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If one had walked into a toy store in India a few years ago, there would be an 80 percent chance they would be laying their hands on a ‘Made in China’ product. This is because the Indian market was flooded with imported toys, with eight out of 10 toys sold being predominantly imported from China. Even though the Indian toy industry boasts a rich heritage, Indian manufactured toys contributed to just 20 percent of the domestic market.

At Rs 328 crore and Rs 1,936 crore respectively, the import of toys was six times more than the export in 2014-15. The industry was languishing due to a lack of investment and technology, and competition from cheap im­ports. Traditional toys had long been forgotten, and local industry was fragmented.

Even though the industry had recorded double-digit growth in 2014-15, around 40 percent of Indian toy manufacturing units had closed down, and another 20 percent were on the verge of closure. The ones remaining were either static, or their productivity levels were declining.

Then in the last three years, something changed. From being a net importer, the Indian toy industry turned into a net foreign exchange earner. India’s import of toys fell by 70 percent from $371 million in 2018-19 to $110 million in 2021-22, while exports rose by 61.4 percent, from $202 million to $326 million in the same period. In the quarter ending April-August 2022, the country’s toy export registered a 636 percent growth, over the same period in 2013!

State Of Play

COVID-19-induced supply disruptions in 2020 would have sent an industry that was largely dependent on imports for its survival to its grave had it not been for two key interventions by the Government of India.

First, in February 2020, the government increased basic customs duty from 20 percent to 60 percent. A year later, in January 2021, the government issued the Toys (Quality Control) Order, making it mandatory for all toy manufacturers, from India and overseas, to get BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) certification for selling toys in India.

Combined, the two measures helped deter both cheap and high-quality imports, while allowing local manufacturing to flourish. Sending the right signal to India’s major markets like the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands vis-a-vis maintenance of international standards, longstanding public health concerns around Chinese toys — 67 percent of which had been found to be highly-toxic were also alleviated. The new BIS rules encouraged many toy importers to get into manufacturing, and turn exporters to markets in Africa and West Asia.

At the same time, with an aim to boost traditional toy-making, and integrate the manufacturing and production ecosystem of toys, 19 toy clusters were approved.

Toying With New Ideas

India’s protectionist push for the toy industry may have come at a time when the country was witnessing intense skirmishes with China, yet, given India’s vast export potential, the size of its domestic market (above 300 million children), and the employment potential of the toy industry, the ‘aatmanirbhar’ is a welcome one.

The measures taken so far are however a very small beginning in self-reliance, and if India wants to become a global player in toy manufacturing, building its image as a trustworthy destination for quality manufacturing may be a better way to move ahead, than just curbing imports.

The scope is immense. Given the right impetus, the Indian toy market has the potential to grow to $2-3 billion by 2024 (from $1.7 billion in 2017), and for every $100 million investment in the sector, 20,000 direct jobs, and another 8,000 indirect jobs can be created.

The Challenges

The toy industry is still highly fragmented, dominated by local producers (60 percent of India’s 4,000 toy manufacturers are unorganised), and lack innovation, and resources to invest in equipment and technology. Supply chains in the country are still highly fragmented.

To encourage competitiveness, the Centre could support the industry in setting up more clusters, subsidies on exports, and production-linked incentives for their manufacture, as well as toys to be incorporated in India’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The Centre’s support in the form of incentives, as well as inputs on technology upgrade, can go a long way in helping the domestic industry grow swiftly.

Re-skilling the 7 million artisans in the country to help them meet the evolving demands of the industry while framing labour laws and regulations that protect workers’ rights can also help reap dividends.

Toy manufacturing is an ideal sector to revive a slowing economy. Solving for quality, skilling, and supply chain issues, the projected growth of the Indian toy industry looks imminent.

In the decade after the 2008 financial crisis, global central banks and institutions have been bingeing on US treasury bonds because they ticked all the boxes of safety, liquidity, and returns. This trend is now reversing as the relentless rise of the greenback has triggered central banks to take measures for their own economies.

That has meant that the biggest buyers of US treasuries are now turning sellers as they step in to shore up their own markets.

In 2021, Japan, China, United Kingdom, Ireland, and France were the top buyers of US treasury notes that have turned net sellers in the first seven months of 2022, data from the US treasury department shows.

In total, foreign investors and institutions sold a massive $246 billion worth of US treasuries during this period. That’s a 3.2 percent drop in their holdings within a few months as against a 9 percent build-up in the year 2021. The treasury department will release data for August next week and it is expected that the holdings will come down further.

