India-East African bonds need to be strengthened

THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEmocracy, home to more than a billion people, has just held a month-long election, but one would hardly know it in Kenya. If local media coverage is used as an indicator, one could conclude that the event has gone largely unnoticed in this part of the world.

There has hardly been any mention of Mayawati (dubbed “India’s Obama”), a woman from India’s lowest caste who vied for the prime minister’s seat. Nor has there been any in-depth analysis of the impact of the Indian election on Kenya or Africa in general.

Yet what happens in India is of supreme importance, not just to Africa, but to the world at large where power is shifting rapidly from West to East. India is an emerging superpower whose political clout and economy has grown substantially in the last decade. With an annual growth rate of nearly 9 per cent, India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

According to a recent edition of the Economist, at this rate, India’s $1 trillion economy could double in size in less than 10 years, and poverty would be reduced at an unimaginable speed. India’s economy, like China’s, has the potential to affect global markets. Increased foreign direct investment and increased bilateral trade is already making India’s presence felt in Africa.

Bilateral trade between India and Africa increased from less than $1 billion in 1990 to $36 billion last year. Leading Indian companies are eyeing opportunities for investment in Kenya and other East African countries. The scramble for Africa’s resources is not just a Chinese phenomenon; it is increasingly becoming Indian too. Currently Africa contributes nearly 15 per cent of India’s oil, and the figure could rise.

But the ties between India and Africa are not just economic; they are historical and cultural. East Africa is home to roughly 200,000 people of Indian origin who have contributed socially, economically, culturally and politically to the countries they inhabit.

East Africans have traded and lived among people of Indian origin for centuries, and have come to be influenced by them. For instance, who today can claim that the samosa, chapatti, biryani and kachumbari (from the Hindi word kachumbar) are not East African foods? Or that taraab does not have a distinctively Indian flavour? India’s trade links with East Africa go back centuries and were important to the development of coastal areas, such as Zanzibar.

POLITICALLY, AFRICA IS CREDITED with influencing the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi, whose experience of apartheid in South Africa motivated him to join India’s freedom struggle. Despite these ties, many East Africans do not know much about India, thanks to images and stereotypes perpetuated by the Western media, which often portray the continent as a place of snake charmers, sadhus and slums. (Although this is changing rapidly, thanks to India’s booming economy and its increasing clout in world affairs.)

This is surprising, given India’s proximity to East Africa and the relatively large presence of people of Indian origin in the region. Some people claim that the insular nature of the local Indian-origin population in East Africa has led to a situation where the local population is not interested in learning more about India.

The ambivalence of this group towards its host country is reflected in the way it defines itself. At a conference I attended recently, people used the terms South Asian, Indian diaspora, East African Asian and Asian-African interchangeably. Not one participant referred to members of this group by their Kenyan, Ugandan or Tanzanian nationality.

Lack of interest in East Africa is evident among “real” Indians too. Manish Chand, editor of the New Delhi-based Africa Quarterly, says that for most Indians, Africa remains a “dark continent” synonymous with HIV/Aids and poverty. “And they say it so smugly without realising that India has one of the largest population of HIV patients,” he adds.

Misinformation and misrepresentation, particularly by the Western media has, he says, created “a forbidding wall that blocks a fuller engagement between India and East Africa”. The knowledge gap between India and in East Africa could be reduced through cultural exchanges and the establishment of institutions of higher learning in East Africa that promote Indian studies and similar institutions in India that promote East African studies.

Chand says that one such initiative supported by India’s Ministry of External Affairs, a pioneering website called IndiaAfrica Connect, is already under construction, and could go a long way in connecting more Indians to East Africans, and vice versa.

Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.