When Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Accra, Ghana, on a humid July morning in 2025, it wasn’t just the ceremonial red carpet that welcomed him, it was history calling. For decades, India had nurtured warm relations with Africa, but they often remained confined to summits, photo-ops, and symbolic diplomacy. Modi’s arrival, however, carried with it something more profound: a message that India no longer saw Africa merely as a market, it saw Africa as a partner.
Ghana, a nation etched deep into the memory of Pan-Africanism and independence movements, proved a fitting stage for India’s deepening African outreach. From the first breath of Accra’s sea breeze to the jubilant beats of the Adowa dance performed in his honour, PM Modi’s visit was rich in cultural and emotional resonance.
For the Indian diaspora in Ghana, traders, teachers, doctors, and second-generation citizens, Modi’s visit felt like an overdue acknowledgment. “He represents us,” said Rajiv Mehra, a 52-year-old Indian-origin textile merchant in Kumasi. “Not just Indians in Ghana, but Ghanaians who see value in humility, partnership, and shared progress.”
The visit was the first by an Indian Prime Minister to Ghana in nearly six decades. Modi began his trip by paying tribute at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, the resting place of Ghana’s founding father. There, standing amidst bronze statues and the eternal flame, Modi bowed not just to Ghana’s history but to a broader idea: that developing nations must rise together or not at all.
In his keynote address at the University of Ghana, PM Modi echoed a refrain that would shape the tone of the visit, and possibly the future of India-Africa relations.
“We do not see Africa as a market to be exploited, but as a partner to be empowered,” he declared to applause. “Our destinies are not separated by oceans; they are bound by them.”
The statement was more than rhetoric. India, he emphasised, would support Ghana not with conditional loans or extractive agreements, but with capacity-building, technology transfer, and co-creation. At a time when major powers are scrambling for Africa’s resources, from rare earths to ports and data, Modi’s emphasis on dignity struck a distinct chord.
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, standing beside Modi during a joint press briefing, acknowledged this shift. “India’s approach is refreshing,” he said. “It’s not about domination. It’s about shared dreams.”
Words alone don’t sustain partnerships. What mattered more were the concrete initiatives announced during the visit:
- Pan-African Telemedicine and E-Education Centres: India committed to setting up three advanced centres in Ghana to provide real-time access to Indian medical expertise and academic instruction. The model is not new, but Modi’s insistence on upgrading it with diagnostic tools and renewable energy infrastructure made it transformative.
- Solar Alliance for West Africa: Ghana joined the International Solar Alliance, co-founded by India, with a commitment to collaborate on solar energy parks in northern Ghana. Modi pledged ₹300 crore in line-of-credit financing for solar panel manufacturing units and microgrids.
- 3. Agritech & Start-up Incubators: Recognising Ghana’s agrarian economy, India offered technological tie-ups in precision farming, irrigation systems, and blockchain-based crop insurance. A joint “Agri-Youth Start-up Fund” was announced, with India contributing ₹50 crore initially.
- Skill India – Ghana Edition: Adapting its Skill India model, India proposed training 20,000 Ghanaian youth in automotive repairs, coding, handicrafts, and hospitality over the next five years.
- Cultural Exchange Programmes: A festival of Indian cinema, literature, and classical dance was announced to tour Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi, underlining the soft power dimension of diplomacy.
Beyond the summits and bilateral documents, it was the unguarded human interactions that defined Modi’s trip. In Nima, a modest working-class neighborhood in Accra, PM Modi met Ghanaian women entrepreneurs running micro-businesses funded through Indian credit lines. He listened as 27-year-old Jamila Mensah described how a ₹30,000 loan helped her set up a spice and herbs kiosk that now employed three others.
“You’re not just trading spices,” Modi said to her. “You’re adding flavour to your community’s prosperity.”
Later, in a government school on the outskirts of Accra, he surprised students by walking into a digital classroom donated by India in 2019. “This screen doesn’t just connect you to India, it connects you to your future,” he told the children, gently running his fingers over a globe they had drawn.
Such moments resonated far more than any press release could. They reminded the world that diplomacy is not merely strategy, it is empathy.
While the tone was one of friendship and cooperation, strategic calculations were unmistakably present.
India’s Africa outreach comes at a time when China has already entrenched itself with infrastructure projects and extractive resource agreements across the continent. The West too, spurred by competition, is stepping up its engagements.
Modi’s pitch, however, leaned on a shared colonial past. “We both know what it means to be subjugated and then to rise,” he told Ghana’s Parliament. “Our engagement is not charity, it is solidarity.”
Indeed, Ghana’s growing importance in the ECOWAS bloc, its relatively stable democracy, and burgeoning digital economy make it a strategic anchor for India’s outreach in West Africa.
Defense cooperation too found mention. While no formal agreements were announced, sources indicated talks on Indian support in coastal security training and cyber defence cooperation.
In a hall adorned with kente cloth and marigolds, Modi addressed the Indian diaspora, small in number, but strong in cultural bonding. He thanked them not just for preserving Indian traditions, but for becoming “ambassadors of harmony” in Ghana.
Ghanaians of Indian origin, descendants of early Sindhi traders and Goan teachers, have long been a quiet yet critical part of Ghana’s economic fabric. Now, with India reasserting its Africa focus, they find themselves at the fulcrum of a promising new era.
“You are not guests here. You are the living bridges between our two lands,” Modi declared. The emotion in the room was palpable.
In the weeks ahead, policy analysts will dissect the visit’s implications, economists will scrutinise the trade figures, and rival powers will take stock. But in the warm streets of Accra, and in the hopeful hearts of young Ghanaians and Indian entrepreneurs, the message is already clear.
This was not a visit to dictate terms. It was a visit to rewrite narratives.
In a world where partnerships are too often transactional, India and Ghana are trying to script something older and yet entirely new, a relationship based not on extraction, but on exchange; not on instruction, but on inspiration.
As the sun set behind the Gulf of Guinea and Modi’s plane took off for his next African stop, one could sense that something had shifted. A long-neglected bridge had finally found footsteps again.
And from that bridge, a shared journey into the future had just begun.
