Boiling kitchen

By Manish Anand

A Delhi minister's wife recently picked up fight with her servant. The minister watched the spectacle with all amusement. The wife when given the monthly ration bill by the servant found out the previous month's bill and compared and lost her temper. The bill had just doubled up.

The tigress at home just could not understand the doubling up of the bill, and put all the blames on the servant with all the expletives challenging his honesty. Why the bill shot twice of the previous month's, the wife kept repeating.

The poor servant had hard time explaining the price rise with prices of vegetables and pulses simply touching the sky.

The minister at last intervened and explained the market economics. The servant was at no fault. Blame it on thickening of middle class and spurt in the export without matching supply in the market. Simple!

Hey, is it that simple?

Not at all as the India is a welfare state and the electorate choose a government to take care of their concerns and protect them from all market fluctuations. So, why the government is not intervening?

That too is simple as the governments post new economic era do not want to interfere in the dynamics of the market. The market would take care of all ups and downs itself, is the mantra of the government.

But what about the poor and the lower middle class? They can not bear the market abandoning them to the curse of the "want". They have to feed their children and have to ensure the minimum level of nutrition. What should they do as their income did not rise as the prices of their basic necessities leaped?

Very simple; just wait for the election and throw away the government which did not protect your interests!

That of course will not solve the problem except for satiating the need to express the collective mass anger. More efforts will be needed and that would be when people in real terms start governing themselves. Probably, solutions as put forward by the World Social Forum may be looked into.

It's time people start strengthening their communities and begin developing a self-sufficient community. Grow most of the basic necessities that you require and become immune to the market dynamics as the government always listen to the poor only when they need votes, which unfortunately is not that too frequent.

But what about those who live in big cities? They can not grow their needs themselves as they do not have land.

Are they helpless? Probably yes!