‘Sarkari namak’, ‘Modi ka namak’ or ‘Mama ka namak’?

A video clip last week showed a visibly annoyed Sarita Bhadoria, BJP MLA from Etawa, berating a crowd in what appeared to be an election meeting. Bitterly complaining about the indifference of her constituents, Bhadoria is heard saying that people were no longer even responding to her greetings.

This is not fair, she is heard saying. “Why did you accept free rations if you did not want to vote for us? You should have refused the ‘galla’ (ration). You ate away our money, you ate our salt but now you don’t want to even listen to us? You took everything from us but yet do not want to vote for us. What kind of justice is this?”

In November last year, three months before the election, UP Government had extended the free ration scheme till the end of March. It also decided to give additional five kgs of foodgrains, edible oil, gram etc. to what was already being distributed. Photographs of the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister were put on the packets and hoardings came up to publicise the ‘free ration’ scheme.

It of course had nothing to do with the election. And the Election Commission did order removal of the photographs after the election was notified on January 8. Officials complied by asking dealers to put a cellophane tape over the pictures.

In a state where Premchand’s short story ‘Namak Ka Daroga’ (Salt Inspector) is still popular in villages and which has been read by generations in school, both corruption and honesty are revered. In the short story the honest inspector refuses to be bribed and orders the rich landlord-cum-businessman to be arrested. The business-man gets acquitted from court and the inspector loses his job. But the businessman, impressed with the inspector’s honesty, offers to appoint him his manager.

Namak haram (ungrateful or ingrate) and Namak halal (trustworthy, true to the salt) are household words. And it is not uncommon to find people in the state saying that they are beholden to the government because the ‘Sarkar Bahadur’ pays their salary and for their salt. Sarkar ka namak khaya hai toh namak harami toh nahin kar sakte na? (We have eaten salt given by the government; how can we betray that trust?) is a belief held dear by the poorest as honourable.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tapped into this reservoir of tradition and goodwill on Sunday last. Addressing an election rally in Hardoi, he asserted, “I know that in villages people are talking of the BJP government’s free ration scheme and saying ‘hum ne Modi ka namak khaya hai, hum Modi ko dhokha nahi denge (we have tasted Modi’s salt, we won’t betray him).”

The Prime Minister was aware of the ‘Modi ka namak’ narrative in villages, he said before adding righteously that people had consumed the salt of ‘Maa Bharti (motherland).’ A masterstroke, agreed communication experts, by juxtaposing trust, loyalty and betrayal with patriotism.

Critics were naturally not amused. Some were quick to fish out a speech from 2013 in which the then Gujarat chief minister can be heard mocking the UPA Government for claiming to have spent various sums on different projects.

Mai poochna chahta hoon ki Mama ke ghar se laaye kya (Are they spending the money that belongs to their maternal uncle?), Narendra Modi had mockingly asked. He reminded his audience that the money spent by the Government was the hard-earned money of the people. By demanding gratitude and loyalty, he suggested, the Government was insulting people.

Well, 2022 is not 2013. BJP and Modi are a little more desperate; and there is no harm surely in reminding people that they are actually eating Modi Ka Namak?

Views are personal

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)