Race to the bottom

India's soft power is being eroded by growing racism

The killing of Congolese citizen Masonda Kitanda Olivier in Delhi last month – followed by random attacks on African nationals in the capital – exposed, like nothing else, the inconvenient truth of the racism embedded in the social outlook of most ordinary Indians. The death of the 23-year-old Congolese is a sinister but extreme example; Africans who come to study and work in India complain of discrimination and slights on an almost daily basis. Some 30,000 Africans study in Indian universities around the country, yet they remain the eternal outsiders. Nor is this attitude restricted to the ordinary citizenry; the Aam Aadmi Party’s then law minister Somnath Bharti’s reprehensible leadership of a midnight raid on African women last year and the Goa chief minister’s recent statement that Nigerians were a “problem” demonstrate that the attitude cuts across the political class too.

The death of Masonda Olivier proved especially embarrassing because it occurred just months after a massively publicised Africa Summit attended by 50 heads of government — and days before the government’s celebration of Africa Day, which marks the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity. Worse, the attacks have earned India much opprobrium in the African media. Some elements of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) are to be congratulated for moving to staunch the negative publicity and avert a possible law and order problem from a planned demonstration by African students in the capital: an MEA delegation met the relatives of Masonda Olivier at the airport and facilitated the transfer of his body.

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has demonstrated sense and sensibility in handling the situation — in marked contrast to her junior minister, V K Singh. Ms Swaraj announced that her ministry would launch initiatives to sensitise people to Africans. After all, such incidents diminish India’s formidable soft power. India has enjoyed a special relationship with Africa not just because of large migrant communities there but because its national movement has been a beacon for African freedom struggles. Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian litterateur to describe Africa’s rapacious colonial exploitation in terms of a “ravaged maiden” rather than the “dark continent” of European characterisation. Since independence, Indian governments have maintained an enlightened outreach policy towards the continent — and Africans have been a part of a multi-cultural influx for decades. But given the Indian aversion to dark skin within its own citizenry, Ms Swaraj may discover that her sensitisation programme may demand a deeper engagement than she bargained for. What will be equally important is to ensure that Africa’s media, students and corporate sector are reassured that India is a welcoming space. In this respect, the MEA’s outreach – while energetic – falls short of what was accomplished, say, by the Australian government in response to an apparent spate of attacks on Indian students in that country. The MEA, which has made a good start, must upgrade and sustain its efforts along those lines.