protests Archives

From mayhem to momentum: How a week of protest changed Nepal forever

By ISS Blog Bliss 21 October 202526 October 2025 3195 views

In this blog, ISS MA Student, Sagar Jung Karki looks into the rise and success of the 2025 ‘Gen Z’ protests in Nepal, that grew into a society-wide protest movement against corruption in the Nepali government. The protests eventually ended with Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli stepping down. Sagar Jung Karki looks into the way that the protests developed, the reasoning behind their rise, and looks at what may happen in the coming months and years following the protests.

**Caption: AI- Generated Abstract Simulation of Singha Durbar palace in Kathmandu on September 9, 2025**

Introduction

In less than a week, the Generation Z (Gen Z) protests in Nepal toppled the government, dissolved the parliament and installed the country’s first female prime minister. This was more than a protest; it was a generational awakening that refined Nepalese politics. Moreover, the movement serves as a valuable case study for examining how conflict and development theories explain the tensions and aspirations driving it.

Causes of the Gen Z protest

The Gen Z protest that swept Nepal from 8 to 13 September 2025 became a defining moment in the nation’s history. It was partly inspired by similar youth movements in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The protest deeply resonated with youths like myself in a country where power had switched between three entrenched political parties that had been ruling for decades. There were three main reasons for the upheaval. First, there is the rampant corruption, in a country with extremely high levels of inequality. Multiple corruption scandals were exposed by the media in recent years, including the fake Bhutanese refugee scam, the visit visa scam, the airplane purchase scam, and the Baluwatar land scam. These recurring scandals led to growing despair, especially among youths. Secondly, 26 social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube were completely banned on 4 September after being unable to register in the country. Most of the Nepali population, specifically the youth, used these platforms for daily communication. Defying suppression and the gag on their freedom of speech and expression, the youths turned to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to criticize the politicians and their ‘Nepotism Kids’ (also known as Nepo Kids)as well as plan the protests. In the days before the protest, social media was filled with content mocking politicians’ families for flaunting wealth while ordinary people struggled to make a living. Third, another significant trigger for the protest was the viral video of a provincial minister’s car hitting a little girl on a zebra crossing and escaping the scene. These series of events forced the Nepali youths to march to the streets in protests hoping for change.

The aftermath of the protest

The protest initially began peacefully with college students, youth activists and others protesting in designated areas. But the calm was shattered when police opened fire and killed 19 protesters. The next day, the demonstration intensified into vandalism and anarchy with key national assets – including the parliament, presidential residence and supreme court. Most of the politicians’ homes and properties across the country were destroyed. In addition, supermarkets, hotels, showrooms, and other public spaces sustained extensive damage. While many fled to hideouts with military help, some politicians narrowly escaped death at the hands of the youth mob.

Following mass pressure, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned on 9 September, creating a leadership vacuum. The following day, amidst the curfew, the youths trusted the army to restore order. The next day, amidst nationwide curfew, the army chief held talks with the president and Gen Z representatives. That evening, the youths used online voting via Discord to nominate former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as Nepal’s first female prime minister following the president’s approval. By 13 September, life returned to normal in Kathmandu and across the nation; however, there were 74 fatalities and an estimated financial damage of US$21 billion and left 10,000 people out of work. This has made the protest a tragic yet transformative moment in the nation’s history.

What this means for Nepal’s future

Elections for the House of Representatives have been announced for 5 March 2026, despite the opposition of the old parties. However, there are lingering questions about how the elections and the future unfold and whether the changes demanded by the protesters are formalized and institutionalized. Many youths, including the founder of Hami Nepali, have shown interest in contesting the election. For formal representation, however, Gen Z will need the formulation of new political parties and secure an election majority. This will be a difficult and time-consuming process, given the rural stronghold of the three old parties. There is another challenge as the old parties still hold a majority in the provincial and local government levels. Beyond politicians, addressing governance malpractices will require a range of institutional changes in bureaucracy and paradigm shifts in cultural practices. Such changes will take time, but for now, all eyes are fixed on the upcoming elections and whether Gen Z-led political parties will gain the majority to form a government.

Key Takeaways

At its heart, the Gen Z protest in Nepal was more than a political outburst, it was a clash between generations, power, and unmet promises. Political Scientist Henrik Urdal’s analysis of ‘youth bulges’ can be better understood through the lens of Conflict theory helps explain this tension. When a large youth population feels excluded from decision-making and struggles with economic insecurity, frustration builds. Nepal’s young people, digitally connected and politically aware, turned that frustration into collective action. Social media became their loudspeaker, uniting scattered voices into a nationwide movement. Ironically, government attempts to suppress dissent only confirmed the protesters’ belief that their leaders were out of touch, echoing conflict theory’s idea that repression often fuels, rather than calms, public anger.

