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India, China go their own way in Africa By Manish Chand
Comparisons, misleading as they were, between China’s much bigger and grander summit with nearly 40 African countries in Beijing two years ago were bruited about to underline India’s laggard approach to the continent where China is already swimming in so much oil and profits. The discourse has not ceased even after a pointed disclaimer by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the end of the summit, saying India is not in race with China or any other power in the African continent. Clearly, conjuring an India-China power game in the African continent is a seductive theory that sells in the crowded marketplace of ideas. But it conceals more than it reveals. To begin with, India, which has prided itself on its special bonds with the African people and its development-centric approach aimed at mutual empowerment, has always been wary of such analogies. Not that New Delhi is playing down the China factor. On the contrary, it is India’s sense of assurance in a mutually fulfilling partnership with Africa that found echo in thoughtful utterances of African leaders at the summit. Almost each of them recalled with fondness Africa’s ancient ties with India, mostly through trading links, and the shared struggle against colonialism and apartheid with Prof Alpha Konare, chairman of the African Union Commission, saying that India has always stood by Africa in good times and bad. Nearly all of them saw in India’s emergence as an Asian power a source of pride and admiration and its post-reform growth a viable model for African countries. Implicit in their speeches was an acknowledgment of the distinct nature of India’s engagement with Africa that simply can’t be compared to that of any other country. A close scrutiny of the ambitious and all-encompassing Delhi Declaration and the India-Africa Framework for Cooperation – two documents that emerged from the two-day India-Africa Forum Summit – brings to the fore the singular nature of this engagement as it provides a different model for sustainable cooperation with the African continent. In a seminal sense, the Delhi Declaration outlined a pragmatic paradigm of the India-Africa partnership in the 21st century that reckons into account winds of change and currents of resurgence in both sides to script a more equitable world with permanent place for each other in an expanded UN Security Council and closer cooperation to spur each other’s economic resurgence. Resurgence is a key word here as it taps into the collective yearning for a better life among nearly two billion people who live in India and Africa. In his inaugural address at the summit, the Indian prime minister stressed on the intensification of trade and investment, energy security, food security, capacity-building and infrastructure development as key components of New Delhi's engagement with the continent that stands in contrast with China’s commerce-driven, oil-oriented diplomacy in Africa. The framework of cooperation has “mutually beneficial economic development” at its heart and encompasses a broad canvas that includes, among other things, India sharing its experience and expertise to birth a green revolution in Africa and closer cooperation in social development and capacity building. The tenor and content of these documents are enough to differentiate India’s approach towards the continent. China does not talk in this language with African countries; it knows how to put money where its mouth is: oil, extractive resources, lucrative infrastructure projects that will give a competitive edge to Chinese business in Africa. Besides, India’s promise to be a partner in Africa’s resurgence was reflected in a raft of initiatives announced at the summit that included granting duty-free and quote-free market access to exports from 34 least developed African countries and doubling financial package for development of the continent to $5.4 billion over the next five years. New Delhi pledged another half a billion dollars for investment in projects related to capacity building and human resource development and increased scholarships and training slots for African students. On the other hand, Beijing’s mercantile, profit-driven style of functioning – flooding African markets with cheap Chinese goods and brining in their own labour for projects in Africa that do not generate local employment – has already crated resentment and backlash from a section of the African leadership and the African people. Two years ago, South African President Thabo Mbeki warned African countries into falling into the trap of China’s “neo-colonial” relationship with Africa. India, in contrast, has focused on value-addition of resources and the creation of local jobs for the African people. This approach is reflected in the involvement of Indian private sector and public sector enterprises. Also, there is a fundamental difference in the nature of the engagement as China’s approach is state-driven while the private sector leads India’s forays into Africa. In an article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, Harry Broadman, economic advisor on Africa to the World Bank, cites a 2006 study of 450 business owners in Africa that found that almost half of the respondents who were ethnically Indians had taken African nationalities, against only 4 per cent of owners who were ethnic Chinese. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the level of India’s engagement with that of Africa. India's trade with Africa is estimated to be around $30 billion which is half of that of China's $56 billion in the continent. China has also struck lucrative energy and infrastructure deals in the oil-rich countries like Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria and Chad. Compared to that, India has a lot of catching up to do in Africa’s hydrocarbons sector. But these statistics neither bring out the full spectrum of India’s engagement with Africa nor special ties of cultural affinity that binds people of the two continents. A hard unflinching scrutiny will reveal India’s blend of enhanced developmental package, technology transfers, human resource development and infrastructure development are sure to confer on it an advantage over China in the African continent in the long run That India is headed on a winning journey in Africa, albeit it may take a few more years to make it clear, was evident from the praise showered by African leaders on India’s development-centric approach and their admiration for India as a rising economic and knowledge power. South African President Thabo Mbeki lauded India for its help in the reconstruction of African countries and stressed on increased cooperation between the two sides in the area of the UN reforms. Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the African Union Commission, said the India-Africa partnership will help African counties to achieve their millennium development goals. Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila stressed that the partnership will help Africa gain 'a great deal from India's experience in poverty reduction, development, micro-credit and the development of the middle class. If this string of enthusiastic remarks from African leaders are anything to go by, the summit has succeeded in not only laying out a firm blueprint for forging a more contemporary partnership between India and Africa but also succeeded in differentiating India’s long-term win-win formula in Africa. The 21st century, as Manmohan Singh said, will be the century of Asia and Africa one in which the people of the two continents will work together to purge the world of its asymmetries and promote a more equitable world.
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China was a looming shadow at India’s first summit with 14 African countries held in New Delhi recently that not only revealed the depth and diversity of their relationship, but also provided clues to what could give New Delhi a competitive edge in the resource-rich continent. But more than the summit per se that was high on deliverables as well as symbolism, what attracted attention, bordering on obsession, was the presumed competition between Asia’s two emerging giants in the race for Africa’s resources, specially oil. 
I can't go on, says Beckett's Unnamable. I will go on. A writer's injuries are his strengths, and from his wounds will flow his sweetest, most startling dreams.
And Proust, too, killing himself to write his book comes close to the concept of dharma when, echoing Balzac, he says that in the end it's less the desire for fame than 'the habit of laboriousness' that takes a writer to the end of a work. But dharma, as this ideal of truth to oneself, or living out the truth in oneself, can also be used to reconcile men to servitude and make them find in paralyzing obedience the highest spiritual good. 'And do thy duty, even if it be humble,' says the Aryan Gita,
'rather than another's, even it be great. To die on one's duty is life: to live in another' death.
My discovery over the years is that the mother tongues have so much in them, so much that is alive, and are much more pervasive, in all strata of society, in all ages from children to the very old, men and women, literate and non-literate. What holds them together? It's not Sanskrit. It's these mother tongues. I think I went into linguistics because of that. That spoken languages had to be very, very important. It was important in my youth to have discovered this.
Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them. Maybe I wanted to find more rigorous ways of thinking. We are talking now about the earliest writing I did and about the power of language to counteract the wallow of late adolescence, to define things, define muddled expression in economical ways. Let's not forget that writing is convenient. It requires the simplest tools. A young writer sees that with words and sentences on a piece of paper that costs less than a penny he can place himself more clearly in the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by daemons. He doesn’t know why they chose him and he is usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.
I am trembling with cold