It has taken a British MP to stand up for the king of fruits, the Great Indian Mango. New Delhi is quiet – not one official word from Udyog Bhawan where trade policy is supposed to be monitored.
Nor even Manjeev Singh Puri, our man in Brussels.
We shouldn’t be surprised. The ban was widely anticipated, well before it was formally announced on March 26.
Even then, because our media is non-existent in Brussels, the story of the mango going off every shelf in the 28-nation community effective May 1 has hit the wires only when the cut-off date is right on our heads.
So, Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz, it is.
The British MP, who traces his with origins in Goa and represents leicester East, is the first one standing up to the babus in Brussels, where the European Union is headquartered.
“Euro-crazy madness!” the former Salman Rushdie baiter (and Hinduja sympathizer!) complains, getting serious media attention in the bargain.
The scent of political capital in his Asian-dominated constituency is Vaz’s driver.
That said, the controversial MP deserves the brownie points.
Why no Indian MP has spoken up isn’t hard to understand.
Everyone here’s busy with elections, you see – the woes of the poor mango farmer/exporter much too insignificant in the scheme of things.
Is there something we, the mango men and women of India, can doIJ
One, certainly is to wring our hands and get on with our lives.
But how ‘peer-to-peer’ or even people-to-people (P2P) trade diplomacyIJ
let it start from home.
let’s all buy a lot more mangoes this season. (Diabetics, follow this only under medical supervision). Demand alone is the answer to the glut of mangoes that we might have.
Second, how about taking to twitter – I suggest #Mangoes or #Mango - enhancing our awareness about the merits of the EU ban.
Is it purely because of fruit flies that our mango crop – and egg plant, taro plant, bitter gourd and snake gourd for the record – are being targetedIJ
Or is there a deeper problem with our phyto-sanitary safeguardsIJ The Nation wants to know!
Third, one of us can draft an e-petition asking our policy makers, post May 16, to wake up.
In Britain, http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/63939 to Her Majesty’s Government has decent traction already. None so far in India. Whatever happened to our combative spirit – can’t we tell Brussels a thing or two about tit-for-tat.
Even the political party owing its name to ‘aam’ hasn’t got itself embroiled. No Adani-Ambani here, you see!
Four, and a lot more seriously, we can all sympathize for what our friends in Europe have lost. How about posting pictures of mango parties we’re organizing between friends and family!
Now that FB allows tagging and a news feed, I suggest the same hashtag that we plan to use on twitter! let #mangoes (or #mango) make the ‘mangophiles’ in Europe drool and slam petitions against Brussels.
The British are our allies. No insult meant to the French and the Germans, it is our former colonizers, who have the expertise to covet our mangoes (and now, increasingly our gourds too!). Mango festivals kick started in Trafalgar Square won’t have a sequel this year. lord Mayor Boris Johnson knows a thing or two about that.
And even as Vaz is planning to ambush EU president Jose Manuel Barroso, can’t some relatively jobless policy maker join forces – if only to make a sarkari trip to Europe because end-April gets warm in New DelhiIJ
Early warning: Saudi Arabi and Australia and contemplating similar bans. Can we, the real aam aadmi, take a review of how clean are our mango exportsIJ
(The columnist works at the intersect of media, strategy and regulation on RIl. The views expressed are personal. Tweets @therohitbansal)
