Hell no, we won’t grow: Indian farmers’ mass protests

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Today, America will designate the Houthis, a militant group that controls much of Yemen, as a terrorist organization. The reasons are clear. The expected impact on the Houthis less so, more likely, it will harm Yemenis already at the brink of famine. And there aren't many African comic book heroes in the global imagination. But that is changing. African artists are telling stories rooted in the continent's mythologies and with a digital push, making those stories heard the world over. First up, though, By the numbers, it may be the world's biggest demonstration. For nearly two months, thousands upon thousands of farmers have been camped on the outskirts of Delhi, blocking traffic into the city. They're protesting against the introduction of three new laws that they say put their livelihoods in jeopardy. It's a troublesome challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who's accustomed to steamrolling his political adversaries. But the Indian farmers are proving to be a resilient Opposition?

Well, about two months ago, an enormous number of farmers from around North India, especially Punjab and Haryana, descended on the capital.

Alex Trevelly is an India correspondent for the Economist.

They'd been protesting in Punjab since September, but starting in late November, they came in tremendous numbers, riding on lorries, driving their own tractors with the intention of marching on Delhi. What happened then was a showdown around the borders of Delhi with the police keeping them out of the city proper. And, and the result is that encampments have sprung up in a great big ring around the national capital.

And so what's it like at these protest camps?

So these look almost like miniature cities now, congregating around these choke points around the Capitol. They've really at times slowed traffic in and out, disrupted supplies to the city. In that respect it looks like a siege. In other respects it looks like a much jollier thing. The farmers are taking care of one another with food. Big mobile kitchens they've set up in a traditional Punjabi style. The role of women has been very prominent throughout the protests in that respect. It looks like some protests against the government about a year ago against the citizenship amendment bill that were cut short by the pandemic. But these are even bigger and so far have shown every sign of lasting longer.

And so what are the new laws that all these people are protesting against?

So it's a set of three laws, very leanly written, that were run through the Parliament with great speed. But on the whole, the point of the laws is something that economists and agronomists have been arguing in favor of for a long time. The idea is to deregulate the somewhat complicated system by which small Indian producers, like most farmers are here, sell their grains and other crops to buyers. There are some very regulated small markets called mundi's. One of these laws allows for unregulated markets to pop up alongside the Mundis in a way that it's understood will eventually make the Mondays irrelevant. Another of the three discards what's now a rather antique law that prevented mass storage of grains and other farm producers in the name of anti hoarding that's seen as being obsolete. So in general, if these three laws were to go through, and if they were well written, perhaps better written than they are, they ought to be better for India's sluggish agriculture sector, which employs perhaps most of the country's workforce while generating only 16% of its earnings.

And so what is it that the farmers have against these laws? Specifically?

They've got a lot of different problems with the laws. The Long. And the short of it is they're afraid that big business will game them out of their meager profits and that unruly market players will destroy the minimum prices, make prices altogether more volatile, and leave the cost of these reforms sitting squarely on the shoulders of the farmers, the people who can least afford to bear it.

And aside from keeping them outside of Delhi, what's the government's response been to this standoff?

The government has tried to placate the farmers with various offerings that all fall very far short of what the farmers are demanding. They demand first, the revocation, no questions asked, about those three laws. The government doesn't seem to be able to give them that. But the supreme court made a really unusual intervention last week, and skeptical types might suppose that the supreme court had coordinated its judgment with the government. And what this supreme court judgment proposed is that there be an indefinite stay put on the implementation of these laws. It scolded the government for having tried to do things too quickly. And in the meantime, an expert panel will look at the laws and then come back to the court and tell them what should be done. Now, that has singularly failed to send the farmers home. The farmers may be pleased to see that they've got the government on the back foot. But if the supreme court's judgment was to serve as any kind of a compromise, it's just not worked.

And so how big a challenge does that present for the government, for the prime minister?

So it's a very interesting kind of challenge to this government. Narendra Modi, the prime minister, controls an almost unprecedented majority in parliament. The opposition parties are worthless. The courts always seem to rule in his favor. He runs the table. And yet a big popular protest movement like this is a very hard thing to put down. The farmers, even if economically they don't represent the country as a whole. They are sympathetic figures. And the villains, a couple of big industrial players who have very close relationships with the government, are villains that are difficult for the government to talk about. So it's not obvious what Mr. Modi can do really, apart from force or a popular movement to pose against this, which they've somewhat tried to muster and not yet managed. No one in the government knows what they can do to get the farmers to go home. Neither do the farmers know what they can do to bend the government any further to their will. But they indicate that they're willing to stay put for a whole year if they need to.

I mean, a year is a long time for this headache to. To persist for. For the government for, for Mr. Modi. I mean, what, what do you expect in the nearer term?

