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A well-off Pakistani cousin was putting up at the penthouse of the Montreal hotel where, by a coincidence, her Indian cousin was leading a workers’ strike. As he tiptoed through the maze of flags and placards to greet his long-lost cousin in her suite, she was waiting with her urgent queries about his health and what exciting things he might be doing in Canada far away from home.
She was somewhat taken aback, I am told, to know he was working with the workers to get them better wages. “But all this you could have done in India more usefully, no?” the hostess observed earnestly, as she offered cookies and Ethiopian coffee she had especially ordered.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on a four-nation tour of Africa on Thursday, the Pakistani cousin’s advice comes to mind. Could the prime minister not do at home what he mostly does on his jaunts? As is usual with him, a key part of his agenda in Africa will be to address Indians, chiefly the fawning Gujarati diaspora, in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania. Mozambique is exploring uranium but it’s not clear if that could be the main reason for the visit.
Would Modi not win more plaudits, my cousin may wonder, if he spent more time at home, meeting Indians in India with the same zeal? At home, moreover, he might want to spend time in actually meeting and engaging with the mosaic that India is and not only wave to his own cheerleaders. This could provide a welcome departure from his periodic monologues on the radio designed to dodge the really curious journalists with some hard questions. He should not shy away from these routine encounters common in any democracy, and certainly not walk away from an interview as he did with Karan Thapar.
If Modi applies his keen eye on Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy, he might be able to catch a glimpse of Gandhi’s new critics.
Travelling abroad is otherwise not such a bad idea. Ghalib had a lovely verse to encourage wanderlust. Hasad se dil agar afsurda hai garm-i-tamaasha ho/ Ki chashm-i-tang shaayad kasrat-i-nazzara se va ho. (When the heart is congested with ennui/ Set off on a liberating journey.)
However, the journey should be triggered by a genuine curiosity about a varied, diverse world, and a real desire to meet new people. The general impression in India is that Modi likes himself more than his interlocutors. Also, he runs down Indian leaders before him, particularly the part involving Jawaharlal Nehru or his family. He reportedly tried to do that at the Delhi summit with African heads of state, by deleting any reference to India’s first prime minister. The guests simply reminded him that they were invariably partisans of Nehru’s legacy and fellowship.
Lots of people don’t like Nehru for a variety of reasons. Pablo Neruda didn’t. It was mutual. But no one would run down the respected Indian leader as Modi and his Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh do with vitriol.
He’ll encounter new ideas. If he applies his keen eye in South Africa on Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy, he might be able to catch a glimpse of Gandhi’s new critics. They are two descendants from the Gujarati diaspora — Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed. In their book, The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-bearer of Empire, they marshal new evidence that Gandhi’s anti-racism was confined to benefit Indians alone, not the native Africans.
Gandhi even requested a separate entrance for Indians at the post office so that they didn’t share it with the native Africans. It’s not what is taught in Indian schools. But it won’t diminish Gandhi’s contribution to the freedom movement in India if it is.
Another issue he might want to be watchful of is the potentially harmful role some of his fellow Indians are playing in Africa in the name of development.
Scanning a new study by Acord International, a respected NGO, could be useful. It’s about Chinese, Brazilian and Indian investments in African agriculture.
Their report finds major problems with the investments. Some investments are associated with land grab — several projects are having adverse consequences for local farmers. The technology being promoted in Africa tends to be more suited to Chinese, Brazilian and Indian agribusiness interests than to Africa’s smallholder farmers.
“Above all, investments and cooperation programmes do not appear to systematically involve African smallholder farmers in project design or implementation, but appear more suited to large-scale farming. This is despite some projects which proponents claim are resulting in significant crop yield increases, although there are few genuinely independent evaluations of these projects,” the report says.
With examples of Singur, Nandigram and Chhattisgarh before him, Mr Modi might want to reflect on the development model his compatriots are offering to people who trust India.
Read: Modi’s rise a defeat for freedom in India
Easily the most urgent lesson that Africa could offer not to Mr Modi alone, but to all the strife-stricken people of the world, is the essential fact that Homo sapiens everywhere are linked to the African continent. We may believe in Homer or in the Vedas or the People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn but the new scientific assertion is that as Homo sapiens we began our journey from Africa more than 60,000 years ago.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, says the Maha Upanishad. The world is one family. The assertion could not be truer today. According to a new study in 2010, Mr Modi most likely shares his African chromosomes with China’s Xi Jinping. Equally absurdly, Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif probably shares his ‘out of Africa’ chromosomes with a right-wing Muslim-hater named Yogi Adityanath. Nigel Farage shares his forebears with the very people he is trying to stop from seeking a home in England.
However, there’s another lesson, one of particular relevance to India, that Africa offers. It is that we may have a common language and a common religion, and still we can lunge at each other’s throats, as happened tragically in Rwanda. Bon voyage.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2016
