Slicing onions is known to bring tears in the eyes and tips abound on how to stop it. But no one possibly thought that buying onions could make one cry one day.
Today, even as the little veggie sits smugly at Rs 100 a kilo on the vegetable vendors’ carts, the common man can barely hold back tears at the thought of deleting it from the shopping list. After all, an Indian kitchen without onion is hard to imagine. Our love for onion borders on obsession. We use it in every possible way —chopped, cubed, sliced, browned, paste—for bhartas, raitas, curries and bhajis dished out daily. Even the poorest of the poor wants a bite of onion with that of his shukha roti as it is the only “side dish” (with green chilli) he can afford. We are so sensitive to onion that our anger soars in proportion to its price.
Maybe the only consolation is that it is bringing tears to the eyes of politicians alike because they know in a democracy there is cause for concern when people get angry. More so, if an election is round the corner; because the common man, otherwise ignored by those in power, has the power to get even through ballot. Onion prices in the past have made or marred the fate of political parties in elections. If Indira Gandhi returned to power at the Centre in 1980, playing the onion ace against the then Janata government, BJP governments in Delhi and Rajasthan bit the dust in the 1998 Assembly polls because onion price burnt holes in people’s pockets. With Assembly elections due in Delhi and Rajasthan, the onion may play spoilsport again—this time for the Congress-led governments in the two states.
One doesn’t know whether to cheer the PM for stepping in and directing the ministry of agriculture to import onions from neighbouring countries like Pakistan to bring down the price, or jeer at him for taking so long to come out of his slumber. The arrival of imported onions in all probability will coincide with shipments of fresh crop in the market.
The delayed action baffles all the more because the government of the day faced a similar situation in November 2010. The government then blamed it on unseasonal rainfall in onion-producing regions such as Nasik, arguing that rainfall not just delayed the arrival of onions in the markets but significantly reduced the shipment of fresh crop.
Since such seasonal shortage in the supply of onions leading to price rise is nothing new, the inability of subsequent governments to tackle the problem raises questions. True, a government cannot control rainfall. But what stops its machinery from taking timely action and bringing to book the hoarders and speculative traders involved in creating the pseudo-crisis and ramping up prices? Lack of efficient governance, collusion and corruption enable the crooks to line their nest, while the common man struggles to make ends meet.
The irony is governments may come and go fighting elections on the issue of onion, but the people’s onion woes are far from over.