This selling pressure is one of the reasons behind the sharp 13 percent fall in the US Treasury total return index this year. In short, holding US treasuries has been disastrous for investors.

FMCG firm Adani Wilmar’s share price tumbled over 3.6 percent on October 13 after the management said that overall revenue in the September quarter is expected to grow in low single digit and volumes in the first half of the fiscal will clock low double-digit growth.

At 10 am, the stock was quoting at Rs 683 on the National Stock Exchange. This year so far, it has been one of the best performing stocks surging over 150 percent.

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In an exchange filing, the company said, “Rising interest rates, slow uptick in rural demand, and delayed withdrawal of monsoon in major parts of India impacted business in the quarter gone by.”

Leveraging the pan-India distribution of edible oil business, food & FMCG basket for the company continued its growth trajectory, expanding over 40 percent. “Edible oil business witnessed higher volume growth in the masstige category rather than the premium category as a result of downtrading,” the filing added.

Hero Future Energies (HFE), the Hero Group’s green energy arm, aims to diversify its offerings portfolio and geographical presence supported by the recent $450 million investment by global private equity major KKR, Srivatsan Iyer, global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HFE said. In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol’s Rachita Prasad and Sweta Goswami, Iyer talks about supply chain issues faced by the industry and the opportunities in the new energy space. While he held his cards close to his chest on a possible initial public offering of the company, Iyer said that as the business demands they will continue to raise equity funding.

Edited excerpts:

Now that KKR and Hero group have committed $450 million to HFE, what is the big picture here and why now? 

India is on the cusp of a massive aspiration in renewable energy going forward. India’s 2030 target is to have half of its electricity generation come from renewables, as well as reduce its carbon intensity by at least 45 percent. To achieve both of these, renewable energy has to play a huge role. We (HFE) are going to be 10 years old later this month; we've been committed to growing renewable energy and providing clean energy solutions. With the increasing uncertainty in the energy markets globally, several countries are looking at renewable energy not just to address sustainability and climate change but also for energy independence. This is the right time for this investment for us to not just grow in India but also in other targeted geographies. We have a presence in Asia as well as in the UK. It’s a good time for us to grow in renewable energy and also test some of the newer solutions that will help decarbonisation.

We're going to participate in renewable energy – solar and wind power – and also grow in emerging technologies like battery storage, round-the-clock RE and green hydrogen. We have had discussions with our shareholders that we want to grow in conventional as well as in new technologies.

Can you cite some more tangible targets in terms of what kind of capacity you would be looking at in wind and solar? And when you're saying other forms, what kind of plans do you have there?

We've not set explicit capacity targets for ourselves because generally capacity is associated with just solar and wind. If you were to invest in battery storage, for example, you can't necessarily add that capacity only to solar and wind. We have bagged our first battery storage bid from Kerala and in that sense, we are leading the pack. There are going to be several other battery storage bids over the next six months as states look to use it to balance the grid or to maintain grid stability. We are certainly looking at upcoming round-the-clock bids.

We're waiting for the unveiling of the green hydrogen policy, which we expect sometime this month. But in the meantime, we are in active discussions with many customers in India and some in the UK for pilot projects in green hydrogen so that we know what are the levers to reduce costs going forward that would make green hydrogen economically viable versus conventional sources of energy. For us, the quickest win is to try to convert grey hydrogen projects into green hydrogen. Parallelly, we're looking at how to use green hydrogen to do things where hydrogen is not being used today. We will be a producer of green hydrogen. Our role will be to supply green hydrogen to various end users.

You don’t want to specify targets, but with the KKR investment, are you fully funded for your expansion plans? Is there an appetite to get more investors? 

We're funded for now. The good problem to have is, "Can I finish using all those monies in the next two to three years?" And if we find the right mix of projects and the right growth, we hope to use it up in the next two to three years. And then at that point, we will decide the next course of action.

The next big step for you would be going to the market at some stage. Do you have in place a plan for an initial public offer (IPO)?

No, we don't have a timeline or a deadline. At some point, we'll have to go back and raise more equity as we grow and as this market grows. Now, whether that will take the form of a market listing or whether additional equity from the same or new shareholders is yet unknown. We'll keep raising new equity every so often.

Do you have any other plans of monetization of assets?

Everything is on the table at this point. The shareholders obviously have to consider what's the best way for them to monetize their investment in the company. It can take multiple routes.

