Bollywood is playing a large supporting role in India’s elections

Photo by Vinatha Sreeramkumar on Unsplash
woman in yellow dress standing on pink flower field during daytime

The Conversation

April 14, 2024

As the largest electorate in history goes to the polls in India from April 19 to June 1, 2024, political parties are seeking to influence voters’ decisions – through cinema.

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, seeking a third term in office under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has deployed the medium of cinema, more than others, to spread the party’s goals and ideas.

The BJP claims India as a Hindu nation. The Modi government openly supports films that promote the BJP ideology through providing tax breaks and removing regulatory restrictions, especially when such films are strategically timed to release in theaters ahead of the elections. “Swatantrya Veer Savarkar,” a biopic on an ardent advocate of a purely Hindu nation, was released a few weeks before polling begins for the 2024 elections.

India’s entertainment film industry is a complex behemoth with an output of about 1,500 releases per year and a base of fans that extends around the world. Fabulously choreographed dance routines, catchy lyrics, memorable dialogue and historical and religious imagery make it a favored medium of communication – even for political parties.

The use of Indian popular cinema for political ends has a long history – one that predates Indian independence. As an art historian, I documented how cinematic imagery was used to produce a heroic aura around political figures in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu in my 2009 book “Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India.”

The connection between cinema and politics made it the primary vehicle for the lengthy careers of numerous charismatic politicians – some of them screenwriters and film producers, others leading actors and actresses. Since the 1980s, it also set in motion a nationwide trend of using cinematic means to capture the attention of voters.

Mobilizing film fans for electoral campaigns

Viewing movies in theaters is an eventful and enjoyable experience that draws a mass audience. As sociologist Lakshmi Srinivas describes in her 2016 book “House Full,” the release of highly anticipated blockbusters is much like a festival. Most striking is the excitement of audiences as they recite the dialogues, dance to the lyrics and hail stars as they appear on the screen.

In an Indian context, cinema’s impact extends from the movie theater to the street in the form of advertisements, fashion and film music that dominate public spaces. Art historian Shalini Kakar argues that the spectacle of cinema brings forth passionate responses from viewing masses that are much like religious emotion. She discusses case studies of film fans who even worship their favorite celebrities as deities by creating temples to these stars within residential and commercial spaces. These fans conduct religious ceremonies and organize public festivities for their favored stars.

But more often, fans are part of a large and vocal collective. Media theorist S.V. Srinivas found that film fans can make or destroy the careers and lives of stars. If a star decides to venture into politics, these film fans can become active participants in the star’s political campaigns. But if the star does something that the fans disapprove of, they will as easily boycott his films and even destroy the star’s career.

An alignment of cinema and politics

The cinema industry in Tamil Nadu, more than any other in India, has evolved closely with political and social developments in the region since the 1940s. The ideals of Tamil nationalism, a political movement that changed the course of history in Tamil Nadu, were powerfully communicated through the medium of entertainment films. Often, the personalities associated with these films were physically present alongside politicians at party meetings.


Voters’ choices can be influenced by popular films in India.
AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

In my research, I found that the alignment of cinema and politics in Tamil Nadu was helped by the use of identical advertising media. Political parties regularly commissioned advertisers to produce “star images” of politicians. A favored publicity medium of both the cinema industry and party members was the hand-painted plywood cutout. These full-length portraits, 20 feet to 100 feet in height, featured charismatic leaders of Tamil nationalist parties such as M. Karunanidhi, a prolific and influential scriptwriter, and J. Jayalalithaa, a famous film star turned politician.

Though these political portraits were meant to be realistic rather than melodramatic, the style and scale of these portraits resembled the cinematic star image. In this way, they helped to transfer the power of the cinematic star image to the image of the leader.

I argued that these advertisements played an important role in visualizing, and shaping, the identity politics of Tamil nationalism.

The audience for these images numbered in the millions. When these vibrantly colored portraits of film stars and political leaders appeared side by side in public spaces, they soared above the skyline like celestial beings. Often, the images became the focus of adulation. They were feted and garlanded, people danced, burst crackers, cheered and crowded around these images, and posed next to them for photographs.

The charismatic politicians of the Tamil nationalist movement set the trend of combining the sheen of the star image, the power of political portraiture and the divine aura of icons in their advertising.

Cinema’s role in divisive politics

Under Modi’s leadership, three themes emerge in a cluster of films that favor the BJP’s goals and policies and are endorsed by the party: claiming credit for welfare initiatives, instilling Hindu nationalist beliefs in society, and heightening tensions between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority communities.

For example, a film released in 2017, “Toilet: Ek Prem ki Katha,” or “Toilet: A Love Story,” tells the story of a couple whose marriage starts to fall apart over the lack of a toilet within the home. At the beginning of the film, which is an entertaining musical melodrama, viewers are informed that while Mahatma Gandhi championed for a clean environment, it is Modi who is making that dream a reality through budgeting for the construction of toilets nationwide.

Another series of films in the biopic genre showcases the historical legacy of right-wing Hindu nationalist organizations and their leaders. “PM Narendra Modi,” which reminded voters of the prime minister’s rise from poverty, was scheduled for release just before the 2019 elections. But the Election Commission of India, an independent body charged with ensuring free and fair elections, ordered that the film could be released only after the elections.

A third and more troubling genre is politically polarizing films. Drawing on ethnically charged actual events in which communities of Hindus and Muslims clashed, the scripts for these films dramatize highly biased narratives in which Hindus are cast as the victims while Muslims are the villainous perpetrators.

Widely viewed examples of this genre include “Kashmir Files,” which shows the mass exodus of Hindus from the north Indian state of Kashmir in the early 1990s when they were targeted by a pro-Pakistan armed uprising of Kashmiri Muslims. The film, which demonizes Muslims and shows them committing extremely barbaric and cruel acts, is among those publicly endorsed by the prime minister himself.

Film producers and distributors I interviewed for my research were unanimous that it was impossible to accurately predict whether a film would succeed at the box office, as are the results of the elections.

Should the BJP succeed, however, it would be fair to conclude that one element in the hat trick was a clever endorsement of cinema as a vehicle for party propaganda.

