Delhi - In what may be an extraordinary sign of things to come, the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is planning to export its drought-hit farmers to Africa. The state government is planning to lease 28 300ha in Kenya and Uganda for Indian farmers to cultivate.
The scheme is likely to be controversial. Memories of Idi Amin's forced expulsion of more than 70 000 Asians from Uganda in 1972 are still raw, and recent years have seen tensions between Kenya's African and Asian communities.
Nevertheless, under the Andhra Pradesh government's plan, the first 500 farmers will leave for Kenya and Uganda in June next year. The fear is that they will be seen as modern-day colonisers from an India that is growing in economic strength.
But, if India's economy is booming sufficiently for a state government to be able to buy up tens of thousands of hectares of cultivable land in Africa, the farmers of Andhra Pradesh have seen little of the plenty.
Andhra Pradesh has been one of the powerhouses of India's economic transformation. Part of the city of Hyderabad has been renamed Cyberabad because of the number of international IT firms relocating there.
In the rural areas outside the city, though, there is a different story. Like most of India, Andhra Pradesh has suffered a series of devastating droughts in recent years, which have crippled the farming industry.
The suicide rate among farmers unable to pay off their debts because of failed crops has sky-rocketed. In the past six years, more than 3 000 farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh.
The state government says its new African venture is designed to ease the farmers' woes. It wants to lease the land from the Kenyan and Ugandan authorities for 99 years.
A farmers' co-operative will be set up and the Indian farmers will be allowed to run the farms as if they were the landowners. They will be able to send their earnings home to their families in India, but they will be obliged to use local Kenyan and Ugandan labourers. The lease will be paid off using a percentage of the profits earned by the co-operative.
The Andhra Pradesh government has signed letters of understanding with local authorities to lease 20 234ha in Kenya, and with the Ugandan Investment Authority to lease 8 000ha there.
"The next step is formalisation of the lease, selection of farmers, indentification of crops to be grown and funding for the project," C C Reddy, an adviser to the Andhra Pradesh government.
The idea is that Kenya and Uganda will benefit from the Indian farmers' experience.
"We have fertile land and abundant water. What we need is the green revolution experience of Indian farmers," the Kenyan High Commissioner to India, Mutuma Kathurima, was quoted as saying on a recent visit to Andhra Pradesh.
But the scheme may prove more controversial than that. Asians have had a troubled history in East Africa. Although there were extensive trade links before, Indians were imported to the region in mass numbers during the British colonial era to work as labourers constructing a railway from the port of Mombasa to the Ugandan capital, Kampala.
Asians became one of the wealthiest sections of society. But there were racial tensions between the Asian minority and the African majority. In 1972, Uganda's Idi Amin, looking for a populist cause to shore up his rule, seized on those tensions. He expelled more than 70 000 Asians from the country and confiscated their property.
Some returned to India and Pakistan. Others moved to Britain, where they are one of the most successful immigrant communities. Relatively few have returned to Uganda.
Many of Kenya's Asians fled the country in the sixties when, in a notorious decision, the British government reneged on an earlier promise and refused them entry. Today Kenya's Asian minority still faces tensions. Many Kenyans resent the comparative wealth of the Asians, and historically the Asian community has not assimilated. In 2000, one Kenyan Asian told the Washington Post: "I think of 'Kenyan Asians' like 'German Jews'."
The import of hundreds of Indian farmers to cultivate private reserves in countries where local farmers are facing their own problems from poverty may prove far from popular.
In Andhra Pradesh, the scheme has come under fire from opposition parties.
One unnamed politician from the Telugu Desam Party was quoted as saying: "The government should try to find a solution to the farmers' problem within the state.
"The whole scheme looks escapist and fanciful. It reminds one of indentured Indian labourers being sent by the British to work in plantations in Africa and other countries." - The Independent