Clean the Ganga, clean up black money, is there a pattern?

“Sops for soaps” has a catchy ring to it. With civic sense starting and stopping for most Indians with personal hygiene, the Very Clean Finance Minister’s Budget announcement of scrapping customs duty on raw materials of soaps will bring much lather to all of us. Cleanliness being next to godliness, Arun Jaitley has brought us close to gleaming divinity. Now it’s for the soap manufacturing gods to bring us Liril girls and Lifebuoy boys the happy suds.

There was, however, a brief misunderstanding in some circles when Mr Jaitley made his announcement. With party colleague Smriti Irani seated a few rows behind the FM, some folks in Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms apparently thought that the new government was slashing duty on raw materials of TV soaps. This confusion was sorted out quickly by Smriti “HRD Minister Bhi Kabhi Soap Star Thi” Irani.

That we wouldn’t have rushed under our showers if Mr Jaitley had simply announced the lowering of prices of fatty acids, glycerine and palm stearin (palm oil made solid) is a slippery fact. Soaps are, like it or not, more saleable than what goes into them for the general electorate. In the meantime, we shall wait to see whether every Indian, dying to start scrubbing, will have round-the-clock access to that one commodity that brings all soaps to life: water.