Latin America continues to be a large market for India’s exports

India’s exports were 12.74 billion dollars in 2020-21 (April-March), according to the figures just released by the Commerce Ministry of India. The exports to the region have declined marginally by 3.3% from 13.18 billion in 2019-20. This is not bad in view of the fact that India’s total global exports have declined by 7% from 313 bn to 291 bn in the same period. 

 

Brazil continued as the # 1 destination of India’s exports to the region, with 4.25 billion dollars.

 

The other major destinations were: 

Mexico 3.08 billion dollars 

Colombia 865 million

Chile 805 million 

Peru 765 m 

Argentina 688 m 

Venezuela 557 m 

 

Exports to Mercosur was 5199 million, Pacific Alliance 5522 m and CAFTA (Central America + DR) 1143 m 

 

Major exports

 

Vehicles     2608 million dollars

Chemicals 2534 m

Pharma     1196

Machinery 1152

Diesel         1034

Textiles     704

Cotton.     417

Plastics.    421

Iron and steel 599

Aluminium products 393

Rubber products 254

 

Car exports

Latin America accounted for 30.5% ( 1.3 bn) of India’s global car exports of 4.3 bn dollars. Mexico was the largest global market for Indian cars with 860 m.  US was second with 512 million.

Other major destinations: Chile 201 m and Peru 86 m

 

Motorcycles

India was the second largest supplier of motorcycles to Latin America with 577 million dollars. This is 28% of India’s global exports of 2 bn.

Major destinations were Colombia 190 million dollars,  Mexico 90 m, Guatemala 84 m and Peru 53 m. Colombia was the third largest global market for Indian motorcycles after Nigeria and Nepal. Some years back Colombia was the # 1 destination. Indian brands are market leaders in Colombia and Guatemala. Hero Motors has invested 80 million dollars in a production plant in Cali, Colombia.

 

Pharmaceuticals

India is the fifth largest supplier of pharmaceuticals to Latin America. Major destination of India’s pharma exports:  Brazil 317 million dollars, Peru 128 m, Chile 123 m, Mexico 114 m, Colombia 68 m, Dominican Republic 54 m, Venezuela 51 m, Guatemala 48 m, Bolivia 29 m and Ecuador 28 m.

 

India’s exports to Latin American countries in comparison to neighbors and traditional trading partners

 

India’s exports to some of the distant Latin American countries are more than the exports to neighboring countries or traditional trade partners with same or more population. This is a trend of the last several years.

 

Examples:

 

- 209 million dollars to Dominican Republic (population 11 million) more than the 169 m to Cambodia (population- 16 m)

-331 m to Guatemala ( pop-11 m)  vs 225 m to Kazakstan (pop- 19 m)

-865 m to Colombia (pop 50 m) more than the exports of 779 m to the neighboring Myanmar (pop 53 m)

-4.24 bn to Brazil and 3 bn to Mexico vs  exports to Russia (2.6 bn), Nigeria (3.1 bn), Egypt (2.2 bn), and Canada (2.9 bn)

 

India exported more motorcycles (190 million) to Colombia than to neighboring markets such as Bangladesh (98 m). 

 

India’s car exports to Chile at 201 million dollars are more than the exports to Nepal (85 m), Bangladesh (41 m), Sri Lanka (3 m) and Myanmar (4 m).

 

 

 

Imports

Major Latin American suppliers were: Brazil 3 bn, Mexico 2.85 billion, Argentina 2.63 bn, Peru 1.52 bn, Colombia 1.4 bn, Chile 1.18 bn, Bolivia 1.16 bn and Venezuela 714 m

 

Venezuela used to be the major source of imports in the region for the last fifteen years with supply of large volumes of crude oil. Due to the US sanctions, Venezuelan oil supply to India has come down drastically from its peak of around 10 billion dollars.

 

Main import items 

 

Crude oil  5047 million dollars

Gold.         4055 m

Veg oil.     2443

Raw Sugar 612

Copper.    479

Machinery 378

Chemicals 288

Wood        349

Plastics.     162

Fruits& veg 110 m

 

Sources of crude oil imports: Mexico 1974 m, Brazil 933 m, Colombia 944 m, Venezuela 644 m ( down from 6.03 billion dollars last year), Ecuador 234 m and Cuba 67 m

 

Gold import sourcing: Peru 1500 million dollars, Bolivia 1156 m, Colombia 378 m, Brazil 270 m, Dom Republic 234 m, Mexico 192 m and Argentina 324 m.

 

Argentina was the main Latin American supplier of edible oil with 2.19 billion dollars, followed by Brazil 256 m. 

