India’s claim to speak for the Global South rests on a genuine record and a genuine tension: it advocates for developing countries while pursuing great-power status, and the credit it has earned comes from delivering things China’s model does not.
This is chapter 52 of the PSIR Optional Notes, from the part on India and the World in the Paper II syllabus. The complete book is a free download.
UPSC syllabus
India and the Global South: Relations with Africa and Latin America; leadership role in the demand for NIEO and WTO negotiations. (West Asia is included here as India’s principal energy, labour and remittance relationship.)
In one page
- India’s Southern engagement has three registers: solidarity inherited from anti-colonialism, development partnership through concessional credit and capacity building, and coalition leadership in trade and climate negotiation.
- The Voice of the Global South Summits, from January 2023, and the African Union’s admission to the G20 during India’s 2023 presidency are the flagship achievements of the current phase.
- India’s development cooperation model is distinctive: lines of credit through the Exim Bank, the ITEC training programme, grant projects, and the deliberate absence of policy conditionality.
- Africa: energy and critical minerals, a market for pharmaceuticals and vehicles, a diaspora of long standing, and the pan-African e-network as the signature project.
- India’s comparative advantage over China in Africa is in capacity building, private investment rather than state lending, pharmaceuticals, digital public infrastructure and the absence of debt-sustainability concerns.
- Latin America is India’s least developed major relationship, driven by crude from Venezuela and Mexico, agricultural commodities from Brazil and Argentina, lithium and copper, and pharmaceutical exports.
- West Asia supplies the majority of India’s crude, hosts around nine million Indian workers and is the largest source of remittances, and India has separated its Gulf, Iranian and Israeli relationships successfully.
- The NIEO agenda persists in current form as demands on debt, climate finance, technology transfer, vaccine equity and institutional reform.
The Global South platform
From NIEO to the Voice of the Global South
The historical line runs through Chapter 42: UNCTAD (1964), the G-77, the NIEO Declaration of 1974, and India’s role in articulating Southern demands. What changed is that India is now a large economy, which makes it both a more credible advocate and a less obvious member of the constituency.
The current architecture: the Voice of the Global South Summit, convened virtually by India in January 2023 with over one hundred and twenty countries and repeated subsequently; the G20 presidency of 2023, whose signal achievement was securing the African Union‘s admission as a permanent member, giving the continent the representation it lacked; the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, agreed by consensus despite divisions over Ukraine; and initiatives with Southern relevance, the Global Biofuels Alliance, the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and the promotion of digital public infrastructure as an exportable model.
The 2024 paper asked whether India could lead the Global South in establishing a new international economic order. The honest answer weighs three things: India’s credibility, which rests on its own development experience and its refusal of bloc alignment; its capacity, which is growing but far short of what a redistributive agenda would require; and the tension between advocacy for the South and India’s own pursuit of permanent Security Council membership, NSG entry and great-power partnerships, which other developing countries notice.
The development cooperation model
India’s model differs from both Western aid and Chinese lending, and stating the differences is what makes an answer analytical.
- Lines of credit through the Export-Import Bank, concessional and tied to Indian goods and services, extended to over sixty countries with Africa the largest recipient.
- ITEC, the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme from 1964, providing civilian and defence training slots annually, with alumni networks in the administrations of partner countries.
- Grant projects and turnkey construction: parliament buildings, hospitals, IT centres, and the Pan-African e-Network for tele-education and telemedicine.
- No policy conditionality, which is the model’s principal attraction and its principal criticism, since it does not press for governance improvement.
- Capacity over concrete: training, scholarships and institution-building rather than large infrastructure, which is where India cannot match Chinese scale.
Africa
Drivers
The 2023 and 2025 papers both asked about the drivers of India’s interest in Africa, the second asking specifically what might build long-term comparative advantage over China.
- Energy. Crude from Nigeria and Angola and gas from Mozambique, where Indian public sector companies hold significant stakes.
- Critical minerals. Cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite and rare earths, sought through the Mineral Security Partnership and bilateral exploration agreements, which have become a first-order interest for battery and electronics manufacturing.
- Markets. Pharmaceuticals, where India supplies a very large share of Africa’s generic medicines and of UNICEF’s vaccine procurement; automobiles and two-wheelers; agricultural machinery; and increasingly digital services.
- Maritime security. The western Indian Ocean, anti-piracy operations off the Horn since 2008, and the Mission SAGAR deployments; the SAGAR framework and its successor formulations for the wider Indian Ocean.
- Diaspora. Long-established communities in East and Southern Africa, with a historical link running back to indentured migration and to Gandhi’s twenty-one years in South Africa.
