MOHAMMED SINAN SIYECH
By the way, diverse resources of India’s foreign policy are engaged in the region of Middle East and North Africa. Yet, there remain many gaps in our understanding of India-North Africa relations. In this article, we will examine the relationship between North Africa and India, analyzing news and reports, India’s foreign policy documents and statements from India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
In the modern era, India’s relations with North African countries were viewed as India’s liberation from colonialism and support for democratic reforms. These things were the main part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy. India’s launch of the Non-Aligned Movement along with Egypt, and the presence of four other North African countries in this movement is evidence of this.
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What’s more, India supported independence movements in Tunisia and Algeria, and was highly respected in Libya for Nehru’s views against colonialism. The importance of North Africa for India in today’s era is based on many things.
Firstly, Egypt plays an important role in the relations between the countries of the Middle East. This makes it a very tempting idea for Indian diplomacy to focus on North Africa. Egypt’s ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) make it an important partner in the Middle East, as India expands its presence in the region. Second, countries such as Morocco and Algeria have become geographical means of access to other parts of Africa.
This thing becomes very important for India as it aspires to increase its reach to those countries of Africa where French language is spoken. Morocco has broadly projected itself as a means for India to achieve this goal. After all, the countries of North Africa are also important to Europe. In such a situation, North Africa also provides many opportunities for India to cooperate with the European Union on many issues such as terrorism, immigration and climate change.
Accordingly, India’s goals in North Africa fall within the scope of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the Ugandan Parliament in 2018. In that speech, Prime Minister Modi mentioned that India will increase cooperation with Africa in creating jobs, developing youth, upgrading agricultural technology and tackling issues like climate change and terrorism. In particular, India wants to garner the support of North African countries for its claim as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
partnerships
India’s exchanges with this region can be broadly divided into four major parts. The first is the economic aspect. Many countries of North Africa are trading partners of India. They import and export petroleum, machinery, electrical equipment, medical goods and many other items with India. One of these is phosphate. It is used to make the cultivable land fertile. It is the main item of import of India from North Africa. Fifty percent of India’s total phosphate imports come from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Due to this many times a situation of trade deficit also arises between the two countries.
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Overall, the figures for the year 2019 (collected from different sources) say that India’s total trade with North Africa is about $ 18 billion annually. Even though India’s trade with other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates ($ 60 billion), is high. Nevertheless, there is considerable trade between North Africa and India.
Another important aspect of India-North Africa relations is defense and the fight against terrorism. Egypt has the largest share of India’s defense ties with North Africa. Egypt has the largest share in the bilateral defense relationship between the two countries. The major reason for this has been the long history of joint war exercises between the two countries and the construction of military vehicles by India for Egypt. In the year 2021, India has also given a new height to its defense ties with Algeria by conducting naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Algeria.
This is a symbol of the fact that India is taking a lot of interest in increasing its power in the sea area. India has also strengthened counter-terrorism partnerships with Egypt and Morocco over the past decade. The main reason for this is that all the three countries are battling terrorism in their own right. However, India’s cooperation with other countries of North Africa in this matter does not seem to be increasing.
The third important dimension of India’s cooperation with North Africa is aid in the medical, financial and agricultural sectors. India has long been trying to improve its image by helping North African countries in these areas. For example, after the fall of the Gaddafi government in 2010, India gave more than one million dollars in aid to bring stability to Libya. North African countries also got some part of India’s Vaccine Friendship campaign to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. In a country like Libya, Indian workers are also highly respected, because Indian medical professionals are good workers. Apart from this, India also gives many scholarships to the citizens of North African countries to study. Students from North African countries often come to India to study, as it is cheaper for them to live and study here.
And finally, many countries of North Africa have a lot of love for Bollywood too. For this reason, apart from the help given by India to these countries, Bollywood has also become a big export of India’s soft power. For this reason, countries like Algeria have also made documentaries on Bollywood in view of the popularity of Hindi films. In countries like Egypt and Morocco, there are many fans of many artists including Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai. This shows that India’s entertainment world is dominant in these countries.
In this way, it is quite clear that India has strengthened its relations with North African countries for a long time, and even today it is engaged in strengthening these relations through different partnerships. Although its speed is slow.
Trying to understand the possibilities of the future
Going forward, India should focus on increasing cooperation with North African countries on such issues, affecting India and the five North African countries. For example, even though the number of Indians in the world’s total tourists in the year 2019 was 27 million. But, no information was available about how many of these Indians went to Tunisia and Algeria to visit. Whereas, in the year 2017, 1,25,000 Indians went to Egypt and in 2018 20 thousand Indian tourists went to Morocco to visit. At the same time, due to domestic conflict, there was no possibility of any Indian going to Libya. Overall, only 0.5 percent of the total tourists of India went to North African countries to visit. It is clear from these figures that as soon as the outbreak of the epidemic subsides, the chances of Indian tourists going to North African countries will increase.
Another challenge that will be faced by both India and North African countries is climate change. All these countries will face the challenge of shortage of agricultural products, water scarcity, migration of population from coastal areas to hinterland and rising temperatures. All these challenges will have a bad impact on economic activities and creation of wealth. In such a situation, it becomes imperative that India collaborate with its North African partners to develop clean technologies and make them available at affordable rates. Along with this, to limit the wasteful use of resources, promote their recycling and reuse.
In addition, there is another area of cooperation between North Africa and India, combating terrorism. Since 2014, India has largely been successful in preventing any major terrorist attack outside Kashmir. However, it is facing active militant activities in many areas. Lessons learned in India while dealing with these challenges can be applied to North African countries by adjusting to geographical and population differences. At the same time, India can also learn a lot in this matter from Morocco, which has successfully managed to stop terrorist activities. This Moroccan experience can come in handy during India’s counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency operations.
And finally, in order to promote trade with the five countries of North Africa, both groups should think about increasing the emphasis on gradually increasing connectivity through airlines. If you search for flights between India and different countries of North Africa, then it is found that there is no direct flight from India to any five countries of North Africa. The flights that stay elsewhere reach these countries.
They are very long – sometimes taking up to 20 hours to complete the journey – or they are very expensive – a one-way journey costs about a thousand dollars. Maybe one of the reasons for this is the low number of passengers. But along with promoting bilateral trade between the two sides, emphasis will also have to be laid on increasing connectivity for movement, only then the businessmen of both the regions will be able to move easily between each other, and of course this will increase trade.
Conclusion
India has historical relations with the countries of North Africa. Yet, these ties are not as close as compared to the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia. There is a lot of potential for India to increase its presence in North Africa in the field of trade, defense and counter-terrorism. Apart from this, India can play a very important role in creating employment in this region, promoting tourism and tackling the challenge of climate change. India itself will also benefit greatly from these efforts. The countries of North Africa can play an important role in fulfilling India’s ambitions of becoming a global power in the long term. In such a situation, it will be in the interest of India to increase its activities here.
These are personal views of the author.
Thanks from the OFR website
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