 

 

Trade 2020-21

 

 

Country	exports	imports	Total trade
Brazil	4245	3016	7261
Mexico	3087	2846	6933
Argentina	688	2627	3315
Peru	765	1521	2286
Colombia	865	1404	2269
Chile	805	671	1476
Venezuela	557	714	1271
Bolivia	94	1159	1253
Ecuador	208	333	541
Dom Republic	209	257	466
Panama	152	33	185
Guatemala	331	21	352
Uruguay	105	164	269
Honduras	163	13	176
Costa Rica	114	47	161
Paraguay	161	16	177
El Salvador	84	4	88
Nicaragua	90	6	96
Cuba	20	69	89
Total	12743	14921	27664

 

 

Decade of trade from 2010-11 to 2019-20

 

India’s exports had increased from 10.04 billion dollars in the beginning of the decade to 13.7 bn in 2014-15. But the Latin American recession and economic difficulties caused a dip in India’s exports in 2015-16. Since then the exports have increased steadily until the covid crisis.

 

India’s imports reached a peak of 31.38 billion dollars in 2012-13 due to the high crude oil prices and large volume of India’s imports from Venezuela. But since then, the oil prices have come down and due to US sanctions, the volume of imports from Venezuela has also reduced drastically. 

 

The annual India-Latin America trade had reached a peak of 44.08 billion dollars in 2013-14 due to the high oil prices and large crude imports from Venezuela.

 

Year	exports	1mports	Total trade
2020-21	12.74	14.92	27.66
2019-20	13.18	20.67	33.85
2018-19	13.16	25.7	38.89
2017-18	12.1	24.4	36.45
2016-17	10.4	19.6	30
2015-16	10	19.7	29.7
2014-15	13.7	29.3	43
2013-14	12.77	31.31	44.08
2012-13	12.48	31.38	43.86
2011-12	11.33	18.42	29.75
2010-11	10.04	14.01	24.05

 

 

 

Market

 

Latin America, the region of 19 countries, has a total population of 620 million and GDP of 5.4 Trilion dollars. 

 

The region which had a historic GDP contraction of 7.7% in 2020 is forecast to rebound with a growth of 3.7% in 2021. 

The region's external trade declined by 8.6% in 2020. Latin America's imports were 904 billion dollars (down from 1006 bn in 2019) and exports 935 bn in 2020, declining from 1007 bn in 2019. 

 

There is potential for India to increase its exports to about 20 billion dollars in the next five years if the Indian exporters and government intensify their export promotion seriously and systematically. At this time of austerity, Latin Americans look for affordable products from less expensive sources. Although China fits this expectation, the Latin Americans seek to reduce their overdependence on China with which there is growing trust deficit especially after the Corona virus which originated from Wuhan.

 

 

El Salvador's experiment with Bitcoin

 El Salvador has become the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal currency

The Congress on Wednesday has approved President Nayib Bukele’s proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's use as legal tender will begin in 90 days, with the bitcoin-dollar exchange rate set by the market.

Under the law, bitcoin must be accepted by firms, including MacDonalds, when offered as payment for goods and services. Exemption is given to businesses which have no access to bitcoin technology. The government will act as a backstop for entities that aren’t willing to take on the risk of a volatile cryptocurrency. Even tax payments can be paid in the cryptocurrency. 
Even if a merchant doesn’t want to take the risk of convertibility, he has to accept bitcoin because it’s a mandated currency.  He can ask the government to exchange his bitcoin to dollars immediately or use the market for conversion.  

The government is guaranteeing convertibility to dollars at the time of transaction through a $150 million trust created at the country's development bank BANDESAL. The Development Bank’s trust fund would sell some of the bitcoin it receives for dollars to replenish the fund.
At this moment, the government and Central Bank do not currently hold any bitcoin.
Bukele has touted the use of bitcoin for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home, while saying the U.S. dollar will also continue as legal tender. In practice, El Salvador does not have its own currency.

El Salvador relies heavily on money sent back from workers abroad. Remittances by Salvadoreans mainly in US are about $6 billion or around a fifth of GDP, one of the highest ratios in the world.

The cryptocurrency offers, in theory, a quick and cheap way to send money across borders without relying on remittance firms typically used for such transactions. 

The government will promote training and mechanisms to allow access to bitcoin transactions.
The El Salvador announcement has pushed up the value of bitcoin by 6% to $35,200.

Bukele has instructed state-owned geothermal electric firm LaGeo to develop a plan to offer bitcoin mining facilities using renewable energy from the country's volcanoes.

