Two years seems such a long time ago. As the presiding deity of the emerging world of May 25, 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh triumphantly unveiled a $5-billion (over Rs 26,000 crore) line of credit to help African nations build local capabilities. The promise included spreading out Indian presence from agriculture to information technology, tele-medicine to a virtual university.

The bucks were big, but the PM’s strategy looked like a master stroke; of treading softly via developmental initiatives, leaving Asian-rival Beijing positioned as a ruthless hustler for the continent’s natural resources.

Then, cruelly enough, we pricked our own hot-air balloon.

The pledges are returning to haunt us, leaving our envoys in African capitals blue in the face, offering sheepish explanations of why the money isn’t going to flow in for a long time to come.

Sudan and South Sudan, for example, are awaiting their share of the promised land, not always based on realism. More so, after India’s special envoy , Amrendra Khatua, since transferred to Buenos Aires, was replaced by PS Raghvan, a special-secretary level officer, whose main job is to head the newly-minted development partnership administration (DPA).

What African leaders don’t understand is that the bulk of Rs 7,018 crore allotted for development assistance in P Chidamabaram’s Union budget this year is meant for our immediate neighbourhood.

The idea? If we fix polio, but our neighbour doesn’t, we might as well not have fixed it!

So, Thimpu will get Rs 2,525 crore of which Rs 1,468 crore will be a loan.  For Kabul, Chidambaram has budgeted Rs 2,875 crore for plan and Rs 548 crore for non-plan. Dhaka will get Rs 580 crore (the figure was only Rs 30 crore in budget estimates for 2012-13 and a puny Rs 8.8 in actuals of 2011-12). Colombo will get Rs 500 crore against Rs 290 crore last time. The folks in Male have been punished. Their budgetary estimates of Rs286 crore in 2012-13 had already become Rs 30 in the revised estimates of 2012-13; Rs 30 crore is where the allocation stays in the 2013-14 budget. Kathmandu is up at Rs 380  crore (revised estimates in 2012-13 were Rs 270 crore). Colombo gets Rs 500 crore. (Revised 2012-13 Rs 290 crore). Islamabad, if you still wondered, doesn’t appreciate our development overtures, unmindful that without mutual stakes, conflict is imperative.

This has left just Rs 300 crore for the whole of Africa, a land of the future!

So, what, for example, happens when friendly Djibouti wants additional dole to top up the $20 million that India has already handed out for a cement plant at Ali Sabieh? “Sorry, no money,” India has had to say. Similarly for a host of other commitments the PM made in a rush of blood.

Part of the problem, of course, is that African leaderships are corrupt and lines of credit are more often than not frittered away, if not filched in large measure.

That said, Chidambaram’s own limitations are staring foreign minister Salman Khurshid in the face.

In thus week’s London Summit on Somalia, from all accounts in the international media, Indian contributions are conspicuous in their absence.

Somalia Tuesday won international pledges of extra cash and military assistance in the name of the twin threats of Islamic militancy and piracy. Promising stability in a country ravaged by two decades of civil war, lawlessness and famine, aiming to rebuild decimated infrastructure and institutions, Mogadishu has reported  $279 million, including funding for a planned doubling of the police force. Besides, Washington donated $40 million on top of the $1.5 billion it has given since 2009.

London has said it would supply military experts to bolster security forces and fortify the Somali prison, besides seeking to stamp out Islamic insurgents; an African Union military offensive has weakened the al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebel group al Shabaab and piracy in sea lanes off Somalia.

The subject is crucial to New Delhi as well.

The World Bank estimates that piracy off Somalia costs the world economy $18 billion!

Despite its own slowdown, Beijing remains the biggest presence in Africa, churning out airport terminals and Prime Ministerial Offices (in Kampala, as my host there pointed out) to football stadiums at a breathtaking pace, in return for access to resources and minerals. The pushback is self evident, including a recent criticism published in the Financial Times by the governor of the Bank of Nigeria, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, accusing Beijing of colonizing Africa. This forced Beijing’s new boss, Xi Jingping, to belabour the point that China saw Africa as a galloping lion!

Clearly both Asian giants, the Indian pachyderm and the Chinese dragon, are tiring. The question is what does this do to the lion!