Hoarding – a common game played by traders and politicians

The political-industrial nexus is a known fact in our country and the effects viewed, reviewed, tolerated, and criticized by the common people. Hoarding, a standard business practice of piling goods and resources so that they can be sold later to customers for profit, started long back with the stocking of sugar by Sharad Pawar (sugar baron cum politician). It extended to many other commodities, onion now being the current favorite of traders. This whole practice of the traders involved in liaison with our gluttonous politicians and bureaucrats have only led to sky rocketing prices of the much-prized onion in North India. Where the prices of onions ranges from Rs. 10 to Rs. 13 a kilo during this season, the current price of onions ranges somewhere between Rs. 40 and Rs. 50 a kilo. The drive to earn more money and more power by our manipulative and overfed government has brought the common man to do away even with the most basic commodities needed by him to survive and fend for his family. Where Sharad Pawar has commented in his interview that the high prices of onions are due to the non-availability of railway wagons to transport the onions from Gujarat to the northern places in India, history forces us to think and rethink on the explanations and justifications provided by our decision-makers through the media. Sharad Pawar had mentioned in a conference of ministers, ``The current problem was because of the delay in transporting stocks from Nashik in Maharashtra. I have received a communication from Nashik and spoken to some traders. They complain that they are not getting railway wagons to transport onion to northern parts of the country.” He never mentioned the cause of unavailability of railway wagons. The factual cause of procrastination, though not discussed, is known by one and all. After all, we are Indians born with the virtue of tolerance, no matter how worse the situation may present itself to be but history has been witness to incidents where utmost tolerance has led to accumulation of vitriol in the minds of the people leading civil society and media to demand for accountability of the decisions taken and implemented by our ever-reluctant governments.