The phrase quoted in the title of this article is attributed to a remark of Queen Marie Antionette (probably apocryphal) in the 1789 famine in France during the reign of her husband King Louis IV. The famine led to mass protests which later morphed into the French Revolution that toppled her husband’s regime, leading to their fall and later execution.
The phrase became very powerful since at that time, the price of bread had risen so high - about 50% of a wage earner’s income - that it left him little money to pay for other expenses. Asking why people do not buy cake, a more expensive food item, was a mockery and proof of how the royalty was removed from the common man’s life.
It has since also become symbolic with statements or actions of state heads who seem to be dissociated from their people who cannot appreciate why their people are protesting.
Protests, demonstrations, and speaking to demand redress for losses are chief characteristics in a democracy. These are metrics to assess how a democracy is working. These are measures by which a democratically elected government judges its performance, and implements remedial measures.
A democratically-elected leader along with any associates pay close attention to protests, demonstrations, and demands from people to listen to their grievances because they are people’s representatives in a true democracy.
They were elected because they took a vow to their constitutional obligation to serve their constituents at grassroots -- and their nation at large. When people suffer because of rising prices, and are unable to fend for themselves, they are not raising their voice to topple the government or harass it. Nor are they making a mockery of their leaders.
They speak and protest so that the government and the leaders take action to redress their grievances. They are in despair because they see no sign of their economic woes. They see a looming crisis.
Just as people raise their voices and protest when prices rise or other injustice happens with seriousness, they expect their leader to respond with equal seriousness, not frivolous remarks which may convey a total disregard to their sufferings.
Sometimes a leader may mistakenly think that the grievances that people raise are trivial and do not merit a serious policy response. But to a leader, no grievance can be too trivial to demand a trivial response.
When prices of some ordinary but essential food commodities rose in India such as onion, tomatoes, and rice, the Modi government put a ban on export of some types of rice, onions, and tomatoes. This was a policy response because the rise of these prices was a threat to Modi and his party for the upcoming general elections.
Modi did not trivialize the rise in prices with trite remarks such as asking people to eat less onions or do away with tomatoes in their salads. He took this rise in price seriously.
We know the rise in the prices of eggs or green chilies is not a life-threatening event in our people’s lives because people do not have to live on these commodities. But these are commodities that the common man needs in their daily groceries.
Asking people to tackle the rise in the price of eggs by “boiling them and keeping them in [the] deep fridge” is a bizarre idea that should not come from a high place in government leadership.
Similarly, an advice to grow green chilies in one’s rooftop garden or a tub in a balcony to meet one’s demand for this time instead of going to the market is an equally off-beat idea.
Without going to the science of this suggestion, practically how many eggs can you boil and put in a freezer? How many people have refrigerators in the country? How many kilos of green chilies can anyone grow on a rooftop or in a balcony in tubs?
Maybe eggs and green chilies are not as essential as rice or cooking oil (prices of which, by the way, have also made a quantum leap), but these are not normally imported like many other commodities in Bangladesh. A rise in the prices of these commodities signals possible rises in other food commodities in the future.
And these rises need to be addressed before they grow to a proportion that leads to protests of a more massive kind that may appear on the horizon.
As I said before, for a people, no protest or grievance is trivial. Each grievance is a sign of things to come in the future. It is essential that these rises in prices are monitored closely and a policy response be kept ready, either to rein in prices with production incentives, or by facilitating imports when necessary.
An appropriate response to any question of a rise in prices should be answered measuredly, without flippancy, showing respect to the grievance. This is not to demean the recent remarks from the highest place in the government, nor to give gratuitous advice.
And this is not on the rise in prices of these non-essential items only. This is to prepare the government for more popular protests that may be looming on the horizon on more serious economic issues that may face the government. To be prepared is half the victory.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
