As India holds its first Africa summit this week, a juxtaposition with China has become inevitable. The comparative assessment of China and India is now a growth industry — their domestic as well as foreign policies and, more generally, their presumed “rise” in the international system. India’s emphasis should be less on avoiding comparisons with China but on differentiating itself from Beijing’s policies in Africa that have attracted widespread criticism.

New Delhi has often been accused of mimicking Beijing in Africa. No one disputes the fact that India’s Africa summit follows that of China, which held a much grander conclave with African leaders in Beijing at the end of 2006.

To be sure, the simultaneous rise of China and India does create some basis for the comparison of their international performance. Nor can anyone deny that the rapid economic growth in China and India is steadily expanding their international diplomatic footprints that now include Africa.

Beyond these facts, the comparison of Indian and Chinese engagement of Africa becomes untenable. For one, India and China are coming to Africa from very different starting points. This is partly due to the fact that the Indian Ocean had linked the subcontinent with Africa for centuries in ways that China was not.

Even in the age of imperialism, India was deeply involved in Africa, from Indian capitalists, especially from Gujarat who traded with the continent, to the Indian troops who were part of the British colonial ventures there. If Mahatma Gandhi’s long sojourn in Africa was enabled by diasporic links, he also contributed to the political awakening of both the regions. Independent India was in the forefront of the anti-apartheid and anti-colonial struggles of Africa.

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