What are your expectations from the Indian government with regard to its upcoming phase II of the green hydrogen policy? 

If you rewind 10 years, the solar and wind energy tariff was as high as Rs 10-15 a unit. The government stepped in because they were keen to grow this space and they wanted to ensure the sector learns, grows and reduces cost. Today you can get solar power for as low as Rs 2.5 per unit. We're looking for something similar from the government in terms of green hydrogen as well. Whether it be demand mandates, viability gap funding or something completely revolutionary, like dollar-link contracts rather than rupee-link contracts – there’s a lot that can happen.

Indian renewable energy companies are now seeing an opportunity in the commercial and industrial (C&I) space. What is the mix of government and C&I in HFE’s portfolio? And is that a space you would be looking at increasingly? 

The corporate sector accounts for roughly half the energy consumption in India. So for us to get to the targets we have set ourselves as a country, the corporate sector has to be an important participant. Hence, C&I is going to be important for multiple reasons. One is they are looking at sustainability because they made commitments to their shareholders and the markets in terms of the overall sustainability targets or carbon footprints. Secondly, they are looking at this for the lowest cost of energy supply. Today, C&I is roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of our portfolio.

How is the supply chain looking like right now, whether it's wind or solar, in terms of equipment? 

The supply chain is still tight globally. The only thing that has improved over the last 12 months is freight rates; container costs have come down and that part of the supply chain has stabilised globally. In non-solar space, there is still a shortage of semiconductors. This impacts RE in a fairly significant way. On the solar side, there is a global shortage all the way from polysilicon to modules. The good news is a lot of capacity is being added globally.

How effective have the production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes been overall?

The PLI scheme is certainly a step in the right direction and it has been focusing on backward integration all the way to polysilicon which is the last bit of a solar PV (photovoltaic) system. Otherwise, we are still supply-chain dependent on China. In the short term, we don't see PLI making a huge impact in the Indian market context because it would take two to three years to build capacity. But in terms of energy self-sufficiency and in terms of meeting our 10-year goal I think the PLI should help set up enough capacity in India to at least meet domestic growth. It should also allow some of the big players to export. The US is starting to put restrictions on imports from China and so I'm sure the Indian module manufacturers will look at that as an export market that's valuable for them. We really hope module prices come down. Many in the C&I sector are looking at the module prices today and say, "Look, we will just wait." It will take a little bit of time, globally, for the new capacity to come online. In the meantime, we are really looking at some kind of ALMM (approved list of module manufacturers) scheme to broaden the list of suppliers that allows the independent power producers (IPPs) to have a slightly larger range of suppliers.

Are you witnessing any kind of slowing in existing jobs?

It's very hard even for IPPs to compete with each other because we all buy modules more or less at the same price; it's not like one can outbid the other by 30 percent. We saw a lot of activity on hybrid bids and on the solar park bids but IPPs are still bidding based on the expectation of future module pricing because the tariffs that we are bidding at don't reflect today's module pricing at all. They do have a view of the future and they are bidding based on that. I expect softening of prices to happen in the 12- to 18-month range, certainly not in the coming 6 to 9 months.

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP27, is happening in November. How different would the conversations be from earlier, given the changes in the energy market in the last one year?

The current volatility in the energy markets is going to be the focus of all discussions. Countries would have to defend ramping up their conventional or thermal energy generation. At the same time, I believe that the countries are going to make a deeper commitment to speed up renewables growth for precisely these reasons.

There was a lot of talk in COP26 about supporting investment for adaptation for global regions that are going to be impacted. Because of what's happening in the world around us today, I suspect that conversation may be a little more muted. I suspect it's going to be more about let's not think more about investments in adaptation, let's focus all our investments in building out renewable energy.

With the fresh funding, what is the biggest challenge you foresee for your company right now?

The Oxfam’s India Discrimination Report 2022, released in September, criticise gender discrimination as the major reason for low female work force participation in India.

Laws in many countries reflect and perpetuate gender norms, and often act as an impediment for women to achieve full economic empowerment. A 2014 World Bank study shows that 90 percent of the countries have at least one law that limits the opportunities for women by restricting them from working in certain occupations. India is no exception; it has many laws that restrict opportunities for women to enter the women workforce.

Indian Factories Act 1948

In order to protect women workers from health hazards in factories, they were restricted from working near cotton openers, and were banned from lubricating and cleaning machinery in motion. The law also prescribed the amount of weight a woman can lift in a factory. They were also not allowed to work in night shifts, and certain ‘dangerous’ activities carried out in a factory.