He has offered citizenship to people who showed evidence they had invested in at least three bitcoins.

Outside the United States, countries with the highest crypto production and trading volumes are all developing nations including China, Colombia and India. The bitcoin experiment of El Salvador will be watched by the enthusiasts of the crypto currency from around the world. 

There are challenges of volatility of bitcoin as well as the poor internet infrastructure and usage in the country.

El Salvador, the smallest country (in area) in Central America with 6.5 million people, has huge problems. Besides poverty and other developmental issues the country is the victim of violence and crime committed mostly by the notorious gangs. The main issue is the ongoing gang violence and crime. The country has become notorious with one of the highest murder rates in the world. Mara Salvatrucha, popularly known as MS-13 and the Barrio 18 (18^thstreet gang) are the two dominant gangs which hold the country to ransom with killings, crimes and drug trafficking. The rivalry between these two became so violent at one stage in 2012, the government intervened and brokered a ceasefire between MS 13 and the Barrio 18. In order to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, the government relaxed conditions in the prisons in which the members of the two gangs were held. Following this peace deal, the murder rate had dropped immediately. But this truce broke down in 2014 and crime has gone up again.

It is because of the violence in the country that many are fleeing, trying to enter US and seeking asylum. 

The second major problem of El Salvador is the rampant corruption. Last week, the former first lady Ana Ligia de Saca, who was found guilty of illicit enrichment, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to repay $17.6 million to the state.

Her husband, former President Tony Saca, is already serving a 10-year sentence since September 2018. The court had asked him to return to the state 260 million dollars siphoned by him. Lot of money for the small country.

Ana Ligia de Saca's brother Oscar Edgardo Sol Mixco had received a similar sentences of jail and fine earlier on corruption charges.

While Saca is the first Salvadorean president to be jailed for corruption, both his predecessor and his successor in office have also been accused of corruption

His predecessor, Francisco Flores, was accused of diverting a $15m-donation given to his government by Taiwan to help victims of the earthquakes which hit El Salvador in 2001. Mr Flores died in 2016 while under house arrest awaiting trial.

Mauricio Funes, successor to Saca has been accused of using public funds for his personal use. He fled to Nicaragua where he has got asylum since two years ago.Some of the previous presidents of the country have been accused and convicted of massive corruption.

The current President Nayeb Bukele is young and tech savvy. He is using bitcoin as part of his adventurous new agenda and experiment.

The country needs solutions urgently for the crime, corruption and poverty more than the bitcoin experiment.

Uruguay gets its first unicorn and billionaires

The first billionaires of Uruguay, Andres Bzurovski and Sergio Fogel are the founders of the fintech dLocal, the first unicorn of the country. The company's market cap has crossed 10 billion dollars in Nasdaq.

dLocal, founded in 2016, connects global merchants seamlessly with billions of emerging market users. Its platform facilitates a connection to over 600 local payment methods across different markets to accept online payments and pay out vendors and partners.

It operates across 29 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America including in India. It processes payments for companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and Didi.

It has over 300 employees. It has offices in US, UK, China , Brazil and Israel besides in Uruguay

Sebastian Kanovich, a Uruguayan is CEO. Sumita Pandit an American Indian is the COO

Bolsonaro, Bible, Beef and Bullets

The Brazilians did not elect Jair Bolsonaro as President in 2018 because of his agenda, accomplishments or charisma. The voters wanted to punish the Workers Party (PT) of Lula after the sensationalized Car Wash corruption scandals. Bolsonaro was carried by the high tide of public anger. Anyone who stood against Fernando Haddad, the PT candidate would have won. 

 

Bolsonaro does not have any leadership qualities to speak of.  In February 2017, when he stood as a candidate for president of the lower house, he won just four votes including his own out the assembly’s 513 deputies. Bolsonaro’s incendiary pro-military views put him at odds with many pro-business and pro-market conservatives. His political ideas were regarded as anachronistic and out of tune with the liberal democratic mood of the post-dictatorship era. His pronouncements on sexuality and violence were so inflammatory and outrageous. “I’ve got five kids but on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and it came out as a girl”, he told an audience at the Clube Hebraica in Sao Paulo in April 2017. His vulgar, obscene and abusive language shocked the cultured and educated class.

 

Bolsonaro did not sustain membership of any political party nor did he succeed in creating his own party. He had changed parties seven times. When he announced his Presidential candidature in 2016 he was member of the Social Christian Party. In 2018 he shifted to the Social Liberal Party. He left it in November 2019. His efforts since then to form a new party, the Alliance for Brazil, has not succeeded. 

