 "onion, onions, vegetable, Vegetables")
Politics, economics, and food have had a long and troubled history, with bloody results whenever their paths have inevitably crossed. More recently, in India, politics over food has blurred the boundaries between public and private choices and spaces, leading to lynchings over food habits, beef to be precise. An entire cottage industry has sprung up around policing the transport of cattle—vigilante justice meted out on mere suspicion. At other times, social media battles over vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism have rekindled parochial elements on every side.
One commodity, however, has over the years managed to straddle these differences with the ease of Jean-Claude van Damme doing a perfect split across two Volvo buses – the humble onion. That’s right: bar the Jain community, hardly any caste, religion, or region does not include the onion in some form in its cuisine, lending it a pan-India presence far greater than anything else, except maybe corruption. No language or regional warrior can claim ownership over this humble bulb. If one were to look for that one uniting element common to all of the country, it would probably be this ubiquitous, purple-y thing available on every street corner, in every kitchen.
Onion’s political legacy
Lest you forget, keep in mind that the onion has a rich history of politics and protest associated with it. The very ubiquitousness of the onion has made it a formidable tool in the hands of opposition politicians whenever it appears that prices have risen beyond the means of the aam aadmi, so to speak. Onion prices have literally toppled governments when made a potent enough political weapon and have sometimes sent ruling governments into a tizzy every time the price goes beyond a point, forcing them to dip into buffer stocks to refill the mandis and tamp down prices.
History will bear this out. Indira Gandhi returned to power, ousting the first non-Congress government in India, on the back of rising onion prices, among other things. Again in 1998, rising onion prices led to the defeat of BJP’s Sushma Swaraj-led Delhi government, paving the way for Sheila Dikshit to begin a three-term, 15-year long tenure as chief minister of Delhi.
As recently as 2019, when onion prices hit almost Rs 100 kg, the multiplier effect was felt keenly not just by your average household but even by major restaurants and chains that removed it from their menus. Smaller restaurants stopped serving the complimentary onions with their meals.
Even though onion has a relatively small 0.644 per cent weightage in the vegetable basket used to measure retail or consumer inflation data, its overwhelming usage and presence mean that no household remains untouched when its prices climb skyward. Retail prices briefly went as high as Rs 80 a kg in Delhi and over Rs 70 in Mumbai last week before softening.
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Government interventions amid rising prices
No wonder, then, that the fear of failing to provide this essential commodity makes even the most battle-hardened leaders smell fear. Mix in the upcoming elections in Jharkhand and Maharashtra – and an upcoming one in Delhi – and it becomes apparent why the current government has been deploying so-called ‘kaanda express trains’ (onion in Marathi is kaanda) to ship humongous quantities around the country to stabilise prices. Admittedly, prices are high because the new kharif crop is yet to hit the markets, and a September relaxation in minimum export price means sellers can more easily offload onions in those markets. Not coincidentally, Maharashtra is the largest onion-growing state in the country, accounting for almost 35 per cent of national output, with Madhya Pradesh a distant second at 17 per cent. The relaxation of minimum export price (MEP) by the directorate general of foreign trade can also be read as having been done with one eye on the Assembly polls due next week.
Not surprisingly, given its voter-facing effect, onion prices are not something any politician or party can trifle with. In October, for example, as reported earlier by Business Standard, the Centre pumped 1,600 tonnes of onion into Delhi and adjoining markets to cool prices ahead of the festivals, making it one of the largest-ever wholesale interventions by the Centre for onion. To give you a sense of the magnitude of this intervention, the government released 150,000 tonnes, or a full third, of its buffer stock of 450,000 tonnes.
Similar trains made their way to Lucknow, Varanasi, and north-eastern states, including Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur, a testament to the geo-political sway the onion holds across India.
If anything is clear from the onion saga, it is this: come election time, failure to keep onion prices in check will only end in tears, even for the mightiest political parties.
Maharashtra: 1.71 mn MT
Tamil Nadu: 1.43 mn MT
West Bengal: 1.42 mn MT
(Source: Report of Household Consumption Survey, 2022-23 of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation)
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