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By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

Old Ties, New Times

As India courts Africa with history and technology, its relationship with Ethiopia offers a revealing test of Southern diplomacy.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ethiopia earlier this month, the warmth of his reception said as much about the present as it did about the past. India’s engagement with Africa is no longer framed merely as solidarity among post-colonial states. It is now pitched as a strategic and technological partnership which is self-consciously different from the hard-edged approaches of China or the episodic attention of the West. Ethiopia, long described as the ‘gateway to Africa,’ has emerged as a telling case study of this recalibration.


The world’s geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting southwards. Asia and Africa, once treated as peripheral theatres, are increasingly setting the terms of global growth, diplomacy and institutional reform. India, styling itself as the ‘voice of the Global South,’ has invested heavily in this moment by championing African representation in global forums, most notably by backing the African Union’s admission as a permanent member of the G20. That move was widely welcomed across the continent, and nowhere more so than in Addis Ababa, the diplomatic capital of Africa.


Historic Relationship

India’s ties with Ethiopia are among the oldest uninterrupted relationships linking South Asia with Africa. Historical records trace exchanges back nearly two millennia, when merchants from the Indian subcontinent traded silk, spices and textiles for Ethiopian gold and ivory along Red Sea routes. During the Axumite Empire, between the first and sixth centuries AD, the port of Adulis served as a crucial node in this Indo-African commerce, binding two ancient civilisations through trade and culture rather than conquest.


History also provided moments of solidarity under arms. In the 16th century, forces linked to Portuguese India aided Ethiopian rulers against invading armies. During Ethiopia’s struggle against Italian occupation in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Indian soldiers serving under the British flag played a notable role in its liberation. After independence, diplomatic relations were formalised in 1950, placing India and Ethiopia on parallel trajectories as post-imperial states navigating Cold War pressures and development challenges.


What distinguishes the present phase is the scope and ambition of cooperation. India today is Ethiopia’s second-largest foreign investor, with more than 675 Indian companies operating across manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. Indian investments exceed $6.5 billion and are estimated to generate employment for over 75,000 Ethiopians. Bilateral trade reached roughly $550 million in 2024–25, heavily tilted in India’s favour.


Beyond economics lies a more strategic wager. India is positioning its digital public infrastructure as an exportable model for the developing world. Agreements signed during Modi’s visit include support for Ethiopia’s digital transformation, anchored by plans for a major data centre. Indian officials have framed this as a ‘turning point’ not merely for bilateral ties but as a template other African countries might emulate.


Artificial intelligence is central to this vision. India has committed to specialised training programmes for Ethiopian youth, betting that technological capacity, rather than raw aid, will shape the next phase of development. This echoes New Delhi’s broader pitch to Africa: development without dependency, capacity-building without control.


Security cooperation, too, is deepening. India has offered assistance in maritime security, defence training and peacekeeping - areas of acute concern for Afro-Asian states navigating unstable neighbourhoods. The first joint defence cooperation meeting, held in October 2025, signalled a quiet but consequential expansion of military ties. India’s experience in United Nations peacekeeping, including its past role during Ethiopia’s internal conflicts, lends credibility to these efforts.


Culture remains the connective tissue. An Indian diaspora of around 2,000 - many of them educators - continues a tradition dating back to the late 19th century, when Indian teachers helped shape Ethiopia’s modern education system. More than 150 Indian professors currently work in Ethiopian institutions. Direct flights between New Delhi and Addis Ababa, and eased visa access for business and education, have further thickened people-to-people ties.


None of this guarantees success. Ethiopia’s internal strains, India’s own economic constraints, and Africa’s growing wariness of external suitors all pose risks. But the relationship reflects a broader truth: power in the 21st century is as much about trust and memory as it is about money and muscle.


India’s bet is that a partnership grounded in shared history, technological cooperation and institutional reform can endure where others falter. Ethiopia, with its ancient past and contested future, offers both an opportunity and a test. If this experiment succeeds, it may yet illuminate a path for South–South diplomacy in an unsettled world.


(The writer is a researcher and expert in foreign affairs. Views personal.)


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