African migrants plight in India: Afrophobia impedes India's race for Africa's resources and markets

Dirk Kohnert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Africa and India share a long history of trade, investment and slavery. The Portuguese alone brought up to 80,000 slaves from Mozambique to India since the 16th century. Unlike slaves in other parts of the world, African slaves, soldiers, and traders had a strong military and cultural influence on India's culture and society. Some of the slaves even held privileged positions. Today India competes with other global players, especially China, for African resources and markets. Growing racism and Afrophobia towards African migrants, however, could hamper the ambitions of the New-Delhi government. India's social networks and political leaders are increasingly looking for scapegoats and “strangers” to blame for their failures due to religious, racist and linguistic prejudice. Racism and Afrophobia did not appear first under Modi's administration, but they have become more daunting and contagious. The famous Indian writer and political activist, Arundhati Roy, rated Indian racism towards black people as almost worse than white peoples‟ racism. For example, Africans, who were often summarily disqualified as „Nigerians‟, were generally accused of being drug dealers and even suspected of „cannibalism‟. Yet, Indian authorities at all political levels did not effectively counter this. On the contrary, they not infrequently encouraged these prejudices. Modi, for example, compared breakaway Indian regions to „Somalia‟.

Keywords: India; Africa; international migration; xenophobia; Afrophobia; racism; violence; Afro-Indian relations; informal sector; illegal migration; forced migration; slave-trade; minorities; remittances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E26 F62 F66 N35 N95 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-his and nep-int
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Working Paper: African migrants plight in India: Afrophobia impedes India's race for Africa's resources and markets (2021)
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