Comments on: India - Africa Forum Summit

By: Vito Shao

Vito Shao — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:38:32 +0000

Well, I’ve read through all the comments and the article. Be it China or India, its politicians, diplomats and businessmen do their business based upon elaborate calculation on interests the only difference being how to define interests. In this sense, I don’t see great differences between aims of Indian african policies and Chinese ones and even western ones, and the differences lying in approaches only reveal different abilities. I mean, that India doesn’t adopt the China way is more due to the fact it cannot do that than due to that it does not want to do so. In other words, I think it doesn’t have a lot to do with good-will or sth.

By: shantanu chatterjee

shantanu chatterjee — Sat, 17 May 2008 21:49:20 +0000

MORAL highground was a clever strategy to lecture others during the cold war.We were happy to cut deals with appartheid south africa to get diamonds from third parties for our diamond industry in gujrat.We were also practically a soviet client state which paid rich dividends while screwing pakistan in 1971 where we had only 3 votes and the all important soviet veto on our side.So basically our choices were ade by very intelligent practical people who had the country’s sovereignity and independence at heart it is the only reason we have a nuke and space program.the moral lecture was leveraging gandhianism buddha etc to the best of our advantage our calculations are and always have been pretty cold blodeed.

By: Shantanu Chatterjee

Shantanu Chatterjee — Sat, 17 May 2008 21:43:31 +0000

FRANKLY HUMAN RIGHTS as important as they are have been reduced to a political gimmick by the western media why is it that the west’s best friends in the middle east saudi arabia etc are some of the worst human rights violators who are almost never lectured and indeed the west is happy to sell them very sophisticated arms while burma,sudan etc are a weep fest to assuage the west’s concience.please we are not complete idiots.
ANd may I reming you gentlemen that our only hope at getting a half decent nuclear program lies in non NSG AFRICAN Countries that may be convinced to sell us uranium outside the nuke deal framework.Namibia and Niger are the two countries.

By: Jalal Alamgir

Jalal Alamgir — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:27:11 +0000

This is not about India maintaining friendly relations with all or India pursuing economic interest — it’s about the ability to make economic policies politically savvy. A lot of people readily criticize China on its friendship with authoritarian countries. India, as a democracy, is expected to be more sympathetic to human rights concerns. But Indian foreign economic policy has not included that political variable. As a result, India has been as comfortable doing business with Burma as China has. Its economic boom has made its leaders less likely to criticize foreign regimes on human rights and to take a politically strong stance. All these are departures from the traditional moral high ground that Indian leaders of the past used to claim. It is this departure that’s a source of concern for many activists, and complete neglect of it will increase political risk of Indian companies that have significant exposure abroad.

So, risk mitigation in this case requires that “friends with everyone” is not necessarily a good strategy, and a more politically-polished approach toward courting other countries will pay off economically in the longer run.

Jalal Alamgir

By: Richa

Richa — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:07:54 +0000

Indian diplomacy has always maintained friendly relations with all the countries of the world. This is what makes them a little less aggressive in whatever they do. Hence, no interference in the Chinese policies concerning Nepal and Burma. I am sure they are not going to do much regarding any Afro-Sino conflict or their internal affairs or troubled relations too.

But that does not mean that India is taking a China-like approach. Even if our interests be majorly mercenary ( and whose aren’t by the way), we have a way to put up a concerned face and in some small amount we are sympathetic to the nation of Africa which has gone through the same shackles of colonialism that we have. So, I see that if these new African-Indian relations are not completely due to the brotherhood, they are not completely devoid of them either.

By: Nikhil Nayak

Nikhil Nayak — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:22:24 +0000

Why do we need to apologize for seeing the business potential over there?

Africa is possibly the next biggest market after the dust settles on the India / Asia boom in the next 15 - 20 years. So what if some call it the “second scramble for Africa”. India offers a unique set of possibilities to engage with Africa which others do not.

Using the cultural play and other nuanced approaches is our way of distinguishing ourselves from the rest. If it means that we get an advantage in the long term then so be it.

By: David Singh

David Singh — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:57:05 +0000

All this talk of treating Africa as an equal partner and engaging civil society is nice.

But India hasnt even been able to do that in Burma or Nepal, out of fear of Chinese influence.

So frankly the last couple of posts sound like a fantasy, no offense.

I can see India’s relationship with Africa being exactly like that of China in the end.

This seems to be the way things always end up.

By: Aashish Sharma

Aashish Sharma — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:17:31 +0000

In my opinion there is one more aspect that differentiates Indian relationship vis-a-vis Chinese. Chinese love for Africa(wrongly or rightly - i dont comment) have been compared with Western, albeit without any frills which usually accompanies Western aid/investment like human-rights,democracy issue etc.

Indian relationship should be more of equal-partner basis. India faces almost the same social and economic issues as faced by most African nations, may be at lower scale. Our private industries may help them with industrialization resulting in more employment under better/suitable conditions. In fact Tata has already evinced interest of producing Nano in Africa. And our government can showcase Indian culture to highlight the culture values and history that we share with Africa.

But, one fact that worries me is stand of Indian government on most of socio-political issues facing Africa. What stand do we have on Robert Mugabe? What can we do to help in the food-scarcity crisis (which incidentally we ourselves face)? Should we ignore all this assuming them to be internal affairs?

By: Shantanu Chatterjee

Shantanu Chatterjee — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:56:43 +0000

Anyway I think we need a preagmatic approach to Africa.
Lets see the dynamics the west controls africa via the salaries that it pays its governments and other dilapidated institutions.
The Chinese strategy is to garner influence by paying 2-3 times the going rate and a no questions asked approach as to how its funds are spent.
We on the other hand should 1.enhance our goodwill with african civil society by playing up our impeccable anti colonial credentials gandhi,our staunch support against appartheid etc and offer them less cash but more in terms of education,local employment(chinese ship their workers from china),peace keepers,technology(we might produce the nano there for instance) etc.
We may even assist them in acquiring cheap generic versions of drugs etc.
And lets face it racism moves in both directions and we indians are fairly racist towards africans and people should be educated against it like the fool who wrote the preceeding comment [Admin: we deleted the comment referred to which BTW appeared to come from an European IP address]