Preminda Jacob, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

AJK protests

FREE KASHMIR FROM PAKISTAN & INDIA

Editorial

DAWN

Published May 14, 2024 

SINCE last week, Azad Jammu & Kashmir has been roiled by protests, fuelled principally by a disconnect between locals and their administration, as well as the government of Pakistan. Strikes and marches have been held in different parts of the territory, led by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee, with the situation turning ugly on Saturday when a police officer lost his life during the protests. On Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attempted to quell the discontent by announcing the transfer of Rs23bn to AJK on Monday, along with meeting many of the protesters’ demands, such as increasing the wheat flour subsidy and revising power rates. AJK’s people had taken to the streets mainly due to inflation, as well as wheat flour and power rate issues. Moreover, many protesters feel that the AJK government is oversized, and that the small territory does not require an army of ministers and bureaucrats to run its affairs. They are of the view that very few funds are left for development after costs of running the AJK government are subtracted. Meanwhile, there is also criticism of local lawmakers, many of whom, observers say, rarely visit their constituencies after being elected. It remains to be seen whether the government’s steps satisfy the people in the long term.

At the heart of the protests appears to be lack of service delivery on the part of the AJK administration, as well as Islamabad’s apparent indifference to the local people’s plaints. The centre and the government in Muzaffarabad should have addressed these long-festering issues before the people’s anger led them to the streets. Sadly, it is the norm across the country to address issues only when they have ballooned into a full-blown crisis. In Gilgit-Baltistan, only a few months ago, the local population had staged protests along similar lines. The AJK prime minister said the changes made on Monday regarding wheat flour and power rates are “permanent” arrangements. Similarly, the AJK administration should trim its expenditures and focus only on essentials, while allocating enough funds for the people’s welfare. Lawmakers and ministers also need to make themselves available to constituents to resolve outstanding problems. Good governance demands that the administrations in both Islamabad and Muzaffarabad keep an ear to the ground and address AJK’s legitimate issues in a democratic manner.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2024

India’s illiberal election

BJP ARE ARYAN SUPREMACISTS

Maleeha Lodhi 

DAWN

Published May 13, 2024 

GENERAL elections are underway in India in a phased voting process that concludes on June 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely predicted to win a third term in office. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) goal is for its National Democratic Alliance to secure 400-plus seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha — a target encapsulated in the party slogan abki baar 400 paar. There are doubts this can be achieved, especially as voter turnout has been lower in the first three phases of the election compared to 2019. Election outcomes are never foregone conclusions.

In the 2019 election, the BJP won 303 seats. With its allies, its support in the Lower House swelled to 352 seats. This time, it hopes to win 370 seats on its own as it does not see the opposition as much of a challenge. Although the party secured comfortable parliamentary majorities in the previous two elections to enable it to rule unhindered in its decade in power, well over half the electorate did not vote for BJP. In 2019, BJP polled around 38 per cent of the popular national vote; in 2014 it was less than 31pc. This indicates its real support, even though the first-past-the-post electoral system gave it an outsized share of Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP has benefited from a weak, divided and regionally fragmented opposition. The Congress party looks jaded and bereft of new ideas. Leading an opposition alliance called ‘INDIA’ (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), Congress has been unable to capture the public imagination or offer a credible alternative to the BJP’s narrative. It has struggled to counter Modi’s extravagant claims about his government’s achievements. Positive developments on India’s economic front have not all resulted from the Modi government’s policies but are entirely attributed to him by the BJP’s vigorous social media and propaganda campaign.

Modi’s carefully cultivated strongman image has yielded significant political dividends. This rests on claims of providing firm and incorruptible leadership, achieving economic development, benefiting India’s poor, and ‘connecting’ to ordinary people. More importantly, the Hindutva agenda is woven into his cult of personality, with the party portraying Modi as the champion and saviour of Hindu nationalism. His anti-Muslim actions and rhetoric have served to burnish those credentials.


The outlook for India-Pakistan relations is troubled if Modi returns to power.

Modi has sought to mobilise electoral support on his economic record, welfare and infrastructure projects, as well as his Hindu supremacist ideology. Even though rising unemployment and the soaring cost of living will weigh on voters’ minds, Modi is seen by many Indians to be a better bet on the economy than his opponents. He enjoys the backing of big business, for which the opposition accuses Modi of pandering to India’s super rich. In campaign speeches, Modi has repeatedly stated he has enhanced India’s international standing and helped to attract more foreign investment. He has even cast the election to be about making India “a major world power”.

The opposition’s attack on Modi has principally focused on his authoritarian conduct and policies. Certainly, democratic backsliding during his 10 years in power has been substantial and far reaching. This, his critics say, has turned India into an illiberal democracy. Judicial independence and media freedom have been undermined and civil liberties eroded. Modi’s government has muffled dissent, intimidated the media, harassed and incarcerated journalists and mounted extraordinary pressure on the opposition. Two state leaders allied with Congress, Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren, have been jailed on dubious corruption charges. In March, the Congress party’s main bank accounts were frozen. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was expelled from parliament last year on the charge of defamation for ridiculing Modi’s name. Later, his jail sentence was suspended by the supreme court.

Modi has pledged to push ahead with his Hindutva agenda, for which the party points to several actions taken by the government, including construction of the Ram temple, a citizenship law disadvantaging Muslims, and revocation of Article 370 of the constitution, which gave Jammu and Kashmir special status. Modi has used toxic anti-Muslim rhetoric throughout his election campaign. He has called Muslims “infiltrators” and said they “have too many children” in an effort to scare Hindu voters into believing Muslims will eventually outnumber them. He has repeatedly accused the Congress party of favouring Muslims and conspiring to transfer wealth “looted” from Hindus to Muslims. The BJP has also posted videos containing these allegations. This prompted the Congress party to petition the election commission to act against this violation of election laws.

