Africa and the World by Dawn Nagar & Charles Mutasa

Author:Dawn Nagar & Charles Mutasa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Peace and Security Cooperation

Africa’s growing importance to India’s economic development, as well as geographic proximity, have also created a push for greater peace and security cooperation between the two partners. This section focuses on two aspects of the India-Africa security relationship: maritime security in the Indian Ocean Rim, and India’s peacekeeping role on the continent.

Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean Rim

With much of Africa-India trade seaborne, the Indian Ocean’s shipping routes are of immense strategic and economic importance to both partners.61 With major gas discoveries off Africa’s east coast, and as cargo volumes (including oil from Nigeria) continue to grow, these sea-lanes connecting the continent with India are likely to gain yet greater significance. Mozambique, for example, is seen as a key source for India to diversify its dependence on liquefied natural gas imports. Southern and East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi have also become important as a means to increase India’s food security, particularly with regard to pulses: the main source of proteins for a majority of Indians.62 But the emergence of piracy off the Horn of Africa has underscored security concerns in the maritime region, which lacks the regional architecture to address such threats. In recent years, the Indian Ocean has also become an arena of strategic competition between India and China, as both vie to expand their influence in the region through build-ups in their naval presence and investments in maritime infrastructure . For example, Chinese investments in port development in littoral countries—including Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, and Mozambique—have tended to rouse India’s suspicions of a “string of pearls” strategy to encircle it.63

Under the Modi government, the Indian Ocean region is a foreign policy priority for New Delhi. The country’s maritime security strategy includes the East African coastal region—from the Gulf of Aden down to the Mozambique Channel—as well as the Cape of Good Hope and its littoral, as areas of primary interest. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi, as part of his globe-trotting foreign policy , has taken two trips to Africa.64 The first visit was to Mauritius and Seychelles in March 2015 and formed part of a three-country Indian Ocean tour that also included Sri Lanka. The second visit was in July 2016 and included stops in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya: four Indian Ocean Rim countries on Africa’s eastern seaboard. This second sojourn, in particular, was as much a part of India’s strengthening diplomacy in the Indian Ocean littoral as it was an exercise in public diplomacy to boost the country’s ties with key African trade partners. Maritime and defence and security cooperation formed part of the bilateral conversation at all four stops. The South African and Indian navies have engaged in annual talks since 2003 and undertaken several joint naval exercises off the African coast. Since 2009, the two navies have also participated in regular trilateral exercises under the banner of the IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) Forum. The Indian navy patrols in Mozambique’s territorial waters under a

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