Section 66(1) (b) of the Factories Act, 1948 that prohibited women from work at night was struck down by several high courts as unconstitutional and discriminatory, violating Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution. Acting in furtherance of these judicial decisions, states such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra allowed women workers to do night shifts by amending state laws.

Occupational Safety, Health, And Working Conditions Code 2020

The Factories Act 1948 is now superseded by the Occupational Safety Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 (OSH code). Most of the prohibitions in the Factories Act were lifted in the OSH code, including the night shift ban on women. But the employer has to comply with conditions to ensure the safety and security of the women workers, as mandated by the corresponding state rules.

The OSH code also allows women to work in all establishments; this includes factories and in all types of work, hazardous or otherwise. But the necessary safeguards and safety measures have to be ensured by the employer, and they need to be regularly inspected as per the OSH code, and/or state rules.

Additionally, the provision of crèche is now gender neutral, and is applicable to those factories with more than 50 workers. Under the Factories Act, a crèche was mandated in an organisation which employed 30 or more women. The OSH code is progressive in a way that it breaks the social stereotype that women are responsible for childcare.

Can The OSH Code Help Improve Women's Workforce Participation?

The Factories Act 1948 and various state rules were acting as a hindrance to many women to get employed in the factory floors, especially those factories that engaged in three shifts a day, or are engaged in hazardous/dangerous activities. The OSH code, by removing these barriers, can possibly rectify the legal barriers, and provide a viable ecosystem for employers to engage more women workers.

But OSH code can be said to be effective, only if the corresponding state rules are in compliance with and in similar lines with the code. Further, the state rules must focus on the implementation aspect of the law, rather than being too idealistic. Often the overarching emotion of protecting women blinds the lawmakers from looking into the practicality of the provisions.

While the night shift ban was lifted in certain states, studies have shown that employers have frequently evaded their responsibility by making use of strategies such as under-reporting the number of female workers in the muster roll of the factory to evade compliance of the laws. This has hindered women's employment, especially when it comes to smaller organisations, and entry-level jobs. Enforcement costs are one of the reasons for the non-compliance of factories laws, and the cause for low numbers of medium-sized firms.

The larger problem with this protectionist stance towards employing women is that it has some unintended consequences. First, it dis-incentivises employers to employ more women as they would have to incur additional expenses and effort to ensure all the stipulations provided in the Act and rules; and second, it legitimises the traditional gendered notions about women, and that in turn plays a role in reinforcing the same hierarchical structures. Moreover, there is an active correlation between safety measures and the efficiency of workers. If proper functional welfare measures are taken, then productivity will also increase.

The NITI Aayog, in its report titled ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’, released in June, suggests fiscal incentives like tax breaks or startup grants for companies with about one-third of their workforce women, to increase the labour force participation of women in the gig economy. This suggestion can be applied in factories and establishments as well. The enforcement costs will be offset by the incentives provided.

Anu Maria Francis is Research Associate, and Gauthaman V is Research Intern, CPPR. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.

The demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav, on October 10, has led to a detailed chronicling of the life and times of a three-time Chief Minister of India's politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, who could have been even Prime Minister in the coalition era of 1996-98 (a honour eventually that went to HD Deve Gowda and later IK Gujral) if fellow socialists like Lalu Prasad had not opposed his name.

Politics Of Social Justice

As Yadav's life is chronicled in detail about his beginning as a follower of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia in 1963, and winning as a candidate of the Samyukta Socialist Party in the UP assembly polls in 1967, a question has risen whether socialism as a political plank and trademark has served its time.

After all, Yadav’s career took off just when the politics of social justice had arrived in India. The same could be said for Prasad and Nitish Kumar in neighbouring Bihar. These leaders blossomed under the shadow of veterans such as Lohia, Jaya Prakash Narayan, and Acharya Narendra Deva as the warriors of social justice, and as an anti-Congress pole.

Of course, their baptism in anti-Congressism took even finer shape under the ‘JP movement’ against Indira Gandhi in the early 1970s, and culminated in the aftermath of the Emergency post-1977.

Since then, the socialist brand of politics held centrestage for almost 25 years through an era that also saw the decline of the Congress as it got mired in its omissions and commissions in governance methods.

