Prof Jawaid Iqbal
On December 20, 2024, India sent a shipment of 1,000 metric tons of rice to Lesotho as part of its humanitarian aid, aimed at supporting the food security and nutritional needs of the people in the landlocked African nation. On 12 July 2024, the Government of Lesotho had declared a state of National Food Insecurity Disaster after facing a historic drought that led to the lowest crop yields since the 2018/19 agricultural season. Lesotho faces significant challenges from the climate crisis, as El Niño-driven droughts have already caused severe crop failures and major livestock losses. Projections indicate a warmer and drier climate, leading to more frequent and severe droughts and floods. Reduced snowfall in the mountains, coupled with higher runoff rates, is expected to accelerate soil erosion, further depleting soil nutrients.
Like Lesotho, India is also bearing the brunt of the intensifying climate crisis. Rising temperatures, increased monsoon intensity, and erratic rainfall will exacerbate droughts in the northwest and increase wetness in the south, straining already scarce water resources. Crops like wheat and rice are highly sensitive to temperature increases and water shortages, with studies predicting significant yield reductions, threatening India’s food grain production and overall food security. Food insecurity driven by climate change is a widespread issue in the Global South, as these regions are disproportionately impacted by global warming, which severely affects the hotter, low-latitude tropical and subtropical areas of the planet. At the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, India’s Minister of State for Environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh, noted, “We in the Global South bear huge financial burdens and losses caused by climate impacts, despite contributing the least to the problem”.
The Importance of Ideology
India’s decision to send humanitarian aid to Lesotho reflects its awareness of the global inequalities that structure the effects of climate change. This is part of its wider policy discourse on Africa, which accords centrality to ideology and morality. In 2015, speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the third India-Africa Forum Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the partnership between India and Africa is “beyond strategic concerns and economic benefits. It is formed from the emotional bonds we share and the solidarity we feel for each other”. In his 2018 address to the Parliament of Uganda, he talked about the universal significance of “the moral principles of independence movement,” highlighting how “India’s principled support to Africa’s liberation movements often came at a cost to our nation’s trade. But, nothing mattered in comparison to Africa’s freedom.”
Ignoring the ideological and moral component of India’s foreign policy towards Africa, the discourse of “minilateralism” believes that “shared values” are a burden that need to be thrown away in favor of more targeted objectives. Ideological commitment to the transformation of the world order through multilateralism is replaced by more flexible, short-term solutions. However, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar remarks that “India has always been a staunch votary of multilateralism,” warning that it is the resistance to reforming the United Nations (UN) and its bodies that weakens the global order. Thus, for him, the pragmatic temperament of minilateralism is a symptom of an international impasse that demands resolution.
In Africa, the temperament is shifting towards sovereigntist assertion against the Global North. In late November 2024, the governments of Chad and Senegal separately declared the termination of their military cooperation agreements with France and called for the withdrawal of French troops from their territories. This decision came after the military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which led to the removal of French military forces from these countries between 2021 and 2023. On 16 September 2023, these three countries signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter, forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). This trilateral alliance was created in response to military intervention threats and economic sanctions imposed on Niger by the pro-Western Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after the coup in July 2023. Several months after establishing this defense agreement, the three nations withdrew from the ECOWAS group.
Sahel’s grievances are summarized by Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traore: “We want a multipolar world, and we stand for sovereignty.” This assertive stance is similar to what Jaishankar said in his virtual address at a function in Mumbai on December 21, 2024: the “fulcrum” of India’s policy paradigm is a “belief in bharat,” which signifies a commitment to embrace the full value of India’s civilization rather than letting others define it. Distinguishing between “independence” and “neutrality,” Jaishankar said that “we will do whatever is right in our national interest and for global good without being intimidated to conform”.
Redefining Global South Leadership
In order to synchronize with the shifting mood in Africa, Indian foreign policy discourse needs to reclaim the notion of “Global South” from its more neutral iterations. Happymon Jacob, for instance, says that India represents a “nonideological” Global South, abandoning ambitious “anticolonial solidarity” for a “fluid” pursuit of national interests. Instead of wanting a new world order, India “wants to be a bigger stakeholder in that status quo”. This is a Global South that attempts to convince the Euro-Atlantic world of the necessity of reforms, instead of defiantly challengingly their hegemony. This moderate vision of the Global South lacks a long-term view of “national interests”; it seeks temporary relief by asking rich countries to accommodate poorer nations without challenging the dependency of the South on the North’s benevolence.
Instead of remaining quiescent about the hierarchical world order, India needs to strengthen its strident ideological vision vis-à-vis Africa. Take the example of debt. Several African countries are facing severe debt distress, with Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Mali having already defaulted. In 2024, Africa’s debt service burden stands at $163 billion, while its total external debt is approximately $1.5 trillion. At the inauguration of the Third Voice of Global South Summit held in August 2024, Prime Minister Modi spoke about a new “Development Compact,” which wouldn’t burden poor countries with debt. Another domain of convergence is traditional medicine, which is widely used in both India and Africa. It embodies the idea of a confident “civilization state”. Additionally, in pursuit of the vision of “One Earth One Family,” India supplied “Made in India” COVID vaccines to 42 countries of the Africa continent. The inclusion of the African Union as a full member under India’s G20 presidency inspires hope that the spirit of sovereignty will continue to strengthen India-Africa relations, paving the way for an equitable and multipolar world.
(The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University, Rajouri, J&K)
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