But nothing has deterred Modi from using inflammatory, Islamophobic language to demonise Muslims. He has even said his target of winning 400 seats is to prevent Congress from reviving Article 370 and putting the “Babri lock” on the Ram temple. Declaring “India is at a crucial juncture in history”, he has said the choice is between ‘vote jihad’ or ‘Ram Rajya’. He went further to say, “In Pakistan, terrorists are threatening jihad against India, and here the Congress people have also declared to ‘vote jihad’ against Modi, asking people of a particular religion to unite and vote against Modi.”

Along with Muslim-bashing, Pakistan too has been targeted by Modi’s incendiary rhetoric. He has contrasted his muscular approach in dealing with terrorism allegedly emanating from Pakistan with the infirm response of his predecessors. “Earlier, weak governments used to send dossiers to Pakistan after terror attacks, but we hit terrorists in their homes” — a reference to India’s air strikes on Balakot in 2019. Describing his government’s “new India policy of looking an adversary in the eye and speaking the truth rather than resorting to stealth,” he has warned of launching cross-border strikes in response to terror attacks on India. He has also ridiculed Pakistan by saying “a supplier of terrorism is now struggling for flour”.

This makes the outlook for Pakistan-India relations a troubled one if Modi returns to power. Some may dismiss Modi’s Pakistan-bashing as election politics, but words have consequences. Moreover, anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim themes are a part of his and the BJP’s deeply held beliefs. This may not preclude some form of post-election India-Pakistan re-engagement, but it is unlikely in the near term to lead to any significant movement toward normalisation of ties.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2024

Modi won’t go down sans a fight

Jawed Naqvi 

DAWN

Published May 14, 2024 

MOST neutral observers are sanguine that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is winning a third term. Let’s put it this way, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that Mr Modi is losing the election, which crossed its fourth of seven phases on Monday, despite compelling pointers he could. The assumption of his defeat is based on broad headcounts computed by seasoned analysts.

On the other side is the unceasing clamour from ‘Modi channels’, amid communal dog-whistling by anchors, that he is winning 400-plus seats. That’s a two-thirds majority with which we are told he would change the constitution. Adding weight to the claim of a Modi victory is psephologist Prashant Kishore’s assessment that the BJP could become the single largest party in West Bengal and Odisha. He says the BJP could make inroads for the first time in Tamil Nadu or at least its vote share in the state would hit double digits. That’s good news for Modi, but Kishore does have a mixed reputation at predicting poll outcomes.

We can discuss both sides of the claim and draw our respective conclusions. The question is, would Mr Modi accept defeat if it does come calling. Or would he take the Donald Trump route on losing, whipping up a terrifying frenzy instead? There are many variables to say just what the verdict could be at the hustings, not least because publishing the findings of exit polls is officially banned until the last vote is cast. Exit polls would come on June1, although there can be no certainty about their veracity either. That’s what experience shows. Thus, we must wait for the outcome till June 4.

But let’s hear from Yogendra Yadav, veteran former psephologist who recently became a member of Rahul Gandhi’s cross-country unity march for democracy. He said in a TV analysis on Monday after visiting key battleground states and noting the relatively low voter turnout that Mr Modi was likely to lose. “Election karvat le raha hai,” he said. (The election is changing course.)

The phrase is commonly heard on YouTube channels watching the elections from the ground, a far cry from regular TV channels that have already declared a victory for Mr Modi. Bunching the states in the fray including those that scored the maximum for the BJP in 2019, Yadav estimated those where Modi could lose a few, not least because there was no way to increase the tally from 100 per cent wins as in Gujarat or Rajasthan and Haryana or Delhi. The bulk of Mr Modi’s losses are expected from Maharashtra and Bihar, he says. Maharashtra is where Modi ditched the Shiv Sena and split the former ally to form a state government with the BJP. Now Shiv Sena leader Udhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, both members of the INDIA opposition alliance, are campaigning with doubled energy on the plank of defeating the ‘ghaddaars’, or traitors.


Would Modi accept defeat if it does come calling? Or would he take the Donald Trump route, instead?

With Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, the BJP secured 41 of 48 seats in Maharashtra in 2019. Without Thackeray, Yadav sees a loss of 20 seats at least. Bihar is where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar quit an alliance with Lalu Yadav’s party to go back for a third or fourth time to the BJP. Kumar is lampooned widely as ‘dal badloo’, a party hopper. The BJP and Kumar had 39 of 40 seats in Bihar last time. Yadav says they could lose 15.

Mr Modi’s tally could shed 10 in today’s Congress-ruled Karnataka where BJP had 26 of 28 seats in 2019. In West Bengal and the northeastern states, estimates Yadav, the BJP could be losing 10, which is at variance with Kishore’s reading. In Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand where the BJP held 69 jointly, it could lose 15. The BJP could gain five seats from the cluster of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana, and 10 from Andhra where it has an alliance with a local party. All told, Modi and allies at current reading could land 268, four short of majority.

Let’s consider both scenarios, Modi winning or losing. Lending weight to Yadav’s estimates is Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of best-selling biography of Modi at the start of his Delhi sojourn. In an article last week, he said what could hurt Modi. “Reduced turnout, near absence of the famed cadre of the Sangh Parivar, lacklustre campaign of Modi, and the need to resort to … divisive and communally polarising spiel — all suggest the Modi script of 2024 has gone awry.” Despite Yadav’s headcount, if Modi does go on to win cleanly then he has won a third term. What if he loses?

According to Parakala Prabhakar, author of a best-selling Modi critique and husband of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the BJP could try to steal the elections. It has too many skeletons in the cupboard waiting to tumble out. Besides, 2025 is the centenary year of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. They wouldn’t want not to be in power to celebrate. Yet, analysts also claim it is the RSS that may be dragging its feet on handing a great victory to Mr Modi. The dice, says Prabhakar, is loaded and potentially spiked. “The regime has eliminated the role of the supreme court in the selection and appointment of the election commissioners. Whether the government-appointed election commissioners will do the regime’s bidding is a matter of speculation or suspicion.”

Mr Modi moved to freeze the bank accounts of the Congress party, crippling its putative challenger. He put two chief ministers in prison. But for the supreme court giving interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Modi regime had rendered the opposition’s onslaught that much weaker.