From a development perspective, Nepal’s story reflects the tension between a weak state and a strong society. Years of corruption and poor governance weakened institutions, but civil society, especially youth groups, showed remarkable resilience. Organisations like Hami Nepal and online communities stepped up where the state faltered, proving that civic energy can fill governance gaps. Yet, as development theories reminds us, activism alone cannot replace institutional reform. The army’s temporary role in stabilising the situation showed both the trust citizens still have in traditional institutions and the fragility of democratic systems that depend on them.

Ultimately, Nepal’s Gen Z reminded the world that even in fragile democracies, young people can reshape political landscapes. Their protests were not just about anger, they were about reclaiming voice and accountability. For policymakers, the message is simple: when states fail to listen, societies speak louder.

Across Asia, and beyond, similar Gen Z movements are emerging, digitally savvy, and justice-driven. Among the countries experiencing crises and catastrophes, some have recovered and transitioned, while others have continued to suffer. It is yet to be seen whether these upheavals will bring in the demanded changes in the countries or fail to do so.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Sagar Jung Karki is a current MA in Development Studies student at the International Institute for Social Studies (ISS), specializing in Economics of Development (ECD). He previously worked for think tanks on development consulting projects in Nepal. His research interests are trade and investment policies, sustainability, globalization and development.

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The Ruling Elites Put Democracy under Duress in Indonesia – and the People are fighting back

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 September 2025 2598 views

Police violence against recent protests by civil society groups and social movements marks the biggest challenge for Indonesia’s Prabowo administration and tests the Indonesian political class’ commitment to democracy. In this blog Iqra Anugrah and Rachma Lutfiny Putri explain how Oligarchic agendas of the elites have led to disastrous policy choices, triggering the protest movement. Progressive politics, despite its lack of leadership and clear ideology and platform, should maintain this momentum by defending itself from state repression and forcing elite concessions.

**Photo Credit: Maria Cynthia, Wikimedia**

Recent anti-oligarchic protests across Indonesia have presented the biggest political challenge to the Prabowo administration since it took power in 2024. Repressive handling of the protests by the Indonesian police, which resulted in the martyrdom of Affan Kurniawan, a motorcycle taxi driver, and nine others along with the arrest of 3,337 protesters triggered a protest movement to spread like wildfire. All of this has happened in less than a year after Prabowo’s inauguration as president.

The gruesome nature of Affan’s death significantly raised political consciousness of the movement and the general public, but the collective anger behind it has been simmering for a while. Like other authoritarian populists, Prabowo had pursued a series of questionable policies prone to elite hijacking and rent-seeking, such as the Free Nutritious Meal programme and the Danantara sovereign wealth fund. But the causes for the recent protests were something more structural and paradigmatic: increasing inequality and precariousness, shrinking ‘middle class,’ growing military role in politics, and crackdown on democratic dissent. These were exacerbated by the contempt of several members of the parliament (MPs) toward the plight of the working people and the proposal to raise their allowances amidst economic hardship.

By the time of this writing, the clashes between the state and the movements had entered a period of protracted de-escalation. With the exception of some young liberal influencers who naively entered an appeasement dialogue with a few MPs, labor unions, women’s movements, and student activist groups still continue their grassroots advocacy and popular education works, while the police continue to detain those arrested.

Concrete policy shifts after this crisis are still unclear. Aside from the cancellation of the proposed housing allowance raise for MPs, the government has yet to meet other crucial demands: ending police violence, reducing excessive allowances for MPs and high-ranking officials, and addressing labor demands concerning fair wage and employment relations.

Deepening illiberal and authoritarian practices under Prabowo presidency suggest the limits of a democratic façade to oligarchic politics. This propelled widespread response from a broad alliance of grassroots social movements supported by the public and piggybacked by liberal-leaning groups and influencers. The ruling elites made only limited concessions to popular demands, while divisions between grassroots bases and liberal networks show how fragmented the civil society remains. The future will remain uncertain and bleak, but grassroots social movements can break this impasse by exercising their leadership and mobilizational power to force further elite concessions.

