The Economist 07Dec2019

58 Asia The EconomistDecember 7th 2019

2

Banyan Tight bulb moment

I

n south asiathe ruling classes ignore

the quotidian at their peril. Just ask

them about onions. This autumn the

humble bulb has challenged titans.

The trouble began when unseason-

ably heavy rains followed drought across

the onion-growing belt of north and

central India. That not only all but de-

stroyed the crop; the wet caused more

than a third of onions in storage to rot.

The result is a severe shortage of onions

across India, as a result of which prices

more than tripled.

This hardly threatens famine—some-

thing the green revolution abolished

decades ago by boosting wheat and rice

yields. Yet remove the onion and you

struggle to imagine Indian cuisine. It

forms the base for curries and biryanis.

When a poor Indian has nothing else to

eat, at least she has an onion with a cha-

pati or two.

The onion crisis has hit both the

farmers and urban consumers of north

India, the political heartland of the

prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his

Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp). In the past,

state and even national governments

have fallen over onions: Indira Gandhi’s

return to power in 1980 was assisted by

an election campaign that equated high

onion prices with economic mismanage-

ment. Mr Modi, who faces growing eco-

nomic problems, is surely aware of the

perils. In late September his government

slapped a ban on exports of onions. That

briefly brought down prices, helping

consumers. But it has angered farmers

and exporters in Gujarat, Maharashtra

and Karnataka, for whom onions are an

essential cash crop. For the bjpthese are

key battleground states. And when onion

prices are high another problem

emerges—organised gangs of allium

thieves. The government risks getting

blamed for those too.

In South Asia, a region riven by geopo-

litical faultlines, there are international

implications. Upon hearing of Mr Modi’s

export ban, Bangladesh’s strongwoman,

Sheikh Hasina Wajed, admonished his

government for giving no warning. Her

country counts on Indian onions, whose

price at one point had risen fivefold in the

markets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

She had, she claimed, been forced to tell

her own chef to cook without onions, no

small or easy thing.

Bangladesh immediately tendered for

imports to be airlifted from Egypt, Turkey

and, notably, from Pakistan. Trade be-

tween the two countries has been negligi-

ble since Bangladesh split from Pakistan in

a terrible war in 1971. Relations have been

especially strained over the recent convic-

tions and executions for war crimes of

pro-Pakistan Bangladeshis. So the ap-

proach to Pakistan hinted at the govern-

ment’s desperation.

Despite a long, shared land border,

trade between Pakistan and India is also

lamentably small. The two countries too

often relish their political enmity over

the huge potential benefits from trade.

However, such is India’s onion crisis, it,

too, is turning to Pakistan.

Though such decisions are taken at

the highest level, it is too much to think

that this welcome outbreak of onion

diplomacy can lay South Asia’s old antag-

onisms to rest. Even at home, Indian

politicians are blind to some obvious

conclusions from the crisis, however

much their fate is tied to the markets for

farm produce. Though the bjpreacts

quickly to market stress, politicians have

done far too little to encourage decent

agricultural warehousing. A conse-

quence is that staggering proportions of

vegetables and fruit (and even pulses and

grain) end up spoiled. The impediments

to trade and poor storage mean that even

modest changes in supply and demand

lead to wild swings in prices. An onion

glut last year, for instance, prompted

calls for aid for farmers.

There is perhaps karmic justice in the

prospect of Mr Modi suffering politically

over onions. For reasons of cynical elec-

toral advantage, he and his closest advis-

ers have chosen heavily to politicise one

specific food choice above all: the con-

sumption of beef, a practice shunned by

most Hindus, who consider cows to be

sacred. The Hindu-chauvinist bjphas

turned the cow into a marker of good

Indians (Hindus) and bad (Muslims,

Christians and the godless). That has

helped the bjpconsolidate power across

India—and led to lynchings of those

accused of killing cows or trafficking in

their meat. Vegetarianism was once, as

Shikha Mukerjee, a writer based in Kol-

kata, puts it, a matter of culture and

choice. Mr Modi and his gang have made

it a centrepiece of politics. Shed only

onion tears at his current discomfort.

How food is a fulcrum in South Asian politics

any minister, upon declaring a particular

statement to be false, to order its removal

or correction. A special pofma office ad-

vises ministers on how best to act. It also

offers codes of practice to digital platforms.

The accused can only seek recourse at

the High Court after the minister in ques-

tion has rejected an appeal (which costs

about $150). The court can then rule on

whether the original statement was indeed

misleading. Individuals found guilty of ig-

noring correction orders or of deliberately

spreading lies face criminal penalties, in-

cluding prison terms of up to ten years,

fines of S$100,000 ($73,000) or both. So-

cial-media firms face fines of up to S$1m.

Human rights groups, a unSpecial Rap-

porteur and a cluster of tech firms have all

opposed pofma. Its vast scope—from priv-

ate group messages to online videos and

beyond—is a particular concern. And it

joins a host of other legislation which al-

ready keeps critics in check. The country’s

constitution limits free speech with “such

restrictions as it considers necessary or ex-

pedient”. Contempt-of-court law has been

used to target the odd journalist, cartoonist

or blogger. Defamation cases trouble other

outspoken figures. Singapore sits below

Russia, Afghanistan and many of its own

neighbours in the latest ranking of press

freedom compiled by Reporters Without

Borders, a watchdog.

Sending fabricated messages was al-

ready a crime under the Telecommunica-

tions Act. But pofma offers the govern-

ment ways to respond to criticism it deems

unreasonable faster and in a (slightly) less

heavy-handed manner. Facebook has said

that it hopes the law will not impinge on

free expression. To say it already has would

presumably attract a pofmaorder. 7