<b>T N Ninan:</b> A conference in Harare

The photograph of Prime Minister Modi, flanked by President Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President Zuma of South Africa, with other colourfully attired African leaders around them, takes one's memory back three decades, to a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in 1986. India was to hand over NAM chairmanship to Zimbabwe, which had gained independence a few years earlier. Indian flags fluttered all over Harare, along with Zimbabwe's. At the conference inauguration, in an impressive convention centre, Mr Mugabe's oratory skills were on full display - a commanding voice modulated brilliantly, powerful articulation, and an emotive message. Rajiv Gandhi's peroration, admirable enough, seemed flat in comparison. But the toast of the inaugural speech-makers was Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. Rather, his famed women bodyguards who clapped and shouted slogans as they made a dramatic entrance. The "revolutionary nuns", as they were officially called, had to be chaste and formed a uniformed ring around their leader as he spoke from the podium.
 

Gaddafi is gone, leaving in his wake stories of how he physically abused his "nuns". Mr Mugabe still serves as the leader of a country whose economy he destroyed (80 per cent unemployment at one stage) before it staged a miraculous recovery. But hyper-inflation debased its currency beyond repair, so that one US dollar was equal to 35 quadrillion local dollars; the country has stopped printing its currency and moved to adopt the US dollar as its operative currency. Meanwhile, South Africa was still the victim of apartheid rule in 1986. On the sidelines of the main NAM summit, the African National Congress president, Oliver Tambo, held a press conference in what struck me as a forlorn atmosphere that promised little hope of deliverance. Yet, just over three years later, Nelson Mandela was out of jail. Miracles and disasters are no strangers to Africa.

For an Indian reporter, the focus shifted from the conference to the attempted hijacking of a Pan Am plane at Karachi by four Palestinians. A dozen Indian passengers were among those killed, while an Indian air hostess, Neerja Bhanot, paid for exemplary courage with her life. In Harare, Rajiv Gandhi was incensed and called a press conference where, his anger showing, he denounced Pakistan which he blamed for the outrage. President Zia-ul Haq was in Harare too but protected from reporters, who had no access to the delegate areas. All attempts at getting into the delegate area were blocked, but by a strange sequence I suddenly found myself there, with General Zia quite close at land in a small group of other leaders. Surprised at my luck, I walked up to find that he was quite willing to discuss the issue and answer my questions, criticising Rajiv Gandhi for his comments but keeping his cool.

On the flight out from Mumbai to Harare, on an ancient Air India 707, I had met the Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who was to rule his country for three decades. On the flight back, passengers who woke up at dawn expecting to see Mumbai's skyline, found instead that the plane was on an airstrip on a tiny island in the middle of turquoise waters. It turned out that Mr Gayoom had requested a seat on the prime minister's plane back to India, from where he would fly to the Maldives. Rajiv Gandhi said his plane was full, but made the imperial gesture of asking Air India to divert its scheduled flight to Mumbai, land at Male in the Maldives and offer Mr Gayoom door-to-door service so to speak. That meant the rest of us reached Mumbai many hours behind schedule (as compensation I had with me a picture book on the Maldives that Mr Gayoom presented). Later, Rajiv Gandhi sent Indian troops to rescue the Maldives leader from a coup attempt by Sri Lankan militants, but Mr Gayoom would go on to be seen as anti-Indian in his political stance. Which makes one wonder what India and Mr Modi will get in return for $10 billion.