Day Six: Indian Consulate in Cape Town and Discussion with Sanusha Naidu

Day Six: January 20, 2016

Morning Meeting: Indian Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa

We met Puneet Kundal, the Indian Consul General in Cape Town. Mr Kundal was posted to Cape Town after stints in Cairo, Oman, Brussels, Dhaka and Kathmandhu. The remit of the Indian consulate general in Cape Town extends to Western Cape and Eastern Cape. A part of the job of the consul general is to inform the local government about the policies of the government of India and to facilitate greater engagement between the Indian and provincial government officials.

The discussions ranged from domestic policies of the government of India to the reforms of the Indian Security Council. According to Mr Kundal, India has the most robust economic growth record in the recent times amongst BRICS nations. India’s economic growth has recovered over the past couple of years. Because India, much like South Africa, is a services oriented economy, it has not been affected as much by the headwinds buffeting the global economy. Mr Kundal also outlined the policies that the government is implementing to boost growth. In particular, the Make in India initiative is aimed to trying to boost the share of manufacturing in India’s output from its current rate of 18%. The ‘Skill India’ initiative aims to provide employable skills to 50 million Indian over the next 5 years. Issues of pollution are a part of the growth process. Government of India is also dealing with issues of air pollution and climate change. The government aims to source almost 130,000 MW of power from renewable sources.

India’s strength in services, according to Mr Kundal, drives the economic engagement between India and South Africa. Almost a third of South Africa’s generic drugs are sourced from India. Indian IT companies are also active in South Africa. India’s strength in ‘frugal engineering’ – Mr Kundal cited an anecdote of India’s mission to Mars was cheaper than the production of the Hollywood move Gravity – is also driving the economic engagement. Trucks and vehicles from Tata and Mahindra are sold in South Africa.

Kundal spoke to our group about India’s engagement in South Africa, and the two countries’ shared experience as BRICS economies. Kundal began by admitting that slowdown in Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia due to commodity prices, economic rebalancing and sanctions was a challenge to the BRICS narrative. Nonetheless he argued that the population, growth rates and importance of each country mean that BRICS summits continue to be valuable. He also argued against the claim that China is the glue that holds the BRICS together. He pointed out that India alone of all the BRICS countries was not experiencing slowdown in rate of growth and that while the BRICS bank is based in Shanghai, it is headed by an Indian.

Other foreign policy interests were mentioned, including reform of the Security Council and India’s foreign policy establishment. When asked about the small size of India’s foreign service relative to a country of its size, Kundal admitted that this restricted India’s ability to act abroad. He explained that India’s foreign service was smaller than Singapore, not due to lack of applicants but because the government did not properly appreciate the necessary scale required. He mused that cutbacks of excessive benefits to higher ups in government might lead to expanding the size of the foreign service.

Finally on the matter of UNSC reform, Kundal argued that India’s role as a peacekeeping contributor, responsible nuclear power, and populous and important economy entitled it to a seat on the security council.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa

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Afternoon Meeting: Sanusha Naidu

Today’s meeting took place at Moyo Restaurant, which is nestled in the beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. We met with Sanusha Naidu, a China Africa expert at the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD), a research institution located on the University of Cape Town campus.

The meeting generated fruitful discussions on China and India’s respective engagement strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. On the one hand, the Chinese foray on the subcontinent has generally followed a threefold pattern of foreign aid, small-scale trade, and large-scale foreign direct investment. Interestingly, the latter two types of engagement often flow from the first, whereby aid projects are taken over by private entities seeking economic gain. Furthermore, the Chinese have ventured on the subcontinent decisively and dynamically. According to Ms. Naidu, the Indians have sought to avoid comparison to the Chinese in this domain. However, because of their respective size and importance, the two are often lumped together, and the Indians often unwittingly compare themselves to their eastern neighbour. The Indians, on the other hand, appear reluctant to engage in a some projects on the subcontinent, perhaps in part due to the institutional risks and sluggish company-specific decision-making. This risk aversion was seen in two delayed Indian projects in Angola, which were later scooped up by Chinese investors.

During the latter half of our discussion, we explored a variety of topics that our group had already been introduced to in previous meetings. Naidu agreed that Chinese engagement in Africa has helped reinvigorate interest in the continent; however, she also asserted that Western nations had long sought engagement with African nations in cooperation for aid projects in search of a “nice fuzzy feeling.” We also expanded a conversation on the future relevance of the ANC within South African politics, especially in the context of the ongoing student protests, which suggest that the younger generation of South Africans neither display absolute loyalty to the ANC as liberators from Apartheid, nor do they fear reprisals from the government over the escalation of registration fee protests.

In conclusion, the discussion in which we engaged as part of the meeting expanded our knowledge of foreign engagement in Africa, particularly from China and India. Moreover, it resulted in fascinating discussions on the topic of the BRICS countries, and the obsolescence of the term.

Following our afternoon meeting we headed to Forries in Newlands to meet SAIS Alumni living in Cape Town. A special thanks to Oliver Drews (SAIS '92) for organizing the event.