Dear Readers,

On April 19, amid the high-stakes West Bengal Assembly campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stopped at a snack shop in Jhargram for jhal muri, the familiar mix of puffed rice, onions, peanuts, spices and mustard oil, eaten as readily in Jharkhand, Bihar, and Odisha as in Bengal. He asked the price and settled for a Rs.10 serving.

Like the snack, the political conversations the event triggered were sharp, spicy, and pungent. Both social media and television channels went into a tizzy, with news anchors thronging the jhal muri shop, bringing an unusual spotlight on the vendor, Vikram Shaw, who had asked Modi if he eats onions—a standard ingredient in jhal muri. Modi cracked a joke: “Pyaaz khaate hain, dimag nahi khaate bas” (I eat onions; I don’t eat brains).

According to news reports, Vikram is from my hometown, Gaya, and, like scores of us, has ventured out to big cities to make a living. He has found employment, as many have, selling jhal muri or frying pakoras—work that requires little investment and no university degree. He rose from the grassroots.

In Bihar, onions and garlic are still taboo in a number of families, especially among Brahmins and Baniyas (among the latter those with titles such as Sao, Agrawal, and Barnwal), the two castes that steadfastly support the BJP.

Onions have scripted powerful political stories. Governments have fallen when onion prices have risen. It is not without reason that we have a phrase in Hindi, “pyaj ke aansu” (the tears of onions). It was the skyrocketing price of onions in 1998 that contributed to the defeat of the BJP in Delhi, making Sheila Dikshit Chief Minister, a post she held for 15 years.

Coming back to the jhal muri episode: while Mamata Banerjee’s party dismissed it as a “staged drama” and a “photo op”, Modi, on high campaigning mode, said in Krishnanagar: “Jhal muri maine khayi, lekin jhal TMC ko lagi hai” (I had the spicy snack, but Trinamool Congress felt the heat). The word “jhal” in Bangla means spicy or pungent.

The Trinamool alleged that Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his wife, Kalpana Soren, had to return to Ranchi because their helicopter was denied permission to land in Jhargram during Modi’s extended stay to eat jhal muri. The Trinamool called this “Adivasi-birodhi” (anti-tribal).

Allegations that the entire event was stage-managed were backed by people pointing out that the shop looked brand-new, the racks were filled with neatly arranged bottles packed to the brim with ingredients, an unusual sight in a village shop.

Food on the election trail is a recurrent theme. Are our politicians great foodies or do they just talk about food during election season? Or is just our political reporters who obsess about food on the campaign trail.

A day after the jhal muri stop, a Delhi journalist friend posted on social media: “This video of the PM in Bengal having jhal muri from a roadside stall has clocked 100 million views within 24 hours on Instagram. Shows how campaigns that connect with food and local culture work better than structured events.”

At the other end, the shopkeeper in the nondescript town of Jhargram was inundated by visits from television crews and he switched off his phone, irritated by the same questions being asked over and over. He also let slip the information that his shop had been set up by Mamata.

But other shopkeepers and vendors have benefited with increased footfalls after politicians visit them.

In the Matia Mahal area of Old Delhi, one will be baffled by the many “Mohabbat Ka Sharbat” shops that sprang up after Rahul Gandhi visited one such shop in April 2023, during the month of Ramzan, after campaigning in Karnataka. Gandhi tried the Mohabbat ka Sharbat drink made with watermelon, rooh afza, milk, and crushed ice at a well-known street vendor’s stall near Jama Masjid.

During his Bharat Jodo Yatra, Gandhi had coined the phrase: “Nafrat ke bazaar mein, mohabbat ki dukaan khol raha hoon” (I am opening a shop of love in the market of hate). Today, multiple shops line the street, each with the same name. The confusion is such that finding the real “Mohabbat Ka Sharbat” is as difficult as finding real love.

Gandhi also had golgappas at Nathu Sweets in the Bengali Market and kebabs at Al Jawahar. And the food journalist Kunal Vijayakar, in April 2023, headlined his YouTube video of Gandhi’s street food binge as “Dilli ke Chole Bhature, Kabab aur Chatpati Chat with Rahul Gandhi“ and invited him for a similar outing in Mumbai.

In Delhi, there is a famous paan shop called “Pandey Paan” in North Avenue, frequented by politicians including Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Narendra Modi. And the famous Pappu Chaiwala near Assi Ghat in Varanasi is visited by politicians of all hues, especially during elections.

These shops have entered mainstream news outlets and Instagram with equal ease. Pandeyspaan.com mentions on its website that US President Barack Obama tasted Pandey’s famous paan at the banquet hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan during the Republic Day celebrations of January 2015. His predecessor, Bill Clinton, and his successor, Donald Trump, too got the same paan. The shop has a line displayed in bold at the entrance: “Paan Suppliers to Rashtrapati Bhavan”.

In March 2022, when Modi was concluding his election campaign for Uttar Pradesh, he had a cup of kulhad chai at Pappu’s after offering prayers at Kashi Vishwanath temple. Varanasi’s famous Chachi ki Kachori shop is another such stop. The BJP leader Smriti Irani visited the shop in 2010, after being made president of the BJP’s women’s wing. Many politicians, including Rajesh Khanna (former filmstar), Manoj Sinha (BJP), and Mohan Prakash (Congress) have visited the shop. Sales at Chachi ki Kachori and the nearby Pehelwan Lassi go up every election and political differences blur. The lassi shop, famous for rabari waali lassi, has been visited by Chief Minister Adityanath as well as Akhilesh Yadav; other visitors have included Arun Jaitley and Dharmendra Pradhan. After the demolition drive in Varanasi last year, both shops had to relocate.

But not all such visits end pleasantly.

In the Hindi belt, politicians have often landed in trouble over the issue of non-vegetarian food. In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, who had reached out to the fishermen and boatmen communities (Mallah, Navik, Nishad, Kevat) by aligning with Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party, posted a video of himself eating fish in his helicopter. The BJP seized on it, saying he was provoking sentiments during the Navratri period.

West Bengal is different. During the election campaign this month, a video of BJP leader Anurag Thakur eating fish—with the BJP lotus in the background—went viral. This was an apparent bid to counter Mamata Banerjee’s warning that the BJP would ban fish in West Bengal if it came to power.

Mamata’s jibe came after the recent episode when 14 Muslim youths were arrested in Varanasi in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh for eating chicken biryani on a boat in the Ganga during an iftar gathering. They were accused of throwing the bones into the river.

Politicians often like to be seen eating local food to add authenticity to their candidature. Visiting street food joints helps them shed the tag of being elite. This is a watered-down version of the more serious philosophy of the socialist Ram Manohar Lohia, who advocated that privileged castes must consciously de-class themselves and eat with and live alongside those considered “untouchable”.

While this grows more relevant as the chasm between the ruling class and the masses keeps widening, politicians like to pretend, at least during elections, that they are still rooted. The question is how seriously people take these sentiments.

Until the next newsletter.

Anand Mishra, Political Editor, Frontline

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