By Mori505 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=174069478 — **Photo Credit: Mori505 via Wikimedia**

Drivers of the protests: the changing contour of oligarchic politics

The shift to a more brazen display of authoritarian politics in Indonesian democracy is not merely a product of changing elite political culture, but a logical consequence of the transformation of mechanisms of oligarchic extraction in the interests of the ruling class and the bourgeois state. At the international level, Indonesian economic and political elites try to tap into profits offered by the booming nickel industry. Domestically, these oligarchic elites have expanded their extraction targets from traditional sectors (e.g., land and coal resources) to ‘white elephant’ projects most notoriously the construction of the new capital city.

As detailed by the People’s Liberation Party, this heavy strain on the state budget is further compounded by the ambition of Prabowo, himself a top member of the oligarchic elites, to implement his flagship Free Nutritious Meal programme, which has been poorly implemented, and increase military spending. This forced the central government to slash transfer funds for regional governments by 50 per cent in 2025. In turn, many local governments significantly raised property taxes, with some raising them by over 100 per cent.

These policies prompted various mass protests since the beginning of Prabowo’s tenure, ranging from anti-government protests in various cities to the famous anti-tax protest in Pati, Central Java, which forced the district head of Pati to resign.

Unsurprisingly, it becomes imperative for the ruling elites to further constrain democratic spaces to defend their interests. The tragic death of Affan, the excessive use of state violence, and the political elites’ lukewarm response to this crisis are clear signs of this development.

The nature of the protest coalition: Fragmentation amidst rising political consciousness

Responding to this elite assault, a series of protests started in late August. Of particular interest were the protests in Jakarta on August 28, the day Affan was martyred. They shared the same anti-government sentiment but differed in their policy demands and compositions of protest coalitions. Four participating groups can be identified:

1) labor unions, whose demands centered around wage increase and job security,

2) broad people’s coalition for climate justice consisting of farmers, fishers, grassroots women’s movements, and urban poor organizations,

3) student activists who rejected the proposed housing and other allowances raise for the MPs, and

4) motorcycle taxi drivers, whose mobilization intensified after the police’s armored vehicle ran over Affan.

These four groups, in varying degrees, continued their protests after Affan’s tragic death and intensifying police violence.

Afterwards, the coalitions and support for the protesters gained broad public support. Public jubilation and awe when witnessing the looting of the houses of problematic MPs, most notoriously the suspended MP Ahmad Sahroni, indicated the culmination of their collective anger.

But this brief period of political joy was punctuated by arson cases targeting public infrastructure in Jakarta such as bus stops and an optical server box, a pattern that spread to other cities. While there is a strong possibility that factions of the competing elites were behind these provocations, one should keep in mind that the youth participating in these urban riots saw their act as one of defiance and, we would add, protest against the sanctification of wealth and private properties of the elites.

These chaotic events, followed by increasing repression and control by the police and armed forces, led to the reappearance of a familiar trope in Indonesian politics: the dichotomy between peaceful and ‘anarchistic’ protesters. While we remain cognizant of elite manipulation behind these events and the excesses of street protests, we reject such dichotomy. Such as a false dichotomy, in our view, is cynically deployed by the ruling elites and the state to tame people’s militancy and divide the public. Further, as the case of violent attacks against student protesters resting at safe zones at Bandung Islamic University and Pasundan University showed, the police and armed forces have a long record of using the false dichotomy as a pretext to curb freedom of assembly and speech of dissident and marginalized groups.

As this chaos subsided, the latter phase of the protests witnessed the emergence of liberal influencers as accidental torchbearers of the movement. Political scientist Edward Aspinall argued that the proponents of this not-so-new counterculture of protest are student executive councils, unions and NGOs. His comprehensive analysis misses one new actor: liberal influencers with links to consultancy and ‘hip’ online media industries. Deliberately intervening into the ongoing dynamics, they summarized organic programmatic demands from various working-class and popular organizations into a laundry list of demands called the ‘17+8’ demands (a catchy reference to the Indonesian date of independence, 17 August).

While we recognize the value of such campaigns and their impact on raising political awareness among the urban middle class, we doubt their claims about actual campaign reach and policy impacts. We also criticize the inherent class bias and celebrity culture in their methods of activism which unfortunately sideline the role and agendas of actual working-class bases and organizations — groups whose agency played a key role in advancing the political aims of the protests and yet remains nameless and unseen. This attitude is emblematic of the cultural and political outlooks of the liberal/critical sections of the professional managerial class in Indonesia.

