By Sushil Kutty
Onion prices have been plummeting these last few days and farmers in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are dumping onions in the streets. Partly, it’s their fault. They shouldn’t have heaped last year’s produce in storage bins. Now, with the new produce in, there’s an onion glut. Wholesale prices have fallen to Rs 1 a kilo. What impact this might have had on the ongoing state elections, nobody has calculated. But those in khadi aren’t complaining. It’s only when onion prices skyrocket that politicians jump out of their skins, peel.
Politicians as a rule should know their onions. Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi know his onions? “To know your onions” is to know everything about something, anything. And onion farmer Sanjay Sathe should have known his onions. He had to sell his onion crop of 750 kilos for Rs 1.40 a kilo. Peeved, he sent his entire earnings of Rs 1,074 to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund! Sathe is a resident of Niphad tehsil in Nashik district of Maharashtra and was among the few “progressive farmers” chosen to interact with President Barack Obama in 2010 when Obama visited India.
The Modi government, it seems, failed to make up for the lack of efficient linkages between producers and markets and build food processing infrastructure. Now, farmers are littering streets and roads with onions. And here we’re in December 2018, six months short of general elections. Modi should thank his stars it’s the farmers who are tearing not housewives. If most of the onion glut gets dumped or fed to cows, chances are that Modi could post-2019 take a bite of the onion and tear up. And his mother will not have to wonder why!
India ranks second only to China in onion production. But President Xi Jinping need not know his onions because China doesn’t hold elections. Modi should be under no such illusion. Modi, if he fails to keep an eye on onions, could drop a tear in his own requiem. Indians hog on onions and for the poorest among them, an onion is the most basic essential at mealtime, peel it whichever way you want. Onions are election-deciders and every politician who knows his elections should know his onions.
Modi is right now losing sleep over whether he knows his “Hindu!” An opinion poll the other day said his stock in the “Who Will Be PM?-stake” has fallen in recent weeks with the difference credited to the account of the other Hindu in the poll-stakes, Rahul Gandhi. Add onions to the heap and it will be grief beyond tears for Modi. Nashik onion farmers already have Modi in their sights. Nashik produces 50% of India’s onions and Sanjay Sathe is a Nashik onion farmer. He is often invited to talk on local AIR stations on onions and he must be spreading the onion around that onion farmers are in grief because Modi doesn’t care.
In AD 2000, onions were hurled at the late Promod Mahajan by angry Nashik onion farmers and Mahajan was considered PM-material by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Talking of PMs, Indira Gandhi was aware of the stinging electoral statement onions could make. In 1981, the Janata Party government lost because of exorbitant onion prices and Mrs Gandhi, who made a victorious comeback, called it an “Onion Election.” Within months, she too was feeling the onion sting. An opposition MP walked into the Rajya Sabha wearing a garland of onions to protest skyrocketing onion prices. Then Rajya Sabha Chairman M Hidayatullah asked, “What will you do when tyre prices go up or for that matter that of shoes?”
Fast-forward to 2018 and Obama will not remember Sathe. The two spoke through an interpreter and it will be the translator’s voice that could ring a bell in Obama. It might be a cinch though that if Modi finds himself out of office post-general elections 2019 and the two happen to meet and hug, a faint odour of deep-fried onions could assail Obama’s nostrils. That will be Sanjay Sathe! That said there are those who argue it could be the fumes of fighter-jet fuel Obama could get a whiff of. That will be Rafale! In both cases, it will be about how well Modi knews his onions! (IPA Service)
The post How well does modi know his onions? appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
