor with no ties to the DAC in sub-Saharan Africa, with far-reaching implications for the way development aid will be distributed in Africa in the future. Interestingly, India’s pan-African engagement has served as a ‘role model’ for China: it quickly followed in India’s footsteps and build the headquarters of the AU. Western countries, in turn, have attempted to collaborate with India in order to make use of its ties with Africa. At the same time, there are still major shortcomings that India needs to address, for example, the number of diplomats working for the Africa desk at the MEA (Markey 2009, 77).

In hard numbers, India’s annual trade with sub-Saharan Africa (export and import) stood at US$ 70 billion and accounted for 5.8 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s overall trade in 2013. It was eclipsed by trade volumes of the EU (US$ 300 billion), the US (US$ 90 billion) and China (US$ 200 billion) (OTG Global Research 2012; The Economist 2013; Wall Street Journal 2014). Still, India is now Africa’s fourth-largest trading partner, but cannot compete with, for example, China, in terms of trade at this point. While India’s investment in Africa was just over half of the Chinese, India’s exports to sub-Saharan Africa amounted to just 10 per cent of China’s in 2012.

Nonetheless, despite a huge gap in terms of investment, India has now successfully developed unique policies and implemented new institutional structures in sub-Saharan Africa. The drastic increase in trade volumes over the last few years, with a doubling of trade volumes with many countries in the region in just five years, is an impressive testament to the new Indian focus on sub-Saharan Africa. The different Indian strategies of engagement—with the private and public sectors complementing each other—show that India now has the potential to become a game changer in the current new scramble for sub-Saharan Africa in the near future, and will likely impact the way other countries think about and deal with engaging sub-Saharan Africa ‘on the ground’ as well as in international fora and organisations.

Footnotes

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