Mandal-Kamandal

The demolition of the Babri masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 was a turning point for the socialists of all hues. A newer threat emerged for their politics in the shape of a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) even as they were boosted by the adoption of the Mandal quota for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the 1990s.

They had to position themselves against a Vajpayee-led BJP because they realised the party was actually charioted by his associate Lal Krishna Advani who had used the ‘Kamandal’ card against a caste-based regrouping under the ‘Mandal’ banner with his rath yatra for the shrine at Ayodhya.

So some of the socialists did not mind abandoning their professed antipathy towards the Congress, and joined hands with it even though they remained critical of what they said was its penchant for ‘corruption’ for the sake of power. However, they succeeded in creating a fulcrum of anti-BJP forces as the Ram temple movement saw its rise and ebb through the 1990s.

By 2002, 20 years after the demolition of the Babri masjid and outbreak of anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat after 59 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a fire inside a train near Godhra, Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister was a new challenger for them.

Thirteen year later and after winning three consecutive assembly elections, Modi was now the harbinger of a new model of faster development. As Modi’s ascent to the national political scene seemed unstoppable, the socialist leaders remained divided on their tactics as some such as Kumar who became Bihar Chief Minister with the support of the BJP, realised they risked losing the support of minorities.

Together-Apart

The joke goes that 'true socialists cannot stay together for six months and cannot stay apart for more than six months'. Kumar’s political oscillations are a good example of this. In 2015, he joined hands with Prasad to fight the BJP’s communalism. In 2017, Kumar left Prasad to join hands with the BJP to fight corruption, and finally, earlier this year, left the BJP and is now in an alliance with Prasad’s RJD to fight communalism. All this while he has remained Chief Minister!

As India gets ready for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and many assembly polls before that, the ‘socialist’ model of politics is hardly a talking point. Yes, there are debates about the ‘freebies and welfarism versus empowerment and targeted delivery model’, but the fact still remains that Modi (and the BJP) pose a serious challenge to the opposition parties.

SUV Socialist

What caused the decline of Yadav or Prasad was that many followers of Lohia could not resist the lure of political office, they got mired in acts of corruption and nepotism, and thus abandoned the basic tenets of socialism. Their powerful aides rode on SUVs, abandoning the bicycle that was once a symbol of a dedicated socialist. Dynastic politics became their instruments of power.

Where Is The Socialist?

That brings us to the question whether a ‘samajwadi’ can survive when there is a generational shift in politics, and in the concept of ‘social justice’.

Two years ago when Ram Vilas Paswan, another Lohia follower and a minister in the Modi government, passed away, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and former governor and civil servant, raised the question: “Are any socialists left in Indian politics?”

Gandhi, who is known for his pro-Left views, wrote, "But by the question I refer to socialists in party politics, offering electoral options, political alternatives in policy-making, seeking and getting — or failing to get — voter-support for what the Constitution of India calls justice — social, economic and political. And the resounding answer is — no, not any longer. Samajwadi — socialist — as a name and style lives in the nomenclature of political parties as, indeed, it does in the preamble to our Constitution. But the old-school socialist of the mould of, Jayaprakash Narayan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Rammanohar Lohia, Asoka Mehta, Madhu Dandavate, Mrinal Gore, S M Joshi, George Fernandes, Madhu Limaye, has become a kitab-ka-phool.”

Inconsistency has been the hallmark of the Indian socialists. Why should anybody blame only George Fernandes or Nitish Kumar for their inconsistency? Their mentor, Ram Manohar Lohia, had also displayed similar inconsistencies. Once close to Jawaharlal Nehru, Lohia turned against the Congress and even joined hands with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the precursor of the BJP) to checkmate the Congress. So did JP. That is why the Congress lost political ground to the regional forces across India.

Mulayam Singh Yadav leaves behind a party which is on the back foot, and to defeat the BJP in UP, it will have to go the extra mile — even reinvent itself. It puts out the question of whether Akilesh Yadav can do it; but more importantly it has to be seen whether or not the socialist politics followed by Mulayam Singh Yadav can cut electoral ice in the current political reality of India.

Iran, of course, is not new to protests, despite strict state control. Tehran in the recent past saw protests in 2009, against what many called fraudulent elections; in 2017, against economic stresses; and in 2019, against a hike in fuel prices. It can be argued that none of those earlier events garnered the kind of interest and support, specifically on social media, as the women-led protests that is taking place today.

However, what these protests seek to gain from an Iranian context is a whole different ball game. Political change, coupled with an ideological reorientation of a state structure is easier said than done, despite popular mobilisation against it.