Our informal conversation with working-class activists involved in the protests and grassroots collectives reveal their anger and criticism toward the liberals. The main problem with liberal activism, in their view, is the lack of stronger labor and class demands and the dominance of liberal aesthetics and voice at the expense of aspirations and experiences of the most marginalized. From our conversation with them, we learned that the sacrifice of working-class activists at the frontline of the protests, including a dozen of ordinary labor and rural activists from our own personal networks detained or charged as provocateurs by the police, features mostly as statistics in mainstream media rather than stories of pro-democracy heroism.

Like their previous predecessors, liberal influencers are ‘floating’, divorced from the lived experience and consciousness of the masses. This detachment reveals a long-standing fault line in Indonesian civil society: between liberal and progressive–radical activism.

Take-away points

It is still too early to assess the impact and legacy of the 2025 protests, but we would like to highlight three important take-away points.

First, both ‘spontaneity’ and ‘leadership’ in mass movements are not opposites, but rather essential parts in a process to consolidate democratic leadership and institutionalization of social movements. As Rosa Luxemburg once reminded us, social reforms and spontaneity mobilized the oppressed, but revolutionary collectivity is mandatory to make their gains last.

Second, reflecting on the severity of state repression in recent protests, we reaffirm the right of the protesters to defend themselves against state violence through peaceful, and, under severe circumstances, disruptive methods. Our argument is not a provocation of violence but rather a view backed by research. A rigorous study has shown that disruptive actions by nonelites drive democratic deepening. Street protests and their dynamics are indeed the bloodlines of democracy.

Lastly, given the lack of success of the liberal influencers’ lobbying effort with the parliament, it is high time for grassroots working-class organizations to mobilize again. Only their leadership and political power can break this impasse.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

Disclaimer and acknowledgement: We maintain an active engagement with Indonesian social movements and our works since 2015 can be verified with various organizations, communities, and individuals that we have been working with. Currently we are conducting field research in Indonesia as Visiting Researchers at Agrarian Resource Center (ARC). In particular, we would like to thank our comrades at Progressive Islam Forum (FIP) and Kolektif SULU for insightful discussions on recent developments with them.

About the authors:

Iqra Anugrah

Iqra Anugrah is a Trapezio MSCA Seal of Excellence Fellow at the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures at the University of Turin. He holds affiliate positions at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) at Leiden University and the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education, and Information (LP3ES) in Jakarta. His current project examines multi-strand conservatism in Indonesia.

Rachma Lutfiny Putri is a Wenner-Gren Wadsworth International Fellow and a PhD candidate at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and a Visiting Fellow at Populi Center. Her interests include urban anthropology, value chain, informal work, and development studies.

Russian citizens under threat from within: The increasing repression of anti-war voices in Russia

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 April 20224 January 2025 5704 views

Amid continued international condemnation and sanctioning of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, voices opposing the war can be heard within Russia too. However, Russian citizens are exposed to an increasing risk of repression due to excessive state control over their opposition to the war, and the institutional manipulation that justifies the invasion and criminalises anti-war voices.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, individuals, organisations, and governments around the world have condemned the Putin regime and are calling for an immediate end to the war. While every voice is precious, of particular note, however, are the voices against the war blossoming inside Russia. Russian citizens are taking political action, individually and collectively, to express their opposition to the devastating actions of the Putin regime. For example, not only did an online petition in Russia, initiated by a human rights activist, demanding an end to the war garnered more than 1.5 million signatures in just a few days, but also sizeable anti-war protests continue to be held in cities across the country.

Anti-war protests in Russia are not a one-time event, but have rather continued as a series of popular political actions targeting the Putin government. However, their action often ends badly. In late February, thousands of Russian citizens started a protest, and more than 1,700 people in 54 cities were detained by the police under the charge of conducing illegitimate protests. Since 24 February, over 15,000 people have been detained for anti-war actions, according to the OVD-Info, an independent Russian media outlet on human rights and political repression. Anyone – children, ordinary adults, independent reporters, opposition politicians, and activists who openly criticise the invasion – can fall into a cycle of intimidation, detention, and criminal prosecution. The police in Moscow even took two women and five children to a police station for holding placards displaying the words ‘No War’ and attempting to place flowers in front of the Ukrainian Embassy.

