Syrupy Speech and Cotton Stuffings
BY R.K. MISRA What you get free invariably costs too much. Cotton farmers, facing ruin due to plummeting prices, are realizing that sugar in the speech may be sweet. But the proof of the pudding is in the serving when the critic becomes the cook. Not long ago when ensconced in Gujarat as chief minister, Narendra Modi riled at the Congress- led UPA government when the minimum support prices (MSP) for cotton went down from Rs 1500 to Rs 1200. Now, the chief minister is the Prime Minister and the support prices are down to Rs 800. “What can we say”, is all that his one-time agriculture minister, Dilip Sanghani asks, adding that a farmer forced to commit suicide is more like a clarion call for urgent action. The first woman chief minister of Gujarat manfully struggles, with the farmers up in arms and both the Congress and her critics within her own party pouring oil on the troubled waters. It was the RSS-affiliated Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) which lit the fire earl