- Multilateral support, on Security Council reform, climate finance and WTO positions, where African votes are numerous.
Institutional framework: the India-Africa Forum Summit in 2008, 2011 and 2015; expanded diplomatic presence with a substantial number of new missions opened since 2018; duty-free tariff preference for least developed countries from 2008; and support for the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Comparative advantage over China
The 2025 question asks precisely this, so the comparison must be concrete rather than assertive.
| China | India | |
|---|---|---|
| Scale of finance | Far larger; state-directed lending and construction | Much smaller; Exim Bank lines of credit |
| Model | Government-to-government contracts, Chinese contractors and often Chinese labour | Capacity building, training, private-sector investment, local employment |
| Debt profile | Sustainability concerns and renegotiations in several countries | Smaller exposure; concessional terms; less salient as a political issue |
| Sectors | Infrastructure, mining, ports, telecom | Pharmaceuticals, IT and digital public infrastructure, agriculture, education, health |
| Presence | Large expatriate contractor workforce | Long-settled diaspora and business communities |
| Political framing | Non-interference with strong state-to-state ties | Non-conditionality plus democratic affinity and shared colonial experience |
| Distinctive asset | Speed and scale of delivery | Affordable medicines, trained personnel, and digital public goods offered as replicable models |
The strategic conclusion for an answer: India’s advantage is not in competing on infrastructure finance but in human and institutional capacity and in affordable technology, particularly medicines and digital public infrastructure, where the offer is a transferable system rather than a built asset. Its constraints are delivery delays on credit lines, limited project implementation capacity and a small diplomatic footprint relative to the continent’s size.
Latin America
The least developed of India’s regional relationships, and answers are usually thin, so specifics matter.
Drivers. Energy: crude from Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, with Latin America a significant source of India’s imports. Minerals: copper from Chile and Peru, and lithium from the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile triangle, where Indian public sector undertakings have acquired exploration blocks. Agriculture: edible oils, pulses and sugar. Exports: pharmaceuticals, vehicles, chemicals and IT services, with substantial Indian corporate presence in Mexico and Brazil.
Institutional. The India-Mercosur preferential trade agreement (2004, in force 2009), with negotiations to expand it; India-Chile and India-Peru arrangements; membership alongside Brazil in IBSA and BRICS, and in the G4 on Security Council reform; and cooperation on biofuels, where Brazil is a founding partner of the Global Biofuels Alliance.
Constraints. Distance and freight costs; limited direct connectivity; small diplomatic presence; language; and the absence of an institutional framework comparable to the Africa summits.
West Asia
Not named in the syllabus line but indispensable, and repeatedly examined.
Interests. Energy: the region supplies a majority of India’s crude and most of its LNG. Labour and remittances: roughly nine million Indian nationals work in the Gulf, and the region is the largest source of India’s remittance inflows. Trade and investment: the UAE and Saudi Arabia are among India’s largest trading partners, with sovereign wealth investment flowing into India. Security: maritime security in the Gulf, counter-terrorism cooperation, and diaspora protection, demonstrated in evacuation operations.
The de-hyphenation achievement. India has separated relationships that were previously treated as a package: deep engagement with the Gulf monarchies and with Israel simultaneously; continued relations with Iran despite sanctions; and a Palestine position maintained alongside the Israeli relationship. The instruments: the India-UAE CEPA (2022); the I2U2 grouping with Israel, the UAE and the United States (2022); the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at the 2023 G20; and the Chabahar port agreement with Iran, which gives India access to Afghanistan and Central Asia bypassing Pakistan, and which has operated under a United States sanctions exemption.
Palestine. The 2024 paper asked about continuity and change. The continuity: India was the first non-Arab state to recognise the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, recognised the State of Palestine in 1988, and has consistently supported a two-state solution with a sovereign, viable Palestine within secure borders living alongside Israel, and has continued development assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The change: full diplomatic relations with Israel from 1992; a defence and technology relationship of substantial scale; India’s initial condemnation of the October 2023 attacks framed as terrorism without immediate reference to occupation; abstention on the first General Assembly ceasefire resolution in October 2023 while voting for a subsequent one in December; and continued humanitarian assistance to Gaza through UNRWA and directly. The analytical point: India has moved from a position of solidarity to one of balance, and the balance is maintained by separating the humanitarian and political tracks from the bilateral security relationship.
