By Tom Odhiambo

There has been talk in Nairobi in the past few years that if Kenya friends, we no longer need to look up the global North. That we should look to the global South; that Indian, China or Brazil are likely to sympathise more with us, understand our problems better and not attach strings to their aid. This kind of thinking seems new but it is really old. We have always had friends in the South. India and China have always offered the hand of friendship; in the case of India right from the inception of colonial Kenya. It is Indian workers who built the railway line from Mombasa to Uganda, and it is the railway which made Kenya to be what it is today.

But it is the lack of a proper foreign policy, unwillingness by the government to be clear on how to exploit the relationship and the country’s casual treatment of descendants of the Indian immigrant labourers, sometimes handling them as if they are not Kenyans but foreigners that have made India appear like some newly-found friend. It is this attitude that gave birth to the common reference in intellectual and often public debates about this section of our population as the ‘Indian problem.’ How does a third or fourth generation person who happens to speak Gujarati because that is the language of his ancestors but holds a Kenyan birth certificate, national identity card and passport, has lived all her life in Nairobi, has never travelled to India and is a Kenyan civil servant become a ‘problem.’ The problem is the xenophobia that characterises our imagination and talk about people of Indian ancestry among us.

The racial intolerance towards people of Indian or Asian origin by other Kenyans is mainly due to ignorance of the history of how the early Indian immigrants arrived in this region and the sacrifices these men and women made to establish an economic order that defines them, and much of the region, today. India in Africa: Changing Geographies of Power (Pambazuka Press, 2011) edited by Emma Mawdsley and Gerard MaCann is a study in the complex relationship between India and Africa.

India in Africa is a collection of essays that examine Africa-India relations in recent times. As the editors say in the introduction, this is “a re-evaluation of contemporary India-Africa relations.” The book is divided into three parts, namely ‘India-Africa relations in Context’; ‘Contemporary India-East Africa engagements’; and ‘A Wider Picture of India-Africa Partnerships.’ The emphasis in the different essays is in trade relations and how the political economy of India and its African ‘partners’ such as Kenya impact the citizens of the two countries. India, like China (which, as expected, is referred to in some of the essays), is looking for raw materials for its industries as well as markets for its goods. With a burgeoning middle class with money to spend on diverse tastes, India is seriously reassessing its relations with several African countries. Indian multinationals such as Bharti Airtel, Tata and ArcelorMittal are some of the biggest global players in their areas of production.

The worth of India in Africa is in its reminding the reader (and how one wishes that all African policymakers and politicians would read this book) of how to turn around the fortunes of a country/continent. By investing in its people, especially in education, India has innovated and adopted technologies that have not only radically changed the lives of a majority of its citizens but also guaranteed it a large global market and geopolitical respect. India is a major receiver of medical tourists. Indian IT companies are among some of the best in the world. Much of Africa’s medical supply is from India. The subcontinent hosts thousands of African students in its universities (and many of them are on the Government of India scholarships). And as political analysts love to say, India is the largest democracy in the world.

So, why is it that Africa which has related to this subcontinent, way before the British landed on these shores have really not learned much about how to industrialise, revolutionise the education system, invest in research and innovation, nurture home-based industries, institutionalise democracy etc? India in Africa: Changing Geographies of Power is a testimony to how Africa’s development can be enhanced by tapping into the centuries’ long relations with India. It is also a reminder that global power relations are shifting significantly with America and Europe’s influence on the decline. It is countries such as India, China, Brazil, South Africa or Russia that may provide political and economic examples for the developing countries of Africa and Asia. The Indian diaspora, such as the one in Kenya, will be instrumental in the negotiation of geopolitical and economic relations between this emergent global player and countries such as Kenya.

The writer is a senior lecturer in literature at the University of Nairobi. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it