Political and economic flavours of khichdi

The humble khichdi is in the spotlight, with the ministry of food processing seeking to promote it as a global rival to pizza and pasta. Khichdi could well acquire a subtext — or subtaste — of political and economic flavours. Often prescribed for convalescents as a healthful restorative, khichdi could be appropriated by the NDA government as an alimentary analogy to buttress its claim of having revived to robust vigour, through an admixture of reforms such as demonetisation and GST, an economy enfeebled by two decades of Congress-led rule.

The Opposition might well retort to metaphoric interpretations of khichdi, which refers to a hotchpotch of ill-suited ingredients. Stirring the simmering pot of political controversy, critics could turn dining tables on the sarkar by asserting that the reforms cited by the government are, in fact, hastily cooked up recipes for disaster which, being hard to swallow, have landed the country in the soup. Along with the khakra — the popular Gujarati snack the GST on which was recently substantially reduced in what was widely seen as a pre-poll vote-catching exercise — khichdi could become a shakahari bone of contention in what increasingly resembles a kitchen sink drama, as the rival camps dish it out to each other in what might be described as the electioneering eat of the moment.