Cover Story: Inflation; The Great Onion Disaster

Prices continue to spiral in spite of frantic imports. Is the Government to blame or are the shortages real?

History has a strange way of inflicting cruelty on those who most value it. As people who derive considerable inspiration from ancient civilisations, the BJP leadership was probably aware that Egyptian pharoahs regarded the onion as a symbol of eternity. The humble piyaz was sacred enough to be carved into King Tut's tomb and valuable enough to be gifted on weddings in medieval Europe.

Onion
The Roots

JANUARY 1998: Unseasonal rains affect production. Prices rise to Rs 20-25 from Rs 9-12 per kg the previous month. Exports are banned.

MARCH-JULY: Exports resume but rabi crop affected by heatwave. Prices climb further, touching Rs 28 in August. But Government ignores danger signals.

SEPTEMBER: Government wakes up as unseasonal rains delay kharif harvest. Imports planned as prices shoot up.

OCTOBER: As prices cross the Rs 50 mark, the Government puts imports on OGL. International prices go up in anticipation of Indian demand.

Traditional values, obviously, haven't changed. This Diwali witnessed a spectacular eruption of black humour centred on the exorbitant prices of onion. As the retail price touched Rs 60 a kg in Delhi, an enterprising shopkeeper in Sarojini Nagar offered 1 kg of eternity with every two T-shirts purchased. Last Monday, robbers attacked the one-room tenement of Dayaram in Greater Kailash. They robbed him of Rs 500 and would have thrashed him for not keeping anything valuable when they detected a 5 kg bag of onions. When Dayaram went to the police station, the SHO first refused to register an fir: "What sort of a maharaja are you that you can afford 5 kg of onions?"

Another group of "furious" citizens, including TV anchor Madhu Trehan, poet Javed Akhtar and cricketer Kapil Dev is using consumer power to bring down prices. Their advice: stop buying onions. "The BJP is busy importing and the Congress is busy encouraging hoarders. We can only climb out of this despair by saying no," says Trehan.

In Mumbai, where prices averaged Rs 45 during Diwali week, the indefatigable Shiv Sainik turned Congressman Chhagan Bhujbal sent a box of onions to Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi. "Diwali is a festival where you give something precious. This time, onions are very precious," he said. A red-faced Joshi was forced into a commitment that onions would be sold for a subsidised Rs 15 to ration card holders from November 1.

In Chandigarh, where the price touched Rs 65 on October 23, it was the turn of the comic Jaspal Bhatti. He first created a flutter by arriving in a city market flanked by black-cat commandos. His logic: buying a precious commodity like onions warranted exceptional protection. On October 24, Bhatti organised an onion fashion show in the main shopping plaza in Sector 17. As the models walked down the ramp, flaunting the onion theme, Bhatti stole the show by announcing, "politicians in power may ignore onions but not the onion beauties".

Onion Agent

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"Why are we being blamed for the Onion crisis?"

A K Singh, NAFED chairman

The canalising agency is being pilloried for exporting onions during a period of shortage. Many of its senior officials are being investigated by the CBI for financial irregularities.

For the BJP-led Government, the onion mess has proved the proverbial last straw. Already under attack for non-performance, it is now reeling under a wave of popular ridicule. With assembly elections due later this month in four states, it is rapidly discovering the political flipside of eternity. Having initially been misled by bureaucrats into believing that the price rise was a temporary blip that would be rectified in September, the Government has belatedly pressed the panic button. Sahib Singh Verma, whose bluster that "in any case, poor people do not eat onions" may eventually cost the BJP the Delhi election, was hurriedly removed as chief minister. But his reluctant successor Sushma Swaraj's promise to make onions available at Rs 5 only widened the ruling party's credibility gap. For public consumption, the BJP has put up a brave face. Rajasthan state unit President Raghubir Singh Kaushal, for example, insists that "neither I nor my workers have noticed people projecting onion and inflation as an election issue". However, in private, party leaders concede that onions could have the same electoral effect as it did in 1980 when Indira Gandhi capitalised on the price touching Rs 5 under Charan Singh's caretaker regime. In Rajasthan, impish Congressmen are spreading the word that the onion price hike is an outcome of the Pokhran blasts. "They buried so many onions and potatoes to stem radioactivity in Pokhran and now people are suffering," says the party's foreign affairs cell chairman K. Natwar Singh.