Iran. The 2023 paper asked for the challenges. They are: American sanctions, which ended Indian crude purchases after the waiver lapsed in 2019 and complicate payments and investment; the slow pace of Chabahar development and of the associated rail link; Iran’s deepening relationship with China, including a long-term cooperation agreement; periodic Iranian statements on Indian domestic matters; and the difficulty of maintaining the Iran relationship alongside those with Israel, the Gulf states and the United States. The countervailing interests are equally real: Chabahar’s connectivity value, the International North-South Transport Corridor, and Iran’s position on India’s access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Where answers lose marks
- Treating the Global South as a bloc India leads. It is a coalition India convenes, and other members, including China, contest the leadership.
- Comparing India and China in Africa by volume alone. India cannot match scale; the answer lies in capacity, pharmaceuticals and digital public goods.
- Omitting critical minerals. They have become a first-order driver of both African and Latin American engagement.
- Presenting India’s Palestine policy as unchanged. Recognition and two-state support are continuous; the balance with Israel and the voting pattern since October 2023 are the change.
- Writing on West Asia without the labour and remittance dimension. Nine million nationals is the largest single Indian interest in the region.
Asked before
- Discuss some of the key drivers of India’s new interests in Africa which might help in developing long-term comparative advantage over China. (2025, Paper II, 15 marks)
- Discuss the major drivers of India’s interests in Africa. (2023, Paper II, 15 marks)
- Discuss the potential role that India could play as the leader of the Global South in realising the goal of establishing a new international economic order. (2024, Paper II, 15 marks)
- Critically examine the continuity and change in India’s Palestine policy in the wake of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. (2024, Paper II, 20 marks)
- What are the challenges and limitations in India–Iran relations? (2023, Paper II, 15 marks)
- What diplomatic steps has India taken to articulate the interests of the Global South in International Politics? (2023, Paper II, 10 marks)
Answer skeleton
Discuss some of the key drivers of India’s new interests in Africa which might help in developing long-term comparative advantage over China. (15 marks, 250 words)
Frame. India cannot compete with China on the scale of infrastructure finance. The question is where scale is not the decisive variable, and that is where India’s advantage lies.
Driver one, critical minerals. Cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite and rare earths for battery and electronics manufacturing, pursued through the Mineral Security Partnership and bilateral exploration agreements. A new interest, not a legacy one.
Driver two, energy. Crude from Nigeria and Angola, gas from Mozambique with Indian public sector stakes.
Driver three, markets and pharmaceuticals. India supplies a very large share of Africa’s generic medicines and of vaccine procurement, which is both commerce and goodwill.
Driver four, digital public infrastructure. Identity, payments and data-exchange systems offered as replicable public goods rather than as procured assets, which is an offer China does not make in the same form.
Driver five, maritime security and multilateral support. Anti-piracy since 2008, the SAGAR framework, and African backing on Security Council reform and climate finance.
Where the comparative advantage lies. Capacity building through ITEC alumni in African administrations; private investment and local employment rather than imported contract labour; concessional exposure without debt-sustainability salience; and a long-settled diaspora. India transfers systems and skills; China transfers assets.
Constraints, stated honestly. Delivery delays on credit lines, limited project execution capacity, and a diplomatic footprint still small relative to fifty-four countries. Conclude that the advantage is real but requires implementation capacity India has yet to build.
Last-mile revision
- Voice of the Global South Summit from January 2023; G20 presidency 2023 and the African Union’s admission; New Delhi Declaration; Global Biofuels Alliance, ISA, CDRI, digital public infrastructure.
- Model: Exim Bank lines of credit, ITEC from 1964, grant projects, Pan-African e-Network, no policy conditionality.
- Africa drivers: energy, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and vehicles, maritime security and SAGAR, diaspora, multilateral support. India-Africa Forum Summits 2008, 2011, 2015; duty-free tariff preference from 2008.
- Latin America: crude, copper and lithium, agricultural imports; India-Mercosur PTA 2004 in force 2009; IBSA, BRICS, G4; Global Biofuels Alliance with Brazil.
- West Asia: majority of crude, around nine million workers, largest remittance source; India-UAE CEPA 2022, I2U2 2022, IMEC 2023, Chabahar with Iran.
- Palestine: PLO recognition, State of Palestine recognised 1988, two-state support; Israel relations from 1992; voting pattern since October 2023; UNRWA and direct assistance.
- Iran challenges: sanctions and the 2019 waiver lapse, Chabahar delays, Iran-China agreement, balancing with Israel, the Gulf and the United States; INSTC as the countervailing interest.
Read the rest. This chapter is one of 58 in the complete PSIR Optional Notes, covering Paper I and Paper II in full — free to download.
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