“There is every likelihood that the present dispensation would, therefore, try to do everything to steal this election. Unlike the earlier general elections, the present election is unlikely to conclude with the conclusion of polling on June 1 and declaration of results on June 4.”

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2024

Indian elections

Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is raising concerns of violence.

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry 

DAWN

Published May 12, 2024 

THE Islamophobic rhetoric being employed by Narendra Modi for this election campaign has become shrill. Pakistan has nearly always been an electoral issue in India.

However, this time, it is Indian Muslims who are bearing the brunt of the Indian prime minister’s hate speech. Speaking in Rajasthan last month, he called Muslims “infiltrators” and said they produce too many children. In Gujarat, where, as chief minister, he had overseen the massacre of Muslims in 2002, he accused the Congress of seeking to “loot” India’s wealth and redistribute it among Muslims, and of organising a ‘vote jihad’ against his leadership. Later, he accused the Congress and Muslims of stealing Hindu wealth and property.

Modi’s inflammatory rhetoric was followed by the BJP’s campaign video portraying Muslims as outsiders who plundered India’s wealth. As concerns grew about communal violence, the video was removed. These allegations are a sequel to Modi’s public referencing of earlier conspiracy theories of ‘love jihad’ (Muslims forcibly converting Hindu women and marrying them to increase the Muslim population) or ‘land jihad’ (capturing land to construct religious structures and gaining control of India’s territory). Concerns that his rhetoric might incite further violence against Indian Muslims are increasing.

Ordinarily, since Hindus are in a majority in India, it may be difficult to question the rationale of creating a Hindu state. However, two observations are in order. One, the expansionist designs of the cherished Hindu state seek the creation of an Akhand Bharat, a Hindu right fantasy, which would violate the territorial integrity of Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as per a map displayed in the new parliament building. This is not acceptable to the aforementioned independent states.

Two, though the creation of a Hindu state should not translate into discrimination against minorities, regrettably this will be the case. The works of French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot illustrate how Muslims, 14.5 per cent of India’s population, are grossly underrepresented in bureaucracy, the judiciary, police, and legislative organs. They are second-class citizens.

The Muslim-majority area of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmiri is also being subjected to demographic engineering. The destruction of the centuries-old Babri Masjid by Hindu zealots in 1992 and the construction of a temple in its place has set a precedent that might be followed for other historic mosques. This contrasts sharply with the UAE’s gesture of permitting a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi.

Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is raising concerns of violence.

Analysts are also pointing out the fascist tendencies of the BJP regime, a steep decline in democratic values, and a departure from the moorings of pluralism and secularism on which modern India was founded. In her book The Incarcerations, Alpa Shah contends that Modi’s India is using its national security apparatus to incarcerate ordinary citizens for their dissenting views. Commenting on the book, Arundhati Roy stated that this was about criminalisation and incarceration of dissent itself.

Strikingly, the Modi regime has also used art and culture to project the Hindutva philosophy. Kunal Purohit’s book H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars shows how Hindutva pop stars and influencers are being used to spread the message of Hindu supremacy and create acceptance of Hindutva’s core beliefs.

Apart from this, Modi is playing on his government’s accomplishments: making India the world’s fifth largest economy; the construction of 50,000 kilometres of national highways; boosting India’s mi­­litary spending; bu­­ilding Vikrant, In­­dia’s first domes­ti­­cal­­ly built aircraft carrier; and the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing.

His prospects of winning a third term have been bolstered by a weak opposition. Despite the formation of the Congress-led 37-party INDIA coalition, there is no real challenge. What has bolstered his outreach is India’s enhanced global standing. In his book Why Bharat Matters, S. Jaishankar presents India as a leader of the global south and makes a case for the rejuvenation of India as a civilisational state.

There are some lessons that Pakistan could learn from India’s electoral process. One, despite the large scale of India’s elections (969 million registered voters; 1m polling stations) and the use of electronic voting machines, election results are largely accepted without much ado. Two, there is no caretaker government, as the incumbents become ‘caretakers’ in a way, and refrain from announcing major policy decisions or sanctioning expenditure for development schemes.

If Modi wins a third term, he is likely to maintain his pro-Hindutva, anti-Muslim, and hegemonic attitude towards regional countries, particularly Pakistan.

The write is a former foreign secretary and chairman of Sanober Institute Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2024

Indian (ANNEXED) Kashmir voters prepare for historic election amid political shifts

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

May 12, 2024 
By Muheet Ul Islam

Kashmiri polling officials carry Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) ahead of the fourth phase of voting of India's general elections in Srinagar, May 12, 2024.

SRINAGAR —

Voters in Indian Kashmir are going to the polls from May 13 through May 25 to select their representatives in the Indian parliament. Local media reports claim that more than 1.7 million voters will determine the outcome for 24 candidates competing for the Srinagar constituency.

This is part of India’s ongoing general elections, which began in late April and run through June. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term.

The vote comes nearly five years after the Modi government stripped Muslim majority Kashmir of its semiautonomous status. Kashmir's loss of its special status in August 2019 led to the division of the region into two federal territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Both areas are ruled by the central government and have no legislatures of their own.

Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is not contesting the elections in Indian Kashmir. News reports say the move signals ongoing discontent over the 2019 move and there is speculation BJP candidates would have lost.

HINDUTVA OCCUPATION FORCES

Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive to guard a venue for the distribution of Electronic Voting Machines and other election material in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, May 12, 2024.

Residents say the Indian general elections are important for the people of Kashmir. They maintain that the Modi government has robbed the region of rights that were guaranteed to them under the Indian constitution.

“What’s left for us locals? Our land is given to non-locals, jobs are taken by them too, our electricity is sent to other Indian states and everywhere you look, high-ranking officials are not from Jammu and Kashmir,” Fayaz Ahmad Malik, a resident, told VOA during a rally at Fateh Kadal, an area in Indian Kashmir’s capital.

“I have not voted in my life ever before but today I feel it is necessary because we are suffering. Modi and his party want to destroy us, but we have to stop him,” he said.

