Video Editor: Sandeep Suman & Ashutosh Bhardwaj
Video Producer: Rupsha Bhadra
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
That Bangladeshi!
That Bangladeshi who?
Arre, that Bangladeshi who eats poha whom BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya identified as a Bangladeshi because of the poha!
Nowadays, people can not only be identified by what they wear but also by what they eat!
Poha, a wonderful, simple dish poha which all of India loves, and perhaps Bangladesh does too, is at the centre of an unsavoury controversy.
The most interesting fact is this – in Indore, where Kailash Vijayvargiya was born, poha is loved by Indoris! It is a favourite snack there.
Another set of people hugely puzzled by Vijayvargiya’s claim are Maharashtrians! Maharashtrians have poha every morning. School kids, office going people, everyone.
There is also an excellently researched article by Kaushik Das Gupta in The Indian Express about how variations of poha are popular in so many other parts of India.
Poha in Odisha is made from a smaller grain of rice.
Odiyas use more of carrot and ginger in their poha as against the onion, peanut, masala-driven poha of Indore and Mumbai.
Bengali poha is called chire’r pulao, and to this, they often add raisins.
And Goans cook poha with milk, sugar and cardamom to make doodanche fov – a sweet dish during Diwali.
I believe that Kailash Vijayvargiya’s poha anecdote is not an accidental or stray comment. It is part of a continuous attempt in creating a sense of 'us' and 'them' in this country: that guy there eating poha is a Bangladeshi, that makes him different from 'us' roti-eating ‘shudh bharatwaasis’.
There is a concerted attempt at not just creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’, but also making ‘us’ afraid of ‘them’:
“They dress different, their skull caps are different and their men put kajal in their eyes. They speak different, they eat different. They pray different, their birth-rates are different, they are taking your jobs, they are taking your business opportunities, they are seducing your children... You need to know them, identify them, weed them out and segregate them!”
This is best done following these steps – Number 1 is to identify differences. He eats poha, your don’t. Number 2 is using the differences to create fear. He eats poha so you must be afraid of him. Number 3 is to use the fear to rewrite the law! Laws which allow you to target a fellow citizen whom you have been fooled into being afraid of, strip them of voting rights, of citizenship, take away their means of livelihood, impoverish them, ghetto-ise them, shove them into detention camps, and eventually create a mass of 2nd class citizens with almost no rights!
It all starts with that innocuous sounding poha comment.
If anyone is feeling slightly secure ke bhai mere kapde, mera khaan-paan, the tilak or bindi on my forehead and my surname puts me on the same side as Mr Vijayarghiya, let me point out that there are many other categories of us and them that you too could be slotted into.
Do you chant ‘azaadi’ at a protest march? That’s anti-national now. Are you a school kid in remote Bidar acting in a play that is anti-CAA? That’s sedition now. Do you support the right of the women at Shaheen Bagh to protest peacefully? Well then, for BJP MP Anurag Thakur that makes you a gaddar and the slogan he has for you is ‘goli maaro gaddaron ko!’
But, yeh jo India hai na, it embraces differences and diversity. It embraces azaadi! And we all surely, surely do love our poha!
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)