Classrooms as Corridors of Public Diplomacy: Education Exchange in India–Africa Relations

Muskaan Khanna^*

PhD Researcher (SRF), University of Delhi

Correspondence to: ^*Email: muskaank61099@gmail.com

Abstract

Education exchange is an important yet under-theorized dimension of contemporary diplomacy between India and African countries. While India–Africa relations are often examined through trade, development cooperation, and strategic engagement, the diplomatic significance of student mobility, scholarships, and capacity-building initiatives remains insufficiently explored. This paper conceptualizes education exchange as a relational form of public diplomacy grounded in sustained interpersonal interaction, knowledge sharing, and institutional linkages rather than short-term image projection. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy documents, scholarship programmes, digital learning initiatives, and secondary accounts of student experiences, the study examines how India deploys education as a diplomatic instrument across Africa. It argues that education exchange functions as a durable channel of diplomacy fostering normative convergence, elite socialization, and South–South solidarity, while enabling India to project itself as a developmental and accessible partner. At the same time, the paper highlights constraints including infrastructural limitations, social integration challenges faced by African students in India, and weak alumni institutionalization. The study contributes by situating education exchange within soft power and Global South debates, foregrounding African agency, and demonstrating how education diplomacy simultaneously reinforces and complicates India’s partnership narrative.

Keywords:

Education diplomacy, Soft Power, South–South cooperation, Student mobility, Capacity building, Global South

AI Acknowledgment

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were not used in any way to prepare, write, or complete essential authoring tasks in this manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this research.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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