The last dance
Ryder Gabathuse | Tuesday January 21, 2025 09:56
NEW DELHI: India, a country that occupies the greater part of South Asia, has the largest population in the world at 1, 450, 935, 791, having overtaken China, which has been the most populous nation in the world for the longest time. Coming from a country with one of the lowest populations in the world, albeit estimated to be the size of France and Texas, you cannot help but marvel at hordes of people in India’s bustling cities with gridlock jams and clunky human movement. Botswana covers approximately 581, 730 square kilometres.
New Delhi, India’s capital city, which was also the main area of our tour, has an estimated population of 32, 941, 000 people and still growing.
The Asian nation is made up of 28 states and eight union territories. Even Botswana’s national population is surpassed by merely New Delhi’s population of registered motor vehicles at over 13 million. Botswana’s population stands at about 2.3 million people.
Back to the underground lobby. It was marked by a memorable night of song and dance at the underground spot of one of India’s 20th-floor iconic glass building of Le Meridien Hotel. The five-star Hotel is one of the city’s landmarks and “an epitome of world-class architecture.” It is set up within the vicinity of government offices and residential place.
On the dance floor, it was like a clash of Indians and Africans as they danced the night away as if they were competing for any honours on the evening marking the end of the familiarisation tour of the journalists. It was the Indian Ministry of External Affairs that had set the stage for a come together of that magnitude on December 19, 2024. There were no formal speeches. It was just song, dance, food and drinks.
This is where High Commissioners and Ambassadors mainly from the countries that were part of the touring African journalists and others, locked horns hitting the dance floor to bid farewell to their country people and generally to unwind.
The visiting journalists were from Botswana, Burundi, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The majority of the countries had two journalists whilst others had three or so journalists. In common, the countries are member states of the African Union (AU). With so many countries under one roof, it was now more like a UN meeting with men and women elegantly dressed for the evening.
The meeting of African journalists and the host Indian government reignited recent memories of the India–Africa Forum Summit (IAFS), which is the official platform for African-Indian relations. IAFS is supposed to be held once every three years and information shows that it has not been consistent. We were already getting accustomed to the Hindu way of greeting summarised in the word, “namaste” or simply, “I bow to you) and namaskaraan which is another Indian gesture of greeting, farewell, or respect.
India is Africa’s fourth largest trade partner behind China, the EU and the USA whilst Africa has emerged as India’s sixth largest trading partner behind EU, China, UAE, the USA and ASEAN.
BengaluruOur journey as African journalists took us to India’s capital city New Delhi after a three-day intensive sojourn at India’s Green City, Bengaluru (Bengalore) and here we were housed at another five-star hotel, Taj West End. Bengaluru apparently has two extremes: The new and the older side. From the Kempegowda Internatiomnal Airport in Bengaluru, the infrastructure is fresh looking and very modern. The airport is established on a public-private partnership model and it’s the first green field airport in India. There is also the older side of the city, which also has some dilapidated structures which in some instances are an eyesore with paint literally peeling off from the walls or paint simply fading. It has upmarket properties and low-income locations. Apparently, India has an estimated population of about 413 ,670 beggars in the streets. Bengaluru is a major centre for Information technology (IT) and ranks amongst the world’s fastest-growing technology hubs. Manufacturing is a major contributor to the economy and the city is also home to several State-owned manufacturing companies. Bengaluru also hosts several institutes of national importance in higher education.
Nearly 70% of India’s GDP is driven by domestic consumption; the country remains the world’s fourth-largest consumer market. Aside private consumption, India’s GDP is also fueled by government spending, investments, and exports. The service sector is the largest contributor to GDP in India.
The service sector makes up more than 50% of the GDP and remains the fastest growing sector, while the industrial sector and the agricultural sector employ a majority of the labour force. The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange are some of the world’s largest stock exchanges by market capitalisation.
India is also reputed as a mixed economy. The private and public sectors co-exist and the country leverages international trade.
For three days at Bengaluru amongst others, our journey took us to the Institute of Science, a public research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design and management. From there we toured the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, which is India’s largest collection of tropical plants and is one of the main tourist attractions in Bengaluru. We realised that lovebirds also spend their valuable time in the green gardens whiling away time, listening to the twittering of many birds and butterflies that have sheltered in the beautiful gardens colouring it with their multiple colours. Touring the gardens also provided a twinkling to refresh after a busy schedule of the day. We had a stint at the 19th Century royal palace (Bengalore Palace), which is famous for its beautiful woodcarvings and fascinating architecture. It’s one of the many tourist attractions given the number of people that visit the place from all over the world. It was interesting to note that India’s tourist attractions are patronised chiefly by local people coming from across India’s eight states, over and above tourists from elsewhere in the world.
