By Medha Arora, Deputy Editor
Trigger warning: Suicide, Death
Following Hindi film industry actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide, was an indelicate media trial of his former girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, who was accused, by the media and public at large of being responsible for his death, from abetting his suicide to murder. Most TV News channels were criticized for the way they reported on the issue, in attempts to increase their TRP (Television Rating Points). One of the most popular instances of this was India Today’s news anchor, Rajdeep Sardesai attacking Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, saying “You run a banana republic channel”, slamming his journalistic practices.
While most young Americans associate the term ‘Banana Republic’ with a clothing and accessories brand, it actually has a pretty strong foothold in the history of political economy, particularly among small countries of Central America.
What does it mean?
The term Banana Republic is used to refer to a small, poor country, often reliant on a single export or limited resource, governed by an authoritarian or military regime, characterized by economic exploitation by foreign corporations conspiring with the corrupt local government. Typically, a banana republic is a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class comprising the business, political, and military elites of that society (almost dystopian). The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by exploitation of labor and large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation. A banana republic is basically a state capitalist country, where the entire country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class, generally enabled by collusion between the state and favored economic monopolies. Many small countries in Central America were referred to as banana republics in the 20th century.
Where did it come from?
In the 19th century, the American writer O. Henry coined the term ‘Banana Republic’ to describe the fictional Republic of Anchuria in the book Cabbages and Kings (1904), a collection of short stories inspired by his experiences in Honduras, where he lived for six months. The history of Banana Republic began with the introduction of the banana fruit to the U.S. in 1870, by Lorenzo Dow Baker, who bought bananas in Jamaica and sold them in Boston at a 1,000% profit. The banana proved to be popular among Americans and by the late 19th century, three American multinational corporations (the United Fruit Company, the Standard Fruit Company, and the Cuyamel Fruit Company) dominated the cultivation, harvesting, and exportation of bananas, and controlled the road, rail, and port infrastructure of Honduras. Among the Honduran people, the United Fruit Company was known as El Pulpo (“The Octopus”), because its influence infiltrated Honduran society, controlled their transport infrastructure, and sometimes even manipulated Honduras’ national politics with anti-labor violence. By the 1930s the United Fruit Company owned 1,400,000 hectares of land in Central America and the Caribbean and was the single largest landowner in Guatemala, which gave it great power over the governments of such small countries, evidence of the aptness of the phrase “Banana Republic”.
Over the years, the term has evolved to refer to countries with limited resources – bananas or no bananas – and a ruthless or corrupt, self-interested leader. In addition to the recent India Today vs. Republic TV primetime war in India, the term has also been used in American politics. During a presidential rally in October, 2016. Trump told a cheering crowd in Florida, “This election will determine whether we remain a free country in the truest sense of the word or we become a corrupt banana republic controlled by large donors and foreign governments.” On the other hand, after the second Presidential debate, Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, countered, “Donald Trump thinks that the Presidency is like some banana republic dictatorship where you can lock up your political opponents.” After Trump’s response to the BLM protests following George Floyd’s murder, The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, bluntly asked, “What is this, a banana republic?” The phrase has been used fairly widely since the advent of Trump’s presidential term, complete with a flurry of memes and cartoons.
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Arthashastra 