The Arab Spring, from a West Asian context, perhaps remains a prime example a decade after it began to spread across the region. From Tahrir Square in Egypt to protests peppered across the Gulf region, what changed was arguably a little direction to mitigate future risk by the region’s monarchies, the political structures themselves survived. In Egypt, the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s almost 30-year-long rule led to elections that brought a pro-Muslim Brotherhood candidate to power, alarming regional states, and the United States (US) alike. The Brotherhood government was dislodged via a coup in 2013, bringing the Egyptian Army Chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, into power.

The other challenge for such protests is the fact that geopolitics, in general, has a significant penchant to compromise with morals, ethics, and ideas in return for real-world gains. A lot of global capacity, and specifically the west, is today tied down with the Russia-Ukraine war and the protection of European borders. Whilst the strains of the West’s relations with Iran are as old as the Revolution itself, and despite the protests being independent in nature, the Iranian state’s claim that it is the US and Israel that are planning these uprisings,  aiming to attach the protests as nefarious designs purported by foreign forces against Iranian interests.

This is consistent with its response regarding other similar domestic upheavals in the past. Much like during the Arab Spring, when then-President Barack Obama had asked US-based social media companies like Twitter to keep their services online and defer any planned down maintenance, this time as well the US has looked to primarily try and give more open access to information and the internet to the protesters via technologies such as Starlink in an attempt to bypass Iranian state censors

The challenge for any social protest in Iran today is like those faced by others during the Arab Spring, that of a lack of an off-ramp. The ascent of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s President in 2021 brought back into power the conservative section of Iranian polity, after former President Hassan Rouhani, known to be a ‘moderate’ and ‘reformist’, spent most of his tenure trying to normalise Iran’s relations with the US and negotiated with the P5+1 group of states the nuclear deal (also known as the JCPOA) which was signed in 2015 despite pushback from the conservatives.

While this would have been a watershed moment, the US unilaterally withdrawing from the deal under the presidency of Donald Trump in 2018 was a big blow to any future US-Iran rapprochement, and also to a certain extent, the Iranian moderate’s ecosystem, which did try to find its feet during previous protest movements but without much success. The failure of the JCPOA was seen by the conservatives as another example where the US proved that it could not be trusted and engaging with the same was a futile endeavour, even though negotiations to bring the deal back continue even today, albeit with much less optimism.

Over this period, the dominant clerical establishment, led by Ayatollah Khamenei, has strengthened itself to insulate itself and the state from western sanctions, and this has included closer relations with Russia and China, two countries that offer economic assistance and political partnership without strings attached in a world fast moving towards a new era of great power competition between Washington D.C. and Beijing.

The current protests are taking place under these geopolitical realities, which make it hard for movements to translate into action by states that view most events through the lens of the existential threat posed by foreign interventionism. Furthermore, if the protests are largely inclined to one city or social strata and do not gain mass traction, much like before, the government can clamp down on them without significant local blowback. Domestic corruption and economic mismanagement have also played their own role in fermenting public discontent.

According to a poll conducted in 2021 by the University of Maryland and IranPoll, a Canada-based research firm focusing on Iran, 63 percent of Iranians (out of a sample size of 1,000) blamed corruption and mismanagement more than international sanctions for economic distress.

The current protests have, in fact, gained a lot of traction, both within Iran, and internationally, with both schools and universities inside Iran seeing pushback. This is perhaps why, Ayatollah Khamenei, despite praising the police and security agencies, has not yet called for an all-encompassing hard national crackdown. Sixty percent of Iran’s population of 80 million is below the age of 30. The perception costs here may be significant for Iran if a large section of young women do not see their rights, privileges, and aspirations aligned with the state.

Saudi Arabia, perhaps still most popularly known for its ultra-conservatism, arguably realised this, and ‘defanged’ its own moral police establishment, known as the Mutawa, to portray a more “moderate” polity heralding Riyadh towards a more stable economic future beyond oil money, and looking to make itself more palatable to the international community. After these protests, Tehran risks taking this unwanted mantle from Riyadh in eyes of the international community.

The kind of real-world effect these protests will bring to Iranian politics, if any, remains to be seen. The place to witness any potential change in political course would be to keep an eye on who succeeds the 83-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei in the future, and whether this particular transfer of power would bring any fundamental political and ideological reorientation in the country, or whether it will remain business as usual.