Eating Real India

Here we were getting used to emulating our VVIPs and wolfing down the caviar and Kruger champagne, when comes a diktat from the Uttar Pradesh Congress that all and sundry in political life must spend time in Dalit localities.

Here we were getting used to emulating our VVIPs and wolfing down the caviar and Kruger champagne, when comes a diktat from the Uttar Pradesh Congress that all and sundry in political life must spend time in Dalit localities. This will be a bit of a comedown for our leaders who, despite all their austerity blues, are still keen on a bit of the good life.

HT Image

The problem we envisage here is that our netas, once having been asked to mingle with the masses, will go to such localities with the sort of security that will throw all normal life into a kilter. However, if nothing else, it will give them a touch of India that many of them have never felt before. We may get the Delhi belly eating on the streets of the capital. But our netas seem to be made of sterner stuff. Rahul Gandhi was able to tuck into poori-sabzi and come away with no ill-effects. So what’s to stop our stalwarts doing the same? Food and clothing are sure-fire ways of getting to the heart of people as Rahul’s grandmother knew only too well.