Locals listen to the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir at an election rally organized by his party, the National Conference, in the Palpora area of Srinagar. (Credit: Wasim Nabi for VOA)

Modi visited Indian Kashmir in March for the first time since the region lost its special status. Amid tight security, he told a crowd that had packed the Bakshi Stadium in the region's capital, Srinagar, that Kashmir has seen significant changes and prospered since his government acted in 2019.

Muzamil Maqbool, a political analyst and host of the podcast show Plain Talk, told VOA that the Kashmir valley is expected to see record-breaking voter turnout. He said the situation on the ground has changed since 2019.

“The government of India always wanted to increase the voting percentage here because for years and decades Kashmir has witnessed a massive boycott,” Maqbool said. “The government of India, political institutions and others always wanted Kashmiris to vote irrespective of which candidate will be chosen and the government of India has highly succeeded in that,” he added.

Mehbooba Mufti, President of Peoples Democratic Party, addresses a gathering at Faiteh Kadal area of Srinagar. (Credit: Wasim Nabi for VOA)

Maqbool believes people want to cast their vote and support their candidates openly. He added that young people, first time voters especially from central Kashmir, south and north Kashmir, are very eager to show the power of voting in democracy.

Gul Mohammad Khan, a resident of Srinagar, said that he expects a strong candidate who would dare to challenge Modi and other Hindu leaders openly.

“In the past no Kashmiri politician supporting India has shown such courage. They instead have aligned themselves with New Delhi’s interests,” Khan said. “I hope for a leader who can make Indian leaders dance to his tune,” he said.

Professor Noor Baba, another political analyst, told VOA that competition in Kashmir will be primarily between two regional political parties; the National Conference, or NC, and the People’s Democratic Party, or the PDP.

Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi is a candidate of the National Conference in Srinagar. He is considered as a strong candidate because he has a huge support of his voters spread across the region. (Credit: Wasim Nabi for VOA)

Modi's ruling party, Baba said, chose not to contest voting in Kashmir despite significant investment it made in reshaping politics in the area. India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, or INC, is supporting the NC.

“In Srinagar, the NC candidate has the support of his voters while the PDP candidate has also gained sympathy as he has been a victim of post-2019 politics,” Baba said.

Nasir Aslam Wani, the National Conference provincial president, and Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, National Conference’s candidate for Srinagar, were contacted for comments but their phones were switched off.

“NC has an advantage due to its longer historical presence and stronger social base.

There is a perception that PDP played a role in the political rehabilitation of the BJP in the politics of the erstwhile state by forming a government with it as its alliance partner. It played a key role in facilitating BJP’s reshaping politics in Kashmir,” Baba added.

Altaf Bukhari, businessman turned politician, has emerged as a strong political figure after he formed his own party known as Apni party. (Credit: Wasim Nabi for VOA)

Just before the ruling BJP revoked Kashmir’s special status in 2019, the party withdrew its support from the PDP, ending their alliance. The PDP is now a bitter rival to Modi’s party.

The “2024 elections in Kashmir are different from previous ones. Expectations are high, especially among the youth, who seek candidates to truly represent them in the Indian parliament,” said Tariq Ahmad Bhat, a senior youth leader of the People’s Democratic Party, to VOA.

“Previously the public viewed elections negatively, believing that voting would not make any difference. Today I can see the change. People have realized that undeserving candidates cannot be governed anymore,” Bhat added.

Jammu and Kashmir has been a disputed Himalayan region between India and Pakistan since the countries gained independence from British rule in 1947. Two wars have been fought between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Both nations govern the territory under its control.

HINDUTVA IS ARYAN PATRIARCHY

Indian Women Have Gone Backward Under Narendra Modi’s Rule

On taking power, Narendra Modi’s government claimed that it would address a wave of sexual violence and raise the status of Indian women. But things have got worse for women under Modi’s rule, with a culture of misogyny that flows downward from the top.

By Maya John

May 11, 2024

Source: Jacobin




The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which currently heads the ruling coalition government in India, has long had a reputation as a male-dominated, Hindu supremacist organization with an upper caste and patriarchal image. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted a makeover of the party’s image on several fronts. He is now seeking a third term in office and campaigning aggressively on the government’s numerous initiatives related to women.

The BJP is specifically targeting women as a separate vote bank, inspired by the higher turnout of female voters in recent elections. The emergence of women as an identifiable constituency makes it imperative to take stock of the BJP’s claims to have “empowered” women during its decade-long rule.
Violence Against Women

When the BJP-led electoral alliance came to power, there was palpable discontent about growing crimes against women. People desired changes in the legal framework, especially with respect to crimes of sexual violence. An appeal to this widespread sentiment became one of the important planks on which Modi based his 2014 election campaign.

However, since Modi’s party has been in power, the country has witnessed a further spurt in violence against women. The 2021 data of the National Crime Records Bureau reveals that on average, eighty-six women were raped every day in India, while forty-nine cases of crimes against women were lodged every single hour. The overall number of crimes against women per one hundred thousand of the population increased from 56.3 in 2014 to 66.4 in 2022.

Growing violence against women reflects not only a deep patriarchal bias but also an utter institutional failure. At times, we have seen the BJP defending and protecting those accused of violence against women. For example, the union minister of women and child development, Smriti Irani, shamefully lashed out at victims who publicly expose their perpetrators, accusing them of “defaming” the government.

Clearly, the culture of impunity has become more entrenched, particularly among those enjoying proximity to the ruling elites and belonging to dominant castes and communities or other positions of influence in society. The last decade of Modi’s rule has seen numerous disturbing instances of sexual violence, many of which involved women from marginalized communities and economically vulnerable backgrounds.

Several of these cases found their way into the mainstream news, such as the gang rape of a minor girl by a BJP legislator in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, in 2017; the repeated gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua, Kashmir, in 2018; and the gang rape of a Dalit girl in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, in 2020. Compromised police investigations, criminal negligence, and covert institutional backing for the perpetrators have been apparent.