 

Some overlooked these negatives and voted for Bolsonaro hoping that he might change for the better after becoming President. But he has become worse with even more outrageous behaviour.  While the Brazilians are grieving over the 472,000 covid deaths and suffering from the economic and social impact of the virus, Bolsonaro rides horses, motorcycles and jetskies, smiling, joking and laughing. The death count would have been much less but for his denialism, championing of wrong cures and propaganda against masks, social distancing and vaccines. The world leaders practice social and political distancing from the toxic Bolsonaro, who has driven the country into isolation. 

 

While consistently and constantly doing and saying everything negative, Bolsonaro has no positive achievements or fulfillment of major promises or legislative initiatives to show in his term so far. The only positive thing that has happened was the passing of the pension reforms bill in 2019. But this was done by the Congress in spite of Bolsonaro’s lack of interest and the open opposition of many of his hardline supporters. 

 

Most Brazilians are ashamed when the puzzled foreigners ask how could Brazil elect such an obnoxious character as President. The Brazilians are angry again, outraged more by Bolsonaro’s crimes than the corruption of PT. Going by the logic of anger which defeated PT in the last elections, Bolsonaro should suffer the same fate in the next election in 2022. His role model Trump has been voted out in US. 

 

But even if Bolsonaro loses the 2022 elections, some forces and constituencies which have surfaced or strengthened in this age of Bolsonaro need to be watched out for their long term impact. This is the conclusion of Richard Lapper, former Latin America editor of Financial Times, in his book “Bible, Beef and Bullets: Brazil in the age of Bolsonaro”. 

 

Lapper is an authentic expert on Latin America and Brazil. He had worked as a journalist in Central America in the early eighties. He has a personal and emotional relationship with Brazil, being married to a Brazilian from Salvador. He had lived in Sao Paulo from 2002 to 2008. With this background, Lapper has given comprehensive back ground information and objective analysis of the rise of of Bolsonaro and the conservative constituencies.

 

Lapper characterises Bolsonaro as part of a broader populist phenomenon with makings of a fascist. He sees him as an extreme right-wing populist, as someone similar to leaders such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian president, or Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine leader.

 

According to Lapper, three developments have come together to activate the dormant genes of Brazilian right wing forces , coinciding with the rise of Bolsonaro. First, the country’s recession between 2014 and 2016 was the worst in its modern history until hit by covid even harder. Second was the Car Wash corruption scandal which tarnished the image of all the established political parties and discredited the major corporations. The third was  the increase in violent crime, which became the subject of obsessive interest in the press and on social media. 

 

Bolsonaro’s presidential candidature got traction with the rise of a broad conservative alliance of people who had been unhappy about Brazil’s drift towards the socially liberal left. The alliance had already existed in the Congress in the form of the Bible, Bullet and Beef lobbies. These have latched on to Bolsonaro, the first President, who share their views even more enthusiastically. No mainstream politician would dare to be openly associated with their agenda, let alone promote their interests as Bolsonaro does.

 

The Bible lobby represents the growing power of the evangelicals. An estimated 30 per cent of Brazilians were evangelical Protestants in 2020, up from only about 6 per cent in 1980. They are against abortion, liberal education, same-sex marriage and other such socially progressive proposals. Bolsonaro’s noise on these issues resonate with the Evangelicals. Many of the Evangelical pastors have become millionaires and Edir Macedo, the founder of Universal Church is a billionaire. They wield power in the media and Congress. They advise their flocks to whom to vote for. Besides implementation of their obscurantist proposals, they seek a share in political power.  Edir Macedo’s nephew Marcelo Crivella became a minister in Rousseff government. Macedo supported Bolsonaro since his church had issues with Fernando Haddad, the PT candidate.

 

The Beef lobby includes ruralistas, ranchers, loggers and large land owners who want more freedom to exploit the lands in Amazon and in the reservations of indigenous people. Their Congressional caucus has been steadily increasing its strength. It had 192 deputies and 11 senators after the 2010 election in which Rousseff took office. Four years later the lobby increased its weight with 228 deputies and 27 senators. And by 2018 it went up to 243 deputies and 37 senators.

