As Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Johannesburg for the G20 summit, he arrived as an unlikely champion of the continent. Over four visits to South Africa in less than a decade, alongside stops in Ghana and Namibia that marked the first such trips by an Indian leader in over three decades, Modi has quietly assembled something that eludes much Western and Chinese engagement with Africa: sustained partnerships built on trust and mutual development goals.

No 30-year infrastructure loans creating perpetual debt, or loan shark relationships, or hijacking a port for 100 years. Instead, 200 entrepreneurs signing binding agreements on vehicles and medicines. Namibia deploying India’s digital payment system and malaria drugs costing 50 cents rather than $10. India, under Modi, has built a relationship with Africa on a mutual understanding of needs.

This week’s summit carries symbolic weight, being the first time the G20 convenes on African soil, and the African Union sits as a permanent member, a prize India secured during its 2023 presidency. However, the real story lies in what precedes this moment: how an emerging economy has positioned itself as Africa’s most reliable development partner, not by projecting power, but by delivering practical solutions grounded in India’s own hard-won development experience.

Distance clouds judgment. India’s engagement with Africa rarely generates the geopolitical drama that attracts Western media focus. China’s $280 billion in African trade dwarfs India’s roughly $100 billion. But therein lies the rub: multiple African nations now strain under Chinese debt burdens from infrastructure projects whose returns never materialised.

PM Modi’s four South Africa visits since 2016, including bilateral engagement in 2016, BRICS summits in 2018 and 2023, and now the G20, signal a consistency unusual in great power politics. When governments shift, foreign policy priorities often pivot. South Africa has seen 2 presidents in the last decade. ANC, while still the biggest party, now leads a coalition government. India has also undergone a change politically; Modi’s BJP also now rules with the help of coalition partners, the National Democratic Alliance.

There has been global economic upheaval and geopolitical realignment, but India’s connection to Africa, and in particular to South........

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