From the release of the rapists of Bilkis Bano, a victim of gang rape during the 2002 Gujarat communal carnage, to the eerie silence of Modi amid the horrifying violence and rampant sexual assaults on women in Manipur during the recent clashes between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities, the BJP’s approach to the violence unleashed on women during communal pogroms and ethnic clashes is even more revealing of its misogyny.
Impunity at the Top

We can expect little else from a ruling party that has the highest number of sitting members of parliament (MPs) and members of legislative assemblies (MLAs) against whom cases of crimes against women have been registered.

Naked displays of impunity by BJP politicians and legislators have often surfaced over this past decade. These include the intimidation of India’s female wrestlers of international fame, who mustered the courage to expose rampant sexual harassment by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a BJP MP and president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).

In the course of this year’s general election, numerous disturbing videos have surfaced of mass rapes and sexual assaults by Prajwal Revanna, a sitting MP from the BJP’s key electoral ally in Karnataka. Modi has been accused of knowing about the accusations but campaigning for the sexual predator anyway, desperate for votes from Karnataka. Revanna was allowed to flee the country. The scandal is a farcical repeat of the pattern of culpability manufactured and abetted by the ruling party on several previous occasions.

Keen to save its image and absolve itself of allegations of complicity, the Modi administration has repeatedly resorted to gimmicks such as enhancing the severity of punishment. The overt focus on the quantum and severity of punishment draws attention away from the abysmally low conviction rates for rape and the fact that it is the certainty of punishment more than its severity which is the effective deterrent.

In 2021, for instance, the conviction rate for crimes against women was a mere 26.5 percent, while 95 percent of cases were still pending. Although it has introduced more stringent criminal laws, the government has done precious little to ensure greater accountability of the police, reform of the judicial system, or improved measures to rehabilitate and empower rape survivors.

In fact, the Nirbhaya Fund, which was established in 2013 after public outrage over the Delhi gang-rape case, is grossly underfunded and underutilized. In 2021, only 50 percent of the money allocated had been released, and only 29 percent had actually been spent. The consequence is a lack of sufficient fast-track courts and one-stop rape crisis centers, which actually hinders the pursuit of justice.
Communal Misogyny

The BJP’s claim to be successfully fighting gender oppression is further exposed when we factor in the impact of its divisive communal politics on women. India saw a sharp rise in honor killings over the last decade, with BJP-ruled provinces topping the chart.

This alarming trend cannot be separated from the vigilantism of right-wing mass organizations with connections to the ruling party. These organizations have been aggressively targeting interfaith consensual relationships, especially those between Hindu women and Muslim men.

Many have rightly argued that in view of its divisive agenda of targeting particular religions and communities, the Modi government has seen the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) as a way to push for uniformity across communities rather than substantive gender equality within communities.

The UCC introduced in the Uttarakhand province, for example, overlooks discrimination within the personal laws of the undivided Hindu family. Instead, it curbs the right of women to cohabit with partners of their choice, thereby paving the way for moral policing by state institutions and vigilante groups.

Modi’s divisive, partisan form of politics also came to the fore in 2022 when hijab-wearing Muslim women students were denied access to state pre-university colleges in Karnataka, which was then ruled by the BJP. This hampered the educational opportunities of young women who come from a minority community that is already battling educational disadvantage.

Importantly, it is not only minority Muslims whose access to education has taken a hit. The BJP’s education policy has intensified the neglect of publicly funded schooling across the board, paving the way for the merger of government schools in a supposed bid to “rationalize” resources.

Such measures, leading to the closure of several schools, have adversely affected the education of girls, especially in rural areas. This has triggered protests by school-going girls and their parents.
Hollow Claims

Another example of hollow claims about uplifting and bringing dignity to India’s rural women concerns the much-advertised social empowerment scheme aimed at eliminating open defecation. Far from being a novel initiative, this is simply a repackaged version of an earlier rural sanitation program, now referred to as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA).

Although SBA provides monetary support for the construction of toilets in rural households, the scheme comes without the laying of a proper sewer system and maintenance. As a consequence, it reinforces the vile and primitive practices of manual scavenging. The double tragedy is that such stigmatized work is carried out mostly by Dalit (“untouchable”) women in villages.

In real terms, the Modi era has spelled doom for the large majority of women from the working and lower-middle classes as well as poor peasants and impoverished tribal households. The burden of social reproduction borne by these women has greatly increased with the rapid privatization of many public utilities and the steady withdrawal of the state from health care and education.

While the government showcases a plethora of welfare schemes, the actual cash transfers amount to paltry sums. This is especially true in a context where inflation persists unabated and budgetary allocations for such schemes are being steadily curtailed.

Modi’s administration claims to have distributed over ninety-five million deposit-free liquified petroleum gas (LPG), or clean fuel, connections to poor rural households between 2016 and 2023. Yet with LPG prices skyrocketing, more than half of rural women continue to collect firewood and use polluting solid fuels. In this way, the average Indian woman continues to juggle a high quantity of housework and has to spend much more time attending to these tasks.
Smoke Screen

The government’s claim to have empowered women does not stand up when measured against the realities of women’s everyday lives and their skewed access to livelihoods and gainful employment. At one level, we can see rising crimes against women and the pervasive culture of impunity that adversely affects the efforts of women to venture out, unfettered, into the public sphere.

At another level, behind the smokescreen of paid news, we can discern the fast-deteriorating conditions of women in India’s labor market. The current status of the state-backed national rural employment guarantee scheme (the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MNREGA) is alarming to say the least. Notably, women constitute over 50 percent of the MNREGA workforce.

Intensifying agrarian distress and rising unemployment have resulted in increased demand for MNREGA work. However, the Modi government’s budget cuts for MNREGA have led to a shortage of work under the scheme, along with massive delays in payments.

In addition, around five million women are presently employed under various schemes and programs run by Union and state governments. These women, who belong mostly to “lower” castes and come from impoverished backgrounds, are mobilized for various forms of community work, such as the delivery of primary health care in villages or taking care of children in anganwadis (rural childcare centers).

However, their work is undervalued by being cast as an extension of voluntarism and community service. As a result, they are denied the status and rights of workers and receive paltry “monthly incentives” or honorariums. This has driven many to engage in vigorous struggles for recognition as government workers. The Modi government offers no assurances for their uplift.

