Kenneth King & Meera Venkatachalam 
India’s Development Diplomacy & Soft Power in Africa [EPUB ebook] 

Unpacks the histories, actors and geopolitics of India’s soft power and evolving engagements with Africa.


Since independence India has deployed its soft power in Africa, with educational aid and capacity-building at the heart of its Africa policy. However, following economic liberalisation and in a quest for greater global influence, India’s geopolitics have changed. The country’s discourse on Africa has shifted from the mantras of post-colonial solidarity and South-South Cooperation, and there is now a growing sense of Indian exceptionalism, as the country reimagines its past and future against the growing influence of the political right. In this book scholars from India, Africa, Europe and North America show how India’s soft power has been implemented by the diaspora, government and private sector. Research documents how India’s ‘aid’ has been re-thought in major schemes such as e-global education and health, Gandhi statuary and Covid-19 diplomacy in Africa.

Daftar Isi

Introduction: India-Africa Now: Changing Imaginaries and Knowledge Paradigms

Meera Venkatachalam and Kenneth King


PART 1: The Geopolitical Imaginary and Soft Power

1. India’s Soft Power in East Africa: Opportunities and Challenges

Muhidin J. Shangwe


2. Between Business and Balance: India-Japan in Africa vis-à-vis China

Mrittika Guha Sarkar and Jagannath Panda


PART 2: The Indian Political Right and the Reconfiguration of Soft Power in Africa

3. The Indian Political Right, Soft Power, and the Reimagination of Africa

Meera Venkatachalam


4. Modi and the Mahatma – The Politics of Statues and the Saffronisation of India-Africa relations

Simona Vittorini


PART 3: Capacity building: Shifting Modalities and New Knowledgescapes

5. India’s Changing Human Resource Diplomacy with Africa, and Africa’s Responses

Kenneth King


6. A Shining Example: Modelling Growth in India’s Pan-African e-Network

Vincent Duclos


7. Partnership in Times of Pandemic: India’s Covid Diplomacy with a Lens on Africa

Supriya Roychoudhury and Emma Mawdsley


PART 4: Skilling, Knowledge Transfer, and Indo-African Interactions

8. Precarious Partnerships: Tanzanian Entrepreneurs of Asian and African Descent

Jacqueline Halima Mgumia and Chambi Chachage


9. The Trumpets and Travails of South-South Cooperation: African Students in India since the 1940s

Gerard Mc Cann


Conclusion: Reflections on India-Africa Studies, Development Cooperation, and Soft Power

Kenneth King and Meera Venkatachalam

Tentang Penulis

MEERA VENKATACHALAM is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Mumbai, and co-editor of India-Africa Partnerships for Food Security and Capacity Building: South-South Cooperation (2021).