The Putin regime is, now, more boldly directing the institutional conditions to its advantage to justify the invasion and to silence anti-war voices. This month, the Putin regime enacted laws that identify independent reporting or public opposition to the war as crimes of spreading false information, and which are subject to up to 15 years imprisonment. Also, recent provisions added to the Criminal Code and to the Code of Administrative Offences criminalise criticisms of the activities of the Russian Armed Forces, and are linked to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authorities nip public protests in the bud by pre-emptively hindering organisers and independent media outlets from sharing details on protest plans with others, and by imposing heavy fines for disseminating information on the ‘illegal’ action of holding a protest.

Through these measures, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is legitimised, at least at the institutional level, whereas public opposition and criticism of the invasion are framed as illegitimate. In this context, Russian citizens raising their voices against the war are particularly exposed to a greater risk of repression and being perceived as law-breakers. Therefore, the language of ‘false information’ and ‘undermining the Russian army’ incorporated into the set of legal documents significantly confines the scope of political action that citizens can engage in, free of the threat of punishment.

According to Freedom House, Russia is categorised as a ‘Not Free’ country, scoring 19 out of 100 — 5/40 in ‘Political Rights’ and 14/60 in ‘Civil Liberties’. These relatively low scores imply that rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and media were being circumscribed even before the invasion of Ukraine. In 2012, Russia put a law into effect that drastically increased the fines for protesters violating public order rules — fines increased nearly 150 times, from 2,000 roubles to 300,000 roubles (approximately 2,000 euros), and up to one million roubles (approximately 7,500 euros) for protest organisers. Furthermore, several rounds of legislative amendments since 2014 have led to even non-violent protest organisers and participants experiencing severe and frequent curtailment of freedoms, leading to questions about the extent and conditions under which even peaceful protests are identified as unlawful by the Russian authorities.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dr. Seohee Kwak is a Guest Researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). Her academic interests include political rights, contentious political action, authoritarian/democratic politics, and state-society relations.

India’s farm ordinances: fuelling a famine

By ISS Blog Bliss 8 April 202118 January 2025 3336 views

India’s countless farmers have rallied together en masse over the past few months to protest farm ordinances imposed by the Indian government. These ordinances may have severe implications for agriculture in India, including reduced state support for agriculture, the increased domination of corporate interests, and a threat to food security, land rights, and livelihoods of the farmers. The intersection of this development with already tenuous conditions may fuel a famine and further increase vulnerability of the agrarian classes, writes Karishma Shelar.

Starting late November 2020, millions of farmers have marched to and gathered on the outskirts of New Delhi, India’s capital, where they have been met with water cannons of the riot police, barricades, tear gas and lathi charges (the police-led beating of protesters with clubs). Defying COVID-19 restrictions and the bitter cold, the farmers are protesting newly passed national government farm ordinances[1] that seek to dismantle former regulations and legislations protecting the farmers from laissez-faire price and purchase mechanisms. This blog attempts to break down why the ordinances will escalate in a famine-like disaster while discussing the debt-cum-groundwater crisis in the state of Punjab which lies at the heart of the ongoing protests.

Paving the way for corporate farming

Simply put, the farm ordinances, if passed, pave the way for full-fledged corporatisation of India’s agricultural sector through free market price mechanisms and the eventual withdrawal of all forms of state support for agriculture. This spells disaster for nearly 60% of India’s households directly or indirectly relying on the agricultural sector for jobs or survival, of whom 86% are small and marginal landholders (holding plots of land of less than two hectares).

The farm ordinances can have three devastating impacts:

It is a step towards disassembling mandis (state-regulated marketplaces where agricultural produce is traded) to make room for agro-business-driven open market trading.

The mandis are not flawless systems of trade. They are limited in number and geographically favourable to certain regions and class groups. Nevertheless, these are important systems of price discovery and signalling. The mandis are supposed to assure farmers a minimum support price (MSP) declared by the state for their produce. What is required of the government, then, is to strengthen and expand procurement through the mandis and to legalise MSP than abolish the system and shrug off its responsibilities.

No legal assurance of the MSP in the ordinances leaves the farmers vulnerable to the whims and fancies of agro-businesses and other private players.

Such firms are more concerned about making profit than ensuring accessible and affordable food to the public. While the ordinances allow for farmers to enter pre-determined contract farming arrangements with private entities, the former’s financial precarity and no protection against potential discrepancies on part of the latter compromises the farmers’ bargaining power.

In addition, over the past three decades, the increased privatisation of agricultural inputs has resulted in a rise in input costs that has now spiralled into a debt crisis for agrarian households. Private entities with their enormous financial capacity will have free reign to dictate the terms of exchange, pricing, type of produce and inputs, enslaving the farmers to market dictates and furthering the debt crisis in the country. A recent report also suggests that 45–60% of India’s rural households are unable to meet their daily nutritional requirements. Securing the interests of private players in agriculture will only escalate a famine-like crisis in the country.