 

The Bullet lobby consist of police and military officers, both serving and retired as well as their sympathisers which include Bolsonaro. Twenty years earlier, there had been barely any police officers in Brazil’s Congress, but in 2018 more than three dozen won seats. The Bullet lobby is financed by the gun companies who want to increase their sales.  Former police and military officers dominate or run the militias in the violence ridden parts of the cities. These are a kind of self-defence forces claiming to provide protection to the communities against drug gangs and criminal elements. They doo racketeering, extortion and even drug trafficking. They collect illegal monthly taxes from residents and business owners for the protection service. They have monopoly of sales and distribution of gas and other items at higher rates than the market prices. The residents have no option but to buy only the militia’s products and services. These militias commit crimes and murders with impunity since they have made the security forces as accomplices by sharing their collection. The militias have the support of the security forces. They control the voting blocs too.  The Bolsonaro family have longstanding deep connection to the militias in Rio de Janeiro. Besides  protecting and patronizing the militias, the Bolsonaros praise them in public and have even taken initiatives to shower public rewards to them.

 

Besides helping these three constituencies to become stronger and more powerful, Bolsonaro has added a new constituency in the politics of the country. He has co-opted the military in government at various levels with several hundreds of both serving and retired officers. His cabinet includes several officers of the armed forces. He has let the military officers to taste power which they had enjoyed during the time of military dictatorships. 

 

Bolsonaro, the former army captain, has not only militarized the government but has also politicised the armed forces. Chavez had done the same in Venezuela with tragic results. General Eduaro Pazuello appeared in a political rally with Bolsonaro, violating the army conduct rules. Bolsonaro prevailed on the army high command against taking disciplinary action against him. The General was till recently the Health Minister, in which capacity he bungled the covid management by blindly obeying the disastrous line of Bolsonaro. 

 

Bolsonaro has always been proud of the military dictatorship and the killings and tortures of leftists openly and unapologetically. He has never hidden his contempt for democracy. During his visit to Chile, he praised Pinochet dictatorship, causing embarrassment to his Chilean hosts. “Elections won’t change anything in this country”, an angry Bolsonaro told an interviewer on the programme Câmara Aberta, broadcast by TV Band in 1999. “It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn’t do, killing 30,000 people. If we kill some innocent people that’s fine because in every war innocent people die.” Shouting at the interviewer, an intemperate Bolsonaro said that if he became president he would dissolve Congress on his first day in office. 

 

The release of Lula from jail and his announcement of Presidential candidate has given hope for the optimists. Lula is leading in the opinion polls ahead of Bolsonaro. However, one should watch out for the voters from the Bible, Beef and Bullet constituencies, who have received unconditional and proactive support from Bolsonaro. No President has ever done so much to protect and promote their agenda. Even if Bolsonaro becomes a one-term nightmare, those constituencies would continue to be a force demanding share in power and narrowing the space for liberal and progressive political leaders in the coming years. The mainstream candidates including Lula have to make compromises to get the votes of the Bible, Beef and Bullet constituencies. 

 

If he loses the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro might try a drama similar to the one staged by Trump and might even try a coup. The Brazilian military might not bring out the tanks for him in this new era of democracy in Latin America. But Bolsonaro and his crazy extremist supporters, with blind belief in bullets, might not give up power easily. 

 

India’s trade with Latin America in 2020

India’s exports to Latin America decreased marginally by eight percent to 12.14 billion dollars in 2020 (January to December) from 13.2 billion dollars in 2019, according to the just-released trade figures of ITC Geneva. 
 
Venezuela has surprised with a spectacular increase. Exports to Venezuela have gone up from 241 million dollars in 2019 to 758 m in 2020. In fact, the annual exports were in double digits around 75 m in the years 2016 to 2018. The reason for the increase is diesel exports which accounted for 662 m.
 
Exports to Argentina have gone up from 634 m to 739 m in 2020.
 
Exports to three more countries have increased marginally: Guatemala from 290 to 299 m, Paraguay from 136 to 149 m and Nicaragua from 65 m to 73 m.
 
The top destination of India’s exports were as follows:
Brazil  3.68 billion dollars,  Mexico 3.05 bn, Colombia 830 million, Venezuela 758 m,  Argentina 739 m, Chile 738 m and Peru 701 m.

 

Major exports were: vehicles 2.54 bn, chemicals 2.32 bn, equipments and machinery 1.29 bn, pharmaceuticals 1.13 bn, diesel 1.1 bn, textiles 355 m and iron and steel products 546 m
 
Pharmaceutical exports crossed the billion dollar mark with 1.13 billion dollars in 2020 from 967 m in 2019. India is the fifth largest global supplier to the region. Main destination of pharma exports were: Brazil 321 m, Peru 125 m, Chile 111 m, Mexico 100 m, Colombia 68 m, Venezuela 55 m, Guatemala 45 m and Dominican Republic 46 m.
 
Imports have declined sharply to 16.7 bn dollars in 2020 from 21.4 bn in 2019. The fall in imports of crude oil and copper was the main reason for the decline in imports.
 