We were also taken through the nation’s 75-year-old preserved history of India’s tribute to every Prime Minister at the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya. Here, important history is preserved for future generations and for the appreciation of tourists.
To the majority of Indians, one has not been to India if he/she hasn’t been to the famous Taj Mahal. India is famous for its rich cultural heritage and historical monuments like the Taj Mahal, which in 1983 was declared a UNESCO World Heritage. Any day, the Taj Mahal, which some view as a symbol of eternal love as it was built by Mughalemperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, explodes with thousands of people who patronise this heritage site anytime.
Taj Mahal stands out as a major tourist attraction of note as we found ourselves amongst the thousands of people (mainly Indians) who toured this premium site pushing and shoving to enter this most recognisable structure in the world. During the tour, we laughed our lungs out at an instruction at the entrance inscribed boldly: ‘Be quite!” This instruction did not speak to us, as it was specious although the site aide kept on referring our team to the instruction that they deliberately ignored, as we couldn’t ‘edit’ it for them. The instruction was supposed to read: “ Be quiet!”
Agriculture is the most important primary sector activity of the Indian economy. It was at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute that it was aptly demonstrated how India uses technology and innovation to improve agriculture towards food sufficiency. Other primary sector activities include fishing, forestry, cattle breeding and others.
Health is one area where India is making a big difference. The country is the world’s largest producer of vaccines—it supplies more than 60% of all vaccines distributed by Gavi, the organisation that has helped vaccinate more than one billion children in lower-income countries. Indian companies pioneered the creation of high-quality, low-cost vaccines and drugs, leading the world in making affordable treatments for diseases like HIV/AIDS as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal pneumonia, and COVID-19.
A visit to Apollo Hospital, which is focused on advancement of Indian healthcare systems, exposed us to a multi-specialty tertiary acute care hospital with 710 beds and one of the most sought after destinations in Asia for health care. Whilst on site, we stumbled upon some fellow Africans all the way from their countries, seeking specialised medical care at the Apollo Hospital.
At the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an Indian Think-Tank researching on internal and international affairs, politics and international relations became the order of the day, especially the matter on the Africa-India relations.
We also interacted with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group which engages business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agenda. Since they work proactively with the government to formulate policies that would empower business, they also appreciated African perspectives from the visiting members of the Fourth Estate.
As we traversed across the Indian cities, there was an entertaining journalist from the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency, Niyibizi Didace, who was a habitual late comer often forcing our transport to simply wait longer for him. The young journalist’s presence was always felt as a jester also.
He provided us with free amusement particularly with the social media trending Kasongo song, which he sung so perfectly. “Kasongo yeye... mumbali nanga...kasongo mbona wewe...songa libala ooh ye ye ye...mbona wewo...umbali nanga yee.” He would sing this hilarious song accurately as if he were the composer. This is a song dedicated to the ever-escaping warthog running away from predators.
ChennaiUpon arrival at the coastal city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras, we were greeted by a controversy as my Botswana media colleague (name withheld) found herself facing immigration officials (Bureau of Immigration) who doubted her credentials as a journalist. They just looked at her face and boldly told her, “You can’t be a journalist!” How strange this was! Her insistence about her profession and their doubt became a back and forth barney that lasted for hours and they could not immediately process our entrance. It was only after hours of contacting the Indian Ministry of External Affairs officials through a telephone, (who facilitated our travel) that the immigration officials relented.
By the time we were cleared, Air India, which was our next connecting flight to Bengaluru, was already gone and we had missed the flight. The immigration officials who unnecessarily delayed us were now out of the picture and could only offer a mere apology. We tried to reason with officials at the Air India check in point, they could not assist us. It was also now difficult to reach the organisers of the trip, the Indian government because the Indian international airports do not offer free Internet to foreign networks. They only offer their service to local networks.
A Good Samaritan from the Air India booth, when we were at our wits end agreed to hotspot us on his mobile phone so that we could reach our organisers who were already worried about our whereabouts. They would quickly fix our travel arrangements by finding space on the last flight of the day, flight IndiGo Airlines on a rainy evening. Our morning flight landed at Chennai at about 08:10 hours and after about 10 hours of waiting; we finally boarded our flight to the Green City of Bengaluru.