The ordinances allow for the unregulated storage of harvests, with limited regulation thereof by the state except in the case of extraordinary circumstances such as war, famine, or excessive price increases (exceeding 100%).

This move is aimed at providing private entities freedom to stockpile and control the storage and distribution of harvests. It threatens food and nutrition security to millions of people and particularly those dependent on one of the largest state-run public distribution systems (PDS) in the world. Under the National Food Security Act of India (GoI, 2013), 65% of the households (or around 800 million people in India) are legally assured a right to food at subsidised rates from the PDS and through welfare programmes such as the Integrated Child Development Services and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme.

Additionally, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is legally mandated to maintain a central pool for procuring, storage, transportation and maintenance of food stocks in the country to which the mandi system and the PDS are closely linked. Besides, as per the Government of India’s estimates, the PDS supported food security for 750 million people during the COVID-19 lockdown (PIB, 2020). The ordinances indicate the intent of the government to downscale the role of the FCI and the PDS by promoting open-market food procurement, thereby dismantling the existing state structures that ensure nutrition security.

Punjab: a case in point

The state of Punjab is one of the major benefactors of the state-based system of procurement through the MSP. In the 2019-20 agricultural year, it contributed 28% and 21.5% of the total wheat and rice produced in the country to the central pool of procurement (FCI, 2020b, 2020a). Therefore, while the farm ordinances are being opposed by farmer unions across the country, the Punjab farmers have become the face of the protests around New Delhi.

It must be noted that Punjab was one of the leading states to adopt the assemblages of Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, which brought about prosperity to farm households in Punjab and self-sufficiency from food imports to India. However, this dramatically shifted the traditional cropping patterns of the state. In 1966, rice occupied around 5.2 million hectares (MHa) of land in Punjab (Mann, 2017), spiking to 23.39 MHa by 2012 and displacing other food crops that occupied over 50% of Punjab’s area under cultivation in the pre-Green Revolution period to around just 10% in 2012. Over time, the ecological impact of the Green Revolution has become visible in the form of deteriorating groundwater tables and soil quality that have led to stagnating production levels (Sarkar and Das, 2014).

The period also witnessed the average debt per cultivator household in Punjab increase to INR 216,524 in 2014–15 from INR 7,125 (USD 97.21) in 1991–92 (NSSO, 1998; GoI, 2014). Literature on the agrarian crisis in Punjab also acknowledges an increase in landlessness, with small and marginal farmers resorting to wage labour and forced to sell their land and other assets to pay off. Often, the income earned from wage labour is so meagre that it becomes impossible to pay off incurred debts. The unremunerative nature of agriculture further impoverishes households when they are forced to take on a debt to meet social obligations and cover health-related expenses(Padhi, 2009; Singh and Bhogal, 2020).

While it must be acknowledged that the agrarian dynamics of caste, class and gender differ greatly across geographies in India and also in Punjab, the current farmer protests mirror the larger agro-ecological crisis that has penetrated the country. The farm ordinances will only aggravate indebtedness, escalate land degradation, open the floodgates for corporate landgrabbing, and further deteriorate the socio-economic situation of the landless.

References

FCI (2020a) ‘Statewise Procurement of Rice for RMS 2019-20’. Food Corporation of India. Available at: https://fci.gov.in/app/webroot/upload/Procurement/Statewise%20Procurement%20of%20Rice(KMS%202019-20)_56.pdf (Accessed: 10 October 2020).

FCI (2020b) ‘Statewise Procurement of Wheat for RMS 2019-20’. Food Corporation of India. Available at: https://fci.gov.in/app/webroot/upload/Procurement/Statewise%20Procurement%20of%20wheat_57.pdf (Accessed: 10 October 2020).

GoI (2013) The National Food Security Act, 2013. Available at: http://www.egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2013/E_29_2013_429.pdf (Accessed: 12 October 2020).

GoI (2014) Key Indicators of Debt and Investment in India – NSS 70th Round 2013. New Delhi, India: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation – National Sample Survey Office, Government of India. Available at: http://www.mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/KI_70_18.2_19dec14.pdf (Accessed: 10 May 2020).

Mann, R. S. (2017) ‘Cropping Pattern in Punjab (1966–67 to 2014–15)’, Economic and Political Weekly. Economic and Political Weekly.

