Selling Pakodas? Have You Heard Of PM Modi’s New Employment Scheme ?

        It’s not often that politics and food get together. I mean, sure food shortages are political issues that demand our attention. But it isn’t often that one food item becomes the talk of the proverbial town in politics. And that is exactly the feat that PM Modi has achieved with his latest “pakoda” comments. While Narendra Modi in Davos at the moment, gave an interesting insight into his views on certain important topics, he had some more controversial things to say back home about unemployment. In an interview with a TV channel, when asked about his 2013 promise to increase employment, PM Modi had this to say: 

“If a person sells ‘pakodas’ and takes home Rs 200 every evening, will it be considered employment or not?” 

Pakode Lag Gaye? 

We fervently hope the PM’s quote to be a philosophical question as to what constitutes a job and the problems of language, but sadly, we can only fool ourselves for so long.I don’t think PM Modi was tryingto get us to think about how words and language are meaningless intrying to convey a state of being.As much as it pains me to say so, PM Modi probably genuinely believes that our country can eradicate unemployment by setting up pakoda stalls in front of news offices. If anything, PM Modi sounds like a 18th century French queen, which, if you’ve read even a little bit about the French Revolution, doesn’t really bode well for his future prospects. When someone rushed into this queen’s room and informed her that her people had no bread to eat, she replied “let them eat cake”. You can’t feed cake to people who don’t have bread, and the problem of unemployment in this country, unfortunately, cannot be solved with more and more pakoda stalls. 

A Crisp, Spicy Policy?

But, let’s give our PM the benefit of the doubt. He’s a shrewd statesman and a master of development. Maybe the idea of having all of the crores of unemployed people selling pakodas isn’t so bad. Firstly, if you know a bit of economics, you’ll understand that this is going to drop the price of pakodas right down. With so many crores of pakoda walas in the country, you could buy pakodas for as cheap as two pakodas for a rupee. And then, if you’re so minded, could sell these pakodas for a higher price somewhere else. Yes this might drive the poor pakoda seller insane and force him to commit suicide. Sounds a little like the plight of the Indian farmer, if you ask me.Also, with more people in the pakoda industry, we can be sure to expect some bright and shining innovations. Imagine the different kinds of pakodas we’d get. You can wave goodbye to the misery of having the boring varieties like aloo and paneer. We’d have exotic new varieties like the chai pakoda (which is a pakoda made of chai), the sad pakoda (made from the tears of all gainfully employed pakoda sellers) and the development pakoda (made using the Gujarat model). So, maybe a country full of pakoda sellers might not be such a bad idea after all. Now, if only PM Modi had some great recipes to get everyone in the country started off.