Well, you know, every day is a blizzard of activity. You have so many protesters and so many different interested parties involved in this. There was supposed to be a great big meeting between the government and the protesters leadership today. That was postponed till tomorrow. But also today the opposition Congress party as essentially come out against the farm laws. More clearly than ever. Police forces from Delhi and the neighboring state of up have met with protesters about particular problems they're having into the biggest encampment right outside the city. Meanwhile, the next big day we have to look forward to is a week from now. It's Republic Day, January 26, and it's marked with more pomp and circumstance than any other date on the national calendar, perhaps more so than Independence Day in August even. It's typically celebrated with a big military parade. It will be as usual this year with Prime Minister Modi watching on. And what the farmers have long promised to do is to send a competing parade of their own tractors through the city. Now, if that draws the TV cameras as you'd think it would, it's going to be quite an unpleasant sight for Mr. Modi to have to compete with his military grandeur against these humble and mostly appealing farmers making their grievances across town.

Thank you very much for your time, Alex.

Thanks a lot, Jason.

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As part of a string of diplomatic moves in the twilight of the Trump presidency, America will designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Today, the militants control much of Yemen, but the bid to harm them risks cutting off food and medicine to millions already facing starvation. The United nations has been pressing America to reconsider. We are struggling now without the designation. With the designation, it's going to be Catastrophic. It literally is going to be a death sentence to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people in Yemen. Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014 when the Houthis, backed by Iran, took control of the capital and overthrew the government. The following year, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened, and Yemen became the stage for an Iran Saudi proxy war. The conflict has reached an impasse, and diplomats fear that America's move today could scupper efforts to negotiate a settlement.

These designations are primarily meant to cut off the source of funding for proscribed groups. So in addition to confiscating any money they might have in America's jurisdiction, they also prohibit anyone from having financial dealings with the groups.

Greg Karlstrom is our Middle east correspondent.

They also impose a travel ban on the leadership and the membership of these groups. The question in the case of Yemen, in the case of the Houthis, is whether the benefits of doing so will outweigh the costs.

But there's been a tremendous amount of opposition to the move here, perhaps for that reason. I guess the question is, are the Houthis not a terrorist organization?

If these designations were only a legal decision, then inarguably, they would meet the criteria to be designated. This is a group that has carried out attacks on civilian targets. It's been blamed for an attack last month at the airport in aden, in Yemen's second city, which killed 26 people, which targeted the UN recognized government of Yemen. It's also a group that has abducted American citizens, for example. So in a legal sense, yes, they would meet the criteria to be designated. And even people who are critical of this decision don't argue the legal points. The controversy stems from the fact that these aren't just legal decisions. There's also a political component to this, a good example of that being the fact that the Taliban in Afghanistan is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization because America needs to deal with the Taliban, it needs to negotiate with them in Afghanistan.

But it's clearly not only a legal or a political decision. It's one that has humanitarian costs.

The primary cost, if you talk to the United nations, to NGOs, even to some American officials in the State Department, they will say they're very concerned about the humanitarian consequences of this. Yemen is a country where about 80% of the population relies on international aid, where the United nations has warned recently of a looming famine, where in many places aid groups are the only source of basic medical care. That includes areas controlled by the Houthis. And so, of Course, these aid groups and international organizations have to deal with the group to provide aid. They're quite concerned that they're going to now fall afoul of American sanctions for doing that. And so there is a very serious potential downside here. The humanitarian consequences could be profound. On the other hand, in terms of benefits from this decision, again, they're meant to cut off sources of funding for these groups. The Houthis are not a group that has many licit sources of funding. Much of their money comes from taxation, extortion, blackmail of civilians inside of Yemen. That will, of course, continue regardless of what America does.

Is there not a way for the Trump administration to make a carve out to make a loophole specifically for humanitarian aid?

There is, and the administration has promised to do that. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when he announced this policy about a week ago, he said he would issue licenses or waivers, if you will, that would allow aid groups and other organizations to continue working in Houthi controlled areas and not to have to worry about the threat of sanctions. The problem is, first, speaking with aid groups, as recently as last week, they said they haven't yet seen the text of these licenses. They're not sure how narrowly or how broadly they will be defined. And so they're still quite worried about the potential legal implications for them here.

And meanwhile, the conflict in Yemen still grinds on. I mean, how will this designation impact the prospects for peace, do you think?

In a broader sense, the war, the military side of the conflict, really has reached a stalemate over the past 12 to 18 months. There is an opening for a diplomatic effort, and the United nations has been trying to do just that over the past year. It's been a largely virtual effort because of the pandemic, but there has been a push to try and reach a negotiated settlement. The concern amongst many diplomats right now is that by designating the Houthis, it may complicate that push first, because it creates practical obstacles to any kind of negotiations. Even something like trying to organize a peace conference and inviting the group becomes difficult. And then there's the question of how the Houthis themselves might respond, whether they're going to come away from this more intransigent and less open to negotiations. So, again, there's a concern amongst diplomats that this could scuttle this ongoing effort to negotiate a deal.

And what do you make of the timing of the decision so close to the end of the Trump presidency?