NSSO (1998) ‘Debt and Investment Survey: NSS Forty Eight Round (January – December 1992)’. National Sample Survey Organisation, Department of Statistics, Government of India. Available at: http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/419_final.pdf (Accessed: 12 July 2020).

Padhi, R. (2009) ‘On Women Surviving Farmer Suicides in Punjab’, Economic & Political Weekly, 44(19), pp. 53–59.

PIB (2020) ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana Phase-I: April 2020 to June 2020’. Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Government of India. Available at: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1643542 (Accessed: 5 December 2020).

Sarkar, A. and Das, A. (2014) ‘Groundwater Irrigation-Electricity-Crop Diversification Nexus in Punjab: Trends, Turning Points, and Policy Initiatives’, Economic and Political Weekly, 49(52), pp. 64–73. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24481208 (Accessed: 10 October 2020).

Singh, S. and Bhogal, S. (2020) ‘Punjab’s Agricultural Labourers in Transition’, Economic and Political Weekly. Economic and Political Weekly.

[1] These are the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance of 2020, the Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance of 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

Opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISS or members of the Bliss team.

About the author:

Karishma Shelar has recently graduated with a MA in Development Studies from the ISS, part of Erasmus University. Her dissertation focused on the agro-ecological crisis in rural India and investigated the interlinkages between agro-ecology and indebtedness at the level of the state, agro-businesses, and households.

COVID-19 and Conflict | From the Chilean miracle to hunger protests: how COVID-19 and social conflict responses relate

By ISS Blog Bliss 14 January 202119 January 2025 4657 views

COVID-19 broke out in Chile last year in the midst of an intensive social conflict rooted in the deep-seated inequalities caused by the free-market reforms in the country. The case of Chile shows how pre-existing conflict dynamics can be strongly intertwined with pandemic responses as earlier protests for greater equality paved the way for a climate facilitating ‘hunger protests’ during the pandemic. In response to growing mistrust in the state, citizens had a strong social mobilization base that drove collective action.

For many decades, Chile’s development trajectory was considered an inspiration due to its positive macroeconomic results achieved following the implementation of neoliberal policies by the dictatorship in the 1980s and supported by democratic governments to present. However, these policies produced deep inequalities among the population (Flores et al. 2019)[1]. With the eruption of protests in 2019 and the COVID-19 outbreak last year, the idea of a ‘Chilean miracle’ started to fade.

The COVID-19 pandemic reached Chile in the middle of the largest social conflict since the end of its dictatorship in 1990. Starting in October 2019, more than a million of people protested each Friday for five months in the center of Santiago, the capital city, to show their discontent and demand improved livelihood conditions. The response of the government to this movement was brutal, leading to high levels of repression, partial curfews, and large, violent clashes that ended in more than 34 casualties and 445 people with eye injuries (from riot guns wielded by the riot police) between October 2019 and February 2020.

As the mass protests proved, the government ignored the socio-economic problems faced by many sectors of the population. A clear expression of the lack of awareness from the government of the conditions experienced in many low-income neighbourhoods was shown in a public statement made by the former health minister of the country, when he stated in an interview that “[t]here is a level of poverty and overcrowding [in Chile] of which I was not aware”[2].

The measures implemented to address the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 were also an expression of this level of ignorance. One of the first measures to address the COVID-19 outbreak was to implement dynamic quarantines[3], which failed to prevent the virus from spreading from less vulnerable to the most vulnerable populations, instead increasing infection levels and mortality rates[4] (Galarce 2020). The failure of this measure is associated with overcrowding in households, the precarity of wages, and the impossibility for people who survive off a daily income to comply with quarantine measures.

In addition to the complete lockdown that followed the dynamic quarantines, another of the early measures was to implement nighttime curfews. This measure was not well received by citizens, nor by the scientific community, which indicated that the quarantine did not have experts’ approval since there was no proof that it reduced the infection rate. They argued that it was intended to reduce civil liberties[5], and, generally, this measure was seen as an expression of the authoritarian nature of the government.

The inability of the measures to counter the effects of COVID-19 led to multiple demonstrations that were known as ‘hunger protests’. This time, people demanded access to food, water, and shelter as many lost their daily incomes due to the lockdown measures. The hunger protests followed the government’s announcement about the distribution of food baskets. People felt that, again, the government did not understand people’s needs—families could not wait to receive food supplies, but urgently required money to obtain (other) basic goods. The government’s response to the protests was highly repressive once more, mirroring its response to the previous protests back in October 2019.