When boasting of its efforts to generate livelihoods for women through microfinance loan schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), the government conveniently overlooks the fact that private capital accounts for the larger share of India’s microfinance industry. By steering clear of effective regulation of mushrooming microfinance institutions, the BJP has left women to increasingly bear the brunt of predatory lending and become caught in the vortex of indebtedness.

In the interest of “ease of business,” the government has introduced new labor codes that represent a further withdrawal of the state from public regulation of relations between workers and employers. The infamous codes have pushed more and more women workers into the informal sector, exposing them to precarity and vulnerability.

Heavily concentrated in the lowest rungs of the labor market, women are falling prey to dismal working conditions characterized by low wages and overwork. The insecure and informal work arrangements also breed rampant sexual harassment of laboring women.
Recognition and Redistribution

Electoral politics in India was traditionally driven by the logic that the voting choices of women were shaped by their male counterparts within the family, caste, community, and so on. However, women have been emerging as an electoral constituency in their own right. That is one reason why issues of concern to women have steadily gained more attention in recent years.

In response, the Modi government has sought to milk the long-pending issue of reserving 33 percent of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament. In January 2024, just before the announcement of polling dates for the general election, it strategically passed the bill on reservation for women.

The measure offers nothing substantial for the average woman and for the masses in general, since India’s skewed first-past-the-post electoral system fails to provide for more representative governments that cater to the interests and aspirations of socially and economically vulnerable sections of society.

Moreover, as a general trend, women candidates of all political parties come from affluent backgrounds. This looks likely to continue even after the reform, reinforcing the status quo whereby women from the dominant sections of society will continue to capture the parliamentary space.

It is at a time of growing pauperization of women that the increase in women’s representation in the ruling establishment has been put into effect. As a mere politics of recognition, this measure can be easily co-opted and translated into a form of patriarchal patronage — until, of course, it is reenvisioned with redistribution of resources so that the lives, liberty, and livelihoods of women are concretely secured.

Women in India have been far from passive over the past decade. They have been in the forefront of numerous movements against discriminatory citizenship laws, sexual violence, pro-corporate farm laws, dispossession, anti-labor policies, and so on, all of which have challenged the legitimacy of the ruling dispensation. We can expect such resistance to build anew and persist — Modi or no Modi.



Maya John is an assistant professor of history at Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi.

 

Pakistan’s Kashmir Quandary amid India’s Regional Rise

The return of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan in October 2023 from self-exile in London raised many expectations. However, neither did Nawaz Sharif become the Prime Minister after the general elections in February 2024, though his party leads the government, nor has Pakistan left any stone unturned in raising the Kashmir issue—something that exasperates India. Many Pakistan watchers in India had hoped for a resumption of diplomatic dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Experts in India believed that Nawaz Sharif had the convincing capability to restore dialogue with India due to Delhi’s ease with Sharif during his past terms as Prime Minister. With Nawaz’s brother and former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif taking over the office, Delhi sticks to its cautious optimism of maintaining a status quo until Pakistan takes severe actions against the menace of terrorism. The recently launched election manifesto of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) promises to accelerate the development of robust infrastructure along the “Indo-Pakistan” borders by introducing “technological solutions on fenced portions to make fencing smarter.”

Delhi’s unwillingness to normalize relations with Pakistan emanates from the failure of formal and back-channel talks because of the continuing terror attacks. India has been a victim of Pakistan-exported terrorism for a few decades now, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This enduring tension has not only perpetuated animosity but has also overshadowed attempts at regional cooperation. The historical context of Kashmir serves as a backdrop to this complex relationship, further complicating efforts toward peace and stability in the region.

Islamabad’s Fixation on Kashmir

Kashmir, a Himalayan territory claimed in full but ruled in parts by India and Pakistan, has been the bone of contention between the two since the Partition of India in 1947. After seven decades, the issue still takes up the paramount space in frozen bilateral ties. For India, Kashmir is an integral part of it, and by abrogating Article 370 in the Indian Constitution – giving special autonomy to Kashmir – in 2019, Delhi marked a dead-end to the issue. But for Pakistan, the issue still remains unresolved, with the newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif invoking the Kashmir issue in his maiden speech in the House, suggesting the passing of a resolution for the “freedom of Kashmiris“. 

Furthermore, Prime Minister Sharif raised the Kashmir dispute during his first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia. The Joint Statement from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan emphasized the importance of “dialogue between Pakistan and India to resolve the outstanding issues between the two countries, especially the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, to ensure peace and stability in the region.” Also, during a joint press briefing with the visiting Iranian President, Sharif had raised the Kashmir issue and sought Iran’s support. While India sees no space for external actors in raising or discussing the Kashmir issue, Pakistan continues to seek international support on Kashmir, especially from the Islamic world.

India’s Growing Ties with the Middle East

However, in the last decade, the terms of India’s engagement with the Islamic World, especially the Middle East, have seen a 360-degree change towards the positive side. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking several trips to the Middle East, receiving the highest state honors from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, inaugurating a Hindu temple in UAE, and getting eight Indian nationals on death row in Qatar released, it all showcases the growing bonhomie between India and the Middle Eastern countries.

India’s cooperation with the Middle East extends beyond bilateral relations with new strategic connectivity initiatives like the I2U2 Group, comprising Israel, India, the UAE, and the United States, that aim to deepen collaboration in energy and transportation and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and integration across two continents, thus unlocking sustainable and inclusive economic growth. 

India’s ascent to the fifth-largest global economy and its expanding defense capabilities have set the stage for renewed engagement with the Middle East. The region’s burgeoning potential as an emerging open society has spurred collaboration in sectors ranging from financial investments to science and technology and facilitated labor mobility. This shift in the Middle East’s perspective towards India extends beyond historical concerns like Kashmir and Pakistan, fostering a more nuanced and multifaceted relationship that transcends religious lenses.

