Scent of a PM: How Modi is making aromatic overtures to farmers across the country

This week, the prime minister was wafted to all corners of the country, borne along by a fragrant breeze. Well, strictly speaking, borne along by broadband. He was addressing farmers in five states on a webcast from Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi on Monday. It was the 75th anniversary of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, which has developed seven new plant species. These have now been “dedicated to the nation” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As he spoke to two farmers in flood-stricken Hyderabad, they were presented with a highly productive variety of turmeric, named Pitamber. To balmy Cuddalore, he presented a new kind of aromatic vetiver, or khus. Hilly Palampur got lilies and gerbera flowers. Jorhat, of tea garden fame, got lemongrass and citronella. To Jammu, it may have been a variety of rose-scented geraniums. The scent of a prime minister varies from state to state.

These fragrant overtures are in keeping with the spirit of the Aroma and Phyto-Pharmaceutical Mission, launched earlier this year. While providing alternative means of livelihood for farmers struggling with unproductive land, the mission also encouraged the cultivation of plants used in the aroma industry and traditional Indian medicine.

A dash of development, a hint of Ayurveda, all mixed in a spirit of enterprise – that’s bottled Modi for you. Not since Modi holograms were beamed out to election rallies in 2014 has there been a better way to signal prime ministerial omniscience. Besides, perfumes seem to be quite the rage in political branding.

Samajwadi Sugandh and the perfume baron

Earlier this year, the Samajwadi Party, gearing up for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, launched a range of perfumes called “Samajwadi Sugandh”. As the fragrance spread across the state, spokesperson Pankhuri Pathak explained, it would carry the message of the Samajwadi Party – communal harmony, the spirit of brotherhood and good governance. Somewhere along the way, it was also supposed to revive the dying itra industry of Kannauj.

Never mind that in the last five years the state has seen devastating communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, a lynching in Dadri spurred by rumours of beef-eating, and indifferent economic growth.

It was also a departure from the Samajwadi Party’s previous attempts at political rebranding under Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. First there were the laptops, fitted with a wallpaper that featured Akhilesh Yadav and Samajwadi supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, a significant message for a party that had always burnished its Luddite credentials. Before the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, there was the video with the song Mann Se Hai Mulayam, set to the tune of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.

Both laptop and video suggested the Samajwadi Party was shedding its Hindi heartland chauvinism and its suspicion of technology, surrendering to the winds of modernity. Samajwadi Sugandh, smelling of itra and the country green, suggested the home-grown socialism and identity politics of Mulayam Singh Yadav were here to stay.

Farther east, in Assam, perfumes lifted another political figure into prominence. Badruddin Ajmal, who made his fortune in one of the “world’s biggest perfume businesses”, founded the All India United Democratic Front in 2004 to protect the interests of Bengali Muslims in Assam.

As he grew in stature, Ajmal, now simply called “Huzoor” by his followers, put his wealth to virtuous use. He opened hospitals, started NGOs, built mosques and parcelled out generous gifts to supplicants who visited his palatial house in Hojai in Nagaon district. He also owned one of the largest agar plantations in Asia.

In Lower Assam, where the AIUDF had established a stronghold over the last decade, Ajmal spread his appeal through a fragrant bouquet of munificence and piety – the perfume baron turned philanthropist who was also learned in religious texts.

Statutory warning

Of course, these political perfumes should come with a statutory warning – keep in a cool, dark place, or may cause irritation.

Not long after launching its perfume, the Samajwadi Party was plunged into a family feud, pulled in different directions by Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav, with a few warring uncles thrown into the mix. Months before the elections, the party does not seem to have any ideology – socialist, Luddite, progressive or otherwise – as it collapses into a mass of power-hungry politician.

In the assembly elections in Assam this year, the AIUDF lost badly, in spite of its pre-poll bravado, and the Huzoor was trounced in his South Salmara constituency. Turns out the legend Badruddin Ajmal was not enough to make up for the party’s lack of a visible record in governance, and a large section of the party’s Muslim voter base felt the Congress was better able to protect it from the onslaught of Hindutva.

As it braces for the UP elections next year, the Bharatiya Janata Party should choose its fragrance wisely. Robust notes of tulsi, perhaps, with a whiff of communal harmony?