Principal sources of imports were: Brazil 3.19 bn, Mexico 3.06 bn, Argentina 2.62 bn, Venezuela 2.34 bn, Peru 1.38 bn, Colombia 1.16 bn, Bolivia 1.02 bn and Chile 853 m. 
 
For the first time, Bolivia has joined the billion dollar club of Latin American exporters to India.
 
Main item of imports: crude oil 6.92 billion dollars, gold 3.57 bn, vegetable oil 2.5 bn, copper 631 m, raw sugar 631 m, equipments and machinery 517 m, wood 293 m and chemicals 283 m
 
The crude oil suppliers were: Venezuela 2.3 bn, Mexico 2.2 bn, Brazil 1.18 bn, Colombia 694 m and Ecuador 239 m. 
 
The major sources of gold were: Peru 1.33 bn, Bolivia 1.01 bn, Colombia 378 m, Argentina 259 m, Brazil 247 m and Dominican Republic 154 m. 
 
As usual, Argentina was the most dominant supplier of vegetable oil with 2.23 bn. The other supplier was Paraguay with 271 m.
 
Chile was the main source of copper with 580 m. The copper imports of India have drastically declined by fifty percent from its peak.
 
India continues to import raw sugar from Brazil, refine and reexport it to other countries.
India was the 8th largest destination for Latin America's global exports in 2020. 

The region which had a historic GDP contraction of 7.7% in 2020 is forecast to rebound with a growth of 3.7% in 2021. 

The region's external trade declined by 8.6% in 2020. Latin America's imports were 904 billion dollars (down from 1006 bn in 2019) and exports 935 bn in 2020, declining from 1007 bn in 2019. 

India’s total trade with Latin America has come down by 17% to 28.8 billion dollars in 2020 from 35 bn in 2019.

The Latin America-US trade had also declined by 14% in 2020.

However, China's trade with the region held steady at 315 billion dollars, the same figure as that of 219. China's exports had gone down to 150 billion from 151 bn while the imports had gone up from 164 bn to 165 bn. 

Neoliberalism started in Chile and it is being buried now: Allende should be smiling.

Salvador Allende, the socialist President of Chile from 1970 to 1973 gave priority to fight against poverty and inequality. General Pinochet, in collusion with local oligarchs and the US government, overthrew Allende in a bloody coup. Besides  bombing the Presidential palace with airforce, Pinochet followed up with systematic killing and disappearance of thousands of leftists, student and trade union leaders and liberal intellectuals. In 1980, he imposed a neoliberal constitution which promoted and protected capitalism and privatized education, healthcare, water rights, utilities and pensions. This helped the private market to grow its profit freely while depriving poor and lower middle class access to education and healthcare. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, some amendments were made to the constitution. The socialist governments tried major amendments but they were blocked by the right wing coalition. The trade unions, students and the marginalised population took to the streets from time to time against social injustice. These were contained with the heavy hand of security forces. But when the conservative government of billionaire President Pinera increased the cost of metro tickets by 30 pesos in October 2019, it became the tipping point. The protestors escalated the violence and paralysed daily life. Driven to the wall, the Pinera government sat with the protest leaders and agreed to their demand for a new constitution, among other things. 

The result of elections held on 15-16 May for the 115 membership of the new constituent assembly is like a political earthquake. As someone put it aptly, “ the social uprising in Chile is "not about 30 pesos, it's about 30 years." The voters have punished the two coalitions, both rightist and leftist, which have ruled the country for the last 30 years. Independent candidates have secured 48 seats, the left 28, the centre-left 25, and the right-wing coalition 37. The independents are mostly those who lead the  protests. Many of them are left-wing community organizers and activists of traditional left-wing causes, including environmentalists, feminists, public housing advocates and community organizers. 

 

The remaining 17 seats go to the indigenous people of Chile, whose existence or rights were simply ignored by the Pinochet constitution, one of the only constitutions in Latin America that doesn’t acknowledge Indigenous people. The indigenous constitute 13% of the population. This is the first time ever the indigenous have been recognized and given guaranteed representation.

 

The new constitutional body is the first in the world to stipulate a roughly equal number of male and female delegates. A total of 699 women and 674 men stood in the elections.  The women have got 77 seats and the men 78. The gender parity idea was opposed by right wing parties but it was overruled by the Congress.  

The sound defeat of the right wing, reduced to just 37 seats mean that they cannot block the proposals passed by two third majority. The 20% of the vote got by  President Pinera’s ruling “Chile Vamos” coalition is its worst electoral performance since democracy was restored in 1990.