As the Global South joins India in condemning global terrorism and the Middle East moves away from a solely religious perspective to engage with India, Pakistan faces a considerable challenge in adapting to the shifting regional dynamics. Also, with India aligning with the global community in condemning terrorism and its alleged sponsors, notably Pakistan, while fostering a deepening partnership with the Islamic world, Pakistan faces a pressing need to reassess the duration of the Islamic world’s support for its stance on Kashmir.

Pakistan’s Internal Dynamics

With its dwindling economic capabilities, unstable government, and unsafe investment environment, Pakistan is becoming less attractive to foreign investors. This trend is exacerbated by the governance model, stringent tax regimes, and acute state control, all of which are heavily influenced by the military. Pakistan’s key allies and supporters on the Kashmir issue, notably Saudi Arabia, are showing signs of reevaluating their one-way economic contributions towards Pakistan. This potential shift in Saudi policy could have far-reaching implications for Pakistan’s financial health and diplomatic leverage in the region.

Similarly, Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’ China faces an acute challenge to its investment in Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been subject to tribal warfare within Pakistan. In the last two years alone, the CPEC has been targeted multiple times. In March 2024, five Chinese nationals lost their lives in terror attacks on Gwadar Port—a critical strategic component in the CPEC. Beijing has condemned the attacks and sought an investigation into the matter. These developments raise pertinent questions about the stability and security of China’s investments in Pakistan, potentially prompting Beijing to reconsider its investment strategy in the region.

Also, Pakistan’s economy is cash-strapped, with a GDP of USD 374 billion and a projected growth rate of only 2%, much lower than India’s 6.2% growth rate and GDP of USD 4,112 billion. Pakistan’s overall economic challenges include high inflation, fiscal deficit, and reliance on international loans. The country struggles with a balance of payments crisis, necessitating frequent bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and friendly nations.

To conclude, with the current state of its politics and economy, the changing global power dynamics with India finding international support and the changing equation between the Islamic world and India, Pakistan will have to rethink its Kashmir strategy beyond Islamic solidarity. India, on the other hand, has reasons to celebrate its growing ties with the Islamic world, considering its minority Muslim population is taking note of it. Meanwhile, it is imperative for Pakistan to reassess its priorities and move beyond its fixation on Kashmir. It is time to contemplate whether the Islamic world will persist in providing both moral and material support on the Kashmir issue.  

 

The Renewable Revolution Hinges on Recycled Metals

By Haley Zaremba - Apr 28, 2024

• E-waste contains a large amount of critical metals needed for clean energy technologies.
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• Recycling metals from e-waste is a more environmentally friendly alternative to mining new metals.
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• Supportive policies and designs that facilitate recycling are key to increasing the recycling of e-waste metals.

The renewable revolution will rely on a whole lot of non-renewable resources to get the job done. Building out the massive amount of clean energy infrastructure needed for a global decarbonization transition is going to require huge quantities of resources. In particular, the clean energy transition is going to call for a whole lot of specialty metals and minerals used for different green technologies such as solar panels, batteries, wind turbines, and electrical wiring. Indeed, metals currently represent one of the hottest commodities markets for energy traders. As demand skyrockets, sourcing such metals in an environmentally friendly way is key, lest we destroy the planet in the name of saving it. 

The problem is that mining for metals is associated with a litany of environmental ills. Recent reports on lithium, for example, one of the most essential rare Earth minerals used in ‘clean’ technologies, have shown that there is a very dark side to the ever-increasing production boom. Extracting a single ton of lithium requires approximately 500,000 liters of water, which poses a major existential threat to the desert environments and communities where it is being extracted. As such, the discovery of lithium in developing countries is seen by locals as a blessing and a curse. Already, there are legitimate fears that lithium production will suck South America’s ‘Lithium Triangle’ region dry and make agricultural livelihoods untenable and that elite capture of lithium wealth in Kashmir will cause social unrest on top of environmental ills. 

Lithium is just one of a laundry list of metals that will be essential to reaching global climate goals by mid-century and avoiding catastrophic climate change in the longer term. Luckily, there’s another major source of key energy transition metals that doesn’t require any mining at all – your local landfill. Despite the huge and growing demand for metals, we are throwing away billions of kilograms of them every year in the form of electronic waste (familiarly known as e-waste). 

Globally, we threw out a staggering 62 million metric tons of electronics in 2022. Within that total there was an estimated 1.1 billion kilograms of copper, 1.9 billion kilograms of nickel, and 1.1 billion kilograms of aluminum – all of which are essential metals for the clean energy transition. That’s according to the United Nations recently released Global E-Waste Monitor, which tracked the waste of valuable metals for the first time ever this year. 

The scale of this waste, and its mismatch with current demand trends for the same materials, is staggering. In 2022, demand for copper from climate tech alone reached 6 million metric tons, according to figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the same year, 40% of the 2 million metric tons of copper present in e-waste went straight to landfills around the world instead of being recycled for reuse. The same goes for aluminum. And those metals are recycled far more frequently than other critical energy transition metals. 

Not only is this practice staggeringly wasteful, it’s also counterproductive to the entire clean energy movement. Mining new metals is a dirty business that is often associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions. On average, mining new aluminum creates more than 10 times more carbon emissions than aluminum recycling. This is a hugely significant difference, especially when considering that aluminum production is projected to balloon by 80% in a scenario where the world stays on track with its renewable energy goals. 

So why aren’t we recycling far more metals and diverting them directly to the vast and growing clean energy technology demand? Some metals are extremely difficult to extract and recycle from e-waste, like nickel that has been locked inside of stainless steel and other alloys. Others are simply not sufficiently incentivized for the effort to be worth the time and money it takes to find and extract them. Supportive policy measures that require recycling as well as production design that facilitates future recycling are therefore key to closing this waste loop.

Closing such loops is a critical step for making the global clean energy transition feasible, and for reducing its negative environmental externalities. E-waste is not the only problem in this vein. The clean energy sector itself is also a major generator of waste which could be better managed and recycled. While time is of the essence for achieving a timely clean energy transition, taking the opportunity to pause and reflect on better production cycles is critical to avoid needless waste and bitterly ironic poor resource management in the effort to save the planet. 

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com