This seems like a policy meant primarily to tie the hands of the incoming administration. And we've seen Trump and his team do this with a number of other countries as well. Over the past few weeks, they've tried to pile on new sanctions on Iran to try and keep their so called maximum pressure campaign intact. Under the Biden administration, they've rushed to push through arms sales to Arab states in the Gulf with this. If the Biden administration decides it wants to undo the designation of the Houthis, it can do that. It's a little more complicated than some economic sanctions, which the President can just undo with the stroke of a pen. In the case of a terrorism designation, there has to be a process. Either an act of Congress or the State Department has to conduct a review and certify that the group no longer meets the criteria for designation. But there's also an appetite to do it both within the White House. We've heard from Jake Sullivan, the incoming National Security Adviser who's been critical of this policy decision, but also in Congress where not just Democrats, but Republicans as well, many of them are upset about the humanitarian disaster that is Yemen, are frustrated with the Saudi led coalition and have also been critical of this decision. So if this is something the Biden administration wants to do, it can't undo it immediately. But there would be a fair amount of support in Washington for reversing this policy.

And if the policy is flawed, is misguided, what would be better? What is a good way to address the conflict in Yemen?

I think this decision, this designation, reflects a disconnect between how the Trump administration has seen Yemen and the reality in Yemen. For the Trump administration, Yemen has been about Iran. It's been a question of Iran's influence and Iran's ties to the Houthis. And so they're making the argument that by designating this group, they will try to diminish Iran's influence in Yemen. In reality, the Houthis are a Yemeni group. They've been fighting against the Yemeni government for a long time. They did not, until quite recently, have very deep ties to Iran. And ironically, what has brought them closer to Iran was the Saudi led invasion more than five years ago, which caused Iran to increase its support for the Houthis, not because of any particular strategic interest they have in Yemen, but just as a way to bleed the Saudis. And so if the Biden administration wants to try and negotiate an end in Yemen, if the UN wants to continue its efforts, or the eu, they have to recognize that Yemen is not simply another front in this Cold war between the Saudi led camp and the Iranian led camp. And they should stop treating it as such.

Thanks very much for your time, Greg.

Thank you.

Comic book fans in Africa have long faced a shortage of homegrown content and have had to make do with illustrations and animations from America, Japan, and Europe. But that's now changing. Only in part thanks to new technology, aficionados have access to a growing pool of African comic artists whose work may soon find a global audience as well.

To get a sense of what's happened to the African comic book industry over the past few years, you could do worse than look to a young Nigerian man called zeke Nelson.

John McDermott is our chief Africa correspondent.

He grew up watching TV cartoons like X Men, reading comic books such as Asterisks, and then went on to devour things like Japanese anime and manga. But as he was reading or watching these works, he felt there was something missing. When I spoke to him, he told me that we had this African heritage and no one was telling stories about where we're from. So in 2017, he decided to do something about it. He, together with two colleagues, set up a firm called Kugali, which sells comics from across the continent and makes its own animated works. In December, they announced a landmark deal.

To announce a first of its kind collaboration, as Kugali and Disney Animation team.

Up by securing a co production with Disney to make a series called Iwaju.

Which in the Yoruba language roughly translates to the future.

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, and steeped in.

Science fiction, Iwaju explores deep themes of class innocence and challenging the status quo.

And why is that such a landmark deal?

As you say, it's a landmark deal because it's the first time Disney has done a tie up with an African animation studio. But it's also emblematic of the growth of a small but vibrant African animation industry. In addition to Kugali, there are other Nigerian outfits, such as Comic Republic in Ethiopia. There is a publisher called Itan Comics, and there's animation studios dotted throughout southern Africa, particularly around Cape Town, as well as. And all of these are bringing African stories and African storytellers to a new global audience.

And why is there such a boom in that now, though?

I think there's a couple of things going on. The first is that new technology is making it easier for animators to make comics and then distribute them over the Internet. But the second is that there's a growing demand for African stories, whether that is from diaspora populations in America or Europe, or whether, frankly, it's from people who are just curious to get something other than Spider Man. And Superman.

That is to say, these African made comics and animations offer a different kind of storytelling than say, their American counterparts.

We have superheroes here in Africa too. But their origin stories, which are so vital to comic book tales, are often different too. Take for instance, Strike Guard, which is a Nigerian comic book. Rather than, say, getting his powers from a planet Krypton, perhaps, he happens to fall into a grave of a Yoruba deity. And it's from this God that the main character gets his strength, his superpowers. So you see a lot more of the African comic books wrestling with myths and folklores than you would say in a, in a kind of western comic book. Other comics will tackle difficult subjects. There's a Ghanaian comic called Lake of Tears, which depicts child trafficking. And here in South Africa, there's a popular one called Zana, which is set in a future where apartheid never ended.

And so, given a ready supply of uniquely African stories to be told, do you think this boom will continue to spread all over the world?

Absolutely. It's part of a broader story. Africa is the youngest continent. It has a median age of 19. And whenever you have a young continent on the rise, you get an appetite elsewhere for its cultural products. So whether it's music, films, TV or in this case, comic books, there will be far more interest in African culture in the years to come.

Thanks very much for joining us, John.

Thank you, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple podcasts and you can subscribe to the economist@examiner.com intelligence intelligence offer. The link is in the show Notes. See you back here tomorrow.