Along with this election, there were also simultaneous elections for 16 regional governors, 345 mayors and 2,240 municipal councilors for the period 2021-2025. Although the final results of these elections will not be known until the end of the week, the preliminary results indicate a similar blow to the governing coalition, which lost important mayors offices and regional governments. Meanwhile, the left-wing parties retained their municipalities and gained several others across the country, including in the capital Santiago. The communists doubled their mayoralties to six. The most significant victory was that of Irací Hassler in the symbolically significant commune of Santiago Centro, in the capital. She defeated the current right-wing mayor, Felipe Alessandri.

Both the leftist and rightist coalitions which have ruled Chile in the last three decades have acknowledged their defeat. President Pinera said, “the citizens have sent a clear and strong message to the government and also to all traditional political forces. We are not adequately tuning in with the demands and desires of the citizens. We are being challenged by new expressions and leadership. It is our duty to listen with humility and attention to the message of the people. It is a great opportunity for Chileans to build a more fair, inclusive, prosperous and sustainable country”.

The Chilean neoliberal experiment, protests and end of neoliberalism should be a lesson for Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and other countries in Latin America which have seen such protests against inequality. The Chileans have shown how the social disparity could be tackled democratically and relatively peacefully without too much bloodshed

 

The new constituent assembly will draft a constitution within twelve months. Because the convention will have a veto-proof left-wing majority, the new constitution will likely include many of the long lists of social rights that those candidates campaigned on, including the right to housing, education, health and, most importantly, a public pension system to replace the private saving accounts. Greg Grandin, a world-renowned historian of Latin America, tweeted, "Allende is smiling. Neoliberalism started in Chile. It will end in Chile”.

  

Frida Kahlo: pain and painting

Frida Kahlo took to painting to distract her mind from the acute pain she suffered after a terrible accident at the age of eighteen on September 17, 1925. The bus that took her home from school was rammed by a streetcar in Mexico City. She was literally impaled on a metal bar in the wreckage; her spine was fractured, collarbone broken, her pelvis crushed, her abdomen and uterus punctured, shoulders dislocated and leg crushed. Her scream was said to have been louder than the siren of the ambulance which took her to the hospital. Frida’s condition was so grave that the doctors did not think they could save her. They thought she would die on the operating table.

 
It was a miracle that she was saved after surgeries and treatment for two years. After the accident, she had to wear a special corset made of metal or plastic to keep her spine straight. She had to wear special shoes to adjust for the deformed leg. The wounds within her deteriorated from time to time causing infections and requiring further surgeries. In her life of forty seven years, Frida had undergone at least thirty-two surgical operations and amputation of toes and one of her legs. 
 
Her life from the day of the accident until her death, twenty-nine years later, was filled with constant pain and threat of illness. It was a grueling battle against slow decay and continuous feeling of fatigue. Pain killers became part of her daily diet. Towards the end of her life, she was drinking two litres of cognac a day to drown her pain, besides taking morphine. She wanted to be a mother but her attempts ended in miscarriages and abortions since her damaged body could not hold the baby.  
 
When she was bedridden after the accident, her father gave her brush and paint and a special easel which was attached to her bed. Since the plaster cast did not allow her to sit up, she had to paint while lying down. She wrote, “ I began to paint during convalescence from an automobile accident that forced me to stay in bed for almost a year. During all these years I have worked with the spontaneous impulse of my feeling. I have never followed any school or anyone’s influence, I have not expected to get from my work more than the satisfaction of the fact of painting itself and of saying what I could not say in any other way. Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself”.
 
“I was not permitted to fulfill the desires which the whole world considers normal, and nothing seemed more natural than to paint what had not been fulfilled. My paintings are the most frank expression of myself, without taking into consideration either judgments or prejudices of anyone”.
 
Three concerns impelled her to make art, she told a critic in 1944: her vivid memory of her own blood flowing during her childhood accident; her thoughts about birth, death, and the “conducting threads” of life; and her desire to be a mother.
 
Frida poured out her suffering and transmuted her pain in paintings which became her biography. “I paint myself because I am so often alone,” Frida said, “because I am the subject I know best.” Dramatization of pain became her central theme in paintings. She became her own model. She spent long hours scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror and reproducing that reflection.
 
Frida had made some two hundred paintings, mostly self- portraits. Exhibition of her paintings were held in New York and Paris besides Mexico City. Louvre had acquired one of her paintings. Her works have been declared as  part of  national cultural heritage by the Mexican government.
 