The countrywide social movement leading protests in 2019 and 2020 articulated different demands and had no centralized leadership. It encouraged self-organized local assemblies (asambleas territoriales) composed of young and elderly people and was founded due to mistrust in the existing institutions. These local assemblies embodied collective organization to resist and shape new relationships and solve immediate problems in the neighbourhoods. The movement that led protests months before COVID-19 emerged therefore played an important role during the pandemic, enabling Chileans to solve difficulties the pandemic and the government’s response to it by themselves through collective action.

One of these initiatives is the so-called ‘ollas comunes’ (‘common pots’)[6] through which people helped stave off hunger by cooking for each other. This measure to respond to the COVID-19 disaster is related to previous responses to social conflicts in Chile. As stated by Clarisa Hardy (1986), the ollas comunes initiative is associated with workers’ layoffs and repression suffered after the 1973 coup d’état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. Therefore it has a strong component of collective memory. This initiative also proved that the self-organization that arose during the protests could solve immediate problems in a context characterized by high levels of mistrust towards the government in a crucial moment for state intervention like a pandemic. It also opened the possibility to act collectively outside of the common frameworks provided by the state and the market.

References

Hardy, C. 1986. ‘Hambre + Dignidad = Ollas Comunes.’ Accessed August 11, 2020 http://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/archivos2/pdfs/MC0033331.pdf

Flores, I.; Sanhueza, C.; Atria, J. 2019. ‘Top incomes in Chile: a historical perspective on income inequality, 1964-2017’, Review of Income and Wealth, pp. 1-25.

Tinsman, H. 2006. ‘Reviving Feminist Materialism: Gender and Neoliberalism in Pinochet’s Chile,’ The University of Chicago Press 26(1): 145-188.

Foot Notes

[1] Many estimations had been made using different methodologies. All of them are relatively consistent in suggesting that the richest 1% hold between 25%-33% of the national income. For an in-depth discussion, see the following analysis (in Spanish): https://www.ciperchile.cl/2019/12/10/parte-ii-la-desigualdad-es-una-decision-politica/

[2] For the complete declarations, see the following interview (in Spanish): https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/manalich-reconoce-que-en-un-sector-de-santiago-hay-un-nivel-de-pobreza-y-hacinamiento-del-cual-yo-no-tenia-conciencia-de-la-magnitud-que-tenia/5BQZLGLOPVDDPKQ2SNSSSWRGYU/

[3] Dynamic quarantines are those applied to a specific place in a territory (a municipality, for example), and that can be lifted or imposed based on the regular analysis of certain patterns, particularly the number of COVID-19 cases in each place under quarantine.

[4] Galarce, A. (2020, May 19). Experto en salud pública USACH: “Las cuarentenas dinámicas hicieron que el virus migrara hacia una población más vulnerable”. Radiousach.cl. Accessed August 10, 2020 https://www.radiousach.cl/experto-en-salud-publica-usach-las-cuarentenas-dinamicas-hicieron-que

[5] At the time of publication, the curfews were still imposed, even though the partial lockdowns were lifted and the COVID-19 infection rate diminishing.

[6] “Common pots involve women pooling the food rations of individual families to collectively provide more substantial meals to entire groups of families, workers and neighborhoods” (Tinsman 2006).

This research was part of the “When Disaster Meets Conflict” project. It was undertaken between July and September 2020 and comprised the analysis of secondary sources (news and articles related to the Chilean protests of 2019-2020 and the government’s responses to the COVID-19 crisis). Additionally, five semi-structured interviews were carried out. The interviews included key actors from the Chilean private sector, government, and civil society. The purpose of these interviews was to know these actors’ points of view on the impact and the government’s response to the sanitary crisis

About the authors:

Ana Isabel Alduenda studied International Relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is a current student of the MA in Development Studies at ISS, major Governance and Development Policy. She has worked in the public sector and as a consultant in topics related to government accountability and human rights. Her research interests focus on anti-corruption policies, open data, and gender violence. In addition, she has developed a genuine interest in the social phenomena surrounding pandemics.

Camila Ramos Vilches studied Social Work at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and is a current student of the MA in Development Studies at ISS, major Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Studies: Social Justice Perspectives. She has worked in local NGOs related to grassroots development, and international NGOs related to sustainable development in the private sector. Her research interests focus on gendered analysis within organizations, diversity and inclusion management and sustainable development.

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