Four hundred and forty-five percent – that is the figure by which the price of tomatoes has risen this summer in India. This has led to a massive spike in the cases of "tomato theft" and the carjacking of delivery trucks laden with the coveted produce. Even McDonald's has taken out tomato products from its menu in some Indian states in the west and north of the country. As India is the second-largest producer of tomatoes worldwide, the vegetable is a key part of Indians' diet, and its impact extends to politics.
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The tomato's rising cost comes in the wake of massive flooding in Indian states that play a key role in growing it, such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka, along with higher-then-average temperatures in June-July and the late monsoon season this year. The weather has damaged crops and created shortages, resulting in skyrocketing tomato prices and turning the vegetable into a commodity that is almost beyond reach for the average citizen. It currently costs around 200 rupees ($2.4) per kilogram (about 2.2 lb), and, befittingly, the vegetable has recently been dubbed "red gold". To illustrate just how dire the situation is, consumers now often have to choose between buying two liters (67 oz) of gasoline and a kilogram of tomatoes.
The onion precedent
The government has claimed that the high price of tomatoes is just a temporary aberration and that it will drop over the coming months, but the reality is that this cannot be described as a singular event. In recent years, the middle class in India has found it increasingly hard to buy vegetables. This is bad news for the BJP, the ruling party, as it has seen all the Opposition parties join forces in an effort to topple it in the 2024 election.
Unlike the protest against the price of cottage cheese in Israel about a decade ago, inflation of staple goods in India has the potential to bring about a government's downfall. In 1998, a surge in the price of onion had the BJP lose the elections in Delhi and Rajasthan. The party eventually realized that this posed a danger to its electoral prospects nationwide and, leaving nothing to chance, rapidly brought down the price of the commodity. The current crisis has had Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government focus on buying tomatoes from the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) at a subsidized rate of 70 to 80 rupees per kilogram. It has also engaged the public in a creative effort to have it come up with various solutions to tackle the shortage. For example, in June, it launched the Tomato Grand Challenge hackathon, in which the public was asked to share ideas on how to combat the skyrocketing prices.
Meanwhile, some BJP leaders claim that the seasonal rise in tomato prices has been exploited for political gain. They insist that the states governed by the party's chief rival, the Indian National Congress, have not been treating this issue with the proper gravity, even to the point of stockpiling the vegetable in order to force prices to go up.
This is not the first time Modi has had to deal with volatile prices of produce as prime minister. In 2019, after onion prices rose by 235%, government officials banned its export and eased import restrictions. This resulted in the market being flooded with onions, and consequently, the price dropped. But this came with a bite: While consumers were happy, the agriculture cooperatives – a force to be reckoned with in Indian politics – claimed that the government was hurting their livelihood and not focusing on remedying the underlying problems in the supply chain. The farmers took to the streets and the Indian press described the situation as Modi's "onion bomb."
The Tomato Index
The current situation could disrupt the delicate inflationary balance in India. In a country where the income per capita is smaller than $2,500 a year, the rising costs of commodities and services mean that the purchasing power of the poor has been greatly reduced. In a country of this magnitude that has so many challenges on its plate, even the smallest factor can have electoral significance: If the government cannot deal with the prices of tomatoes or onions, how can it deliver on all its other election pledges, from the cost of electricity to combating crime? The Congress Party is smelling blood and hopes to seize on voters' anger by reaping political dividends. The upcoming polls will tell us whether the political drama unleashed by onions in previous decades can happen this time around as well.
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