Frida had a remarkable mental strength with which she overcame her chronic suffering and tried to live a full life. She hid her grief with outward cheerfulness and loud laughter. She refused to be confined by the dictates of the bodily pains and handicaps. Even when she was very sick and when doctors had prohibited her moving out of the bed, she went in an ambulance to the gallery hosting exhibition of her paintings in Mexico city. She was carried on a stretcher from the ambulance to the special medical bed installed in the gallery. Lying down in a colourfully decorated bed, she interacted with guests and joined the party singing and celebrating. During another period of illness, she went in a wheel chair to participate in a political protest in Mexico city. 
  
She married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in 1929. She was 22 and Rivera was 43, twice married and divorced.  She was petite (5’3”), light (44 kilos in weight) and pretty while he was a huge man over six feet in height, 130 kilos in weight and was somewhat ugly and monstrous in appearance. She used to do paintings in small canvasses while he used to paint large murals on walls standing on scaffolds. It was like a classic case of beauty and beast. It was she who took the first step of reaching out and seducing him. She went to the site where he was doing mural work and asked him for his assessment of her painting. She told him openly that she knew his reputation as a womanizer and asked for an objective view. He was taken aback but liked her instantly for her courage, boldness and artistic talent.  But after the marriage, Rivera continued many affairs despite Frida’s fierce fights. He had affairs even with her own sister. Frida hit back and took revenge on Rivera by paying him back in his own coin. She started having a number of lovers including his friends both men and women. Her famous affair was with Trotsky, the Russian communist leader who took asylum in Mexico city to escape Stalin’s persecution. Frida and Rivera ended their marriage with divorce in 1939. But they remarried in 1940. Despite his irrepressible infidelity, Rivera loved and cared for Frida. He admired her independent spirit and courage. Her candor disarmed him. Her odd mixture of freshness and unmasked sexuality tempted him. Her spunk and mischief appealed to his own boyish prankishness. On her part, Frida had loved him and taken care of Rivera in a motherly way forgiving his sins. 


Frida wore colourful costumes and jewelry drawing inspiration from the native Mexican cultures. She dressed in flamboyant clothes and accessories causing a sensation wherever she went. With her Mexican dress, she stood out from her compatriots who were copying European fashion. The extravagant dress was also a clever way to hide and distract attention away from her scars and her handicaps. Ribbons, flowers, jewels, and sashes became more and more colorful and elaborate as her health declined.
 
Frida’s vocabulary was equally colourful both in speaking and writing. She used the choicest abusive words and liked to shock the cultured and refined elite. She loved to use foul language—words like pendejo (which, politely translated, means idiotic person) and hijo de su chingada madre (son of a bitch). She enjoyed the effect on her audience, an effect enhanced by the fact that the gutter vocabulary issued from such a feminine-looking creature, one who held her head high on her long neck as nobly as a queen. In her letters she calls Paris as Pinchissimo (most vile) Paris. She says, “ I rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than to have any thing to do with those “artistic” bitches of Paris. They sit for hours on the “cafes” warming their precious behinds, and talk without stopping about “culture” “art” “revolution” and so on and so forth, thinking themselves the gods of the world, dreaming the most fantastic nonsenses, and poisoning the air with theories and theories that never come true. Next morning—they don’t have any thing to eat in their houses because none of them work and they live as parasites of the bunch of rich bitches who admire their “genius” of “artists.” shit and only shit is what they are”.
  
Frida died at the age of forty seven in 1954. Her legend lives on as an admirable icon of extraordinary strength, courage and resilience. Frida’s life story has inspired books, movies, plays and ballets.
 
The art and life of Frida have been portrayed elaborately and sensitively by Hayden Herrera in the book “ Frida: A biography of Frida Kahlo” published in 2018. Herrera, an American art historian and biographer has brought out ‘the extraordinary qualities that marked Kahlo as a person and as a painter: her gallantry and indomitable alegría (joy) in the face of physical suffering; her insistence on surprise and specificity; her peculiar love of spectacle as a mask to preserve privacy and personal dignity’.
 
The colourful Frida wore Indian saree too, one day in the summer of 1947. Nayantara Sahgal and Rita Dar, the two daughters of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (who was later ambassador to Mexico in 1950-51), visited Frida in her house called as La Casa Azul (Blue House) during their vacation in Mexico City. They dressed her up in a saree and she loved it. She gifted them her autographed photos. 

 
Some Indians describe Amrita Sher-Gil as the “Frida of India”, based on some similarities between their works. But this comparison does not do justice to either of the artists since the contrasts and differences in their lives are enormous as against a few common themes in their paintings.