Bandung 2.0

In April 1955, the leaders of 29 countries — many of them newly independent, some still colonies on the cusp of achieving freedom — gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, for what would become a seminal moment in the construction of a non-aligned identity amid the Cold War.

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Led by India and Indonesia, the participants — all of them from nations in Asia or Africa — debated the pitfalls of jumping into either the Western camp or the Soviet-led bloc and dreamt of a world where they, the developing nations, could forge a solidarity of their own. For India, under the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the Bandung Conference was also reflective of a commitment to Africa. Seventy years later, that commitment remains an integral part of India’s foreign policy vision. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that India’s priority was not just Africa, but Africans. Yet it is also impossible to ignore the reality that the India-Africa relationship has fallen short of t