Opinion | PM Modi's 'Jhalmuri' Moment: When The Snack Becomes The Story

Updated: Apr 22, 2026 13:12 pm IST Published On Apr 22, 2026 13:11 pm IST Last Updated On Apr 22, 2026 13:12 pm IST

Published On Apr 22, 2026 13:11 pm IST

Last Updated On Apr 22, 2026 13:12 pm IST

On the TV on April 19, the image arrived the way certain smells do in a city- unexpected, vivid, briefly undeniable. While barnstorming in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a public stall in Jhargram, Purulia, eating jhalmuri: puffed rice crackling with spice, roadside heat, during the summer scorcher, meeting the language of the everyday. Ten rupees, the story insisted.

Ten rupees, maximum impact

Ten rupees for a bowl of pleasure that looked like it had been made not for cameras, but for hunger. Yet the true magic of such moments is that they don't feel manufactured. They pretend not to be politics at all. They borrow the rhythms of street life: chit chat at the dhaba with the young owner. Insisting that the owner take the money. Talk about eating onions or not. "Pyaz khata hun, dimaag Nahin" (I eat onions, nor brains), said PM Modi. The spontaneous laughter and mirth that doesn't quite match the choreography of a tight election campaign schedule, the hands that reach out in a way that suggests, Here - let me be part of this Bengali common folk tradition.

A symbolic gesture of proximity with the aam aadmi

In Bengal, where public space is never just public space, but a stage for identity, the symbolism lands with extra weight. A man is judged not only by what he says, but by what he is willing to be seen doing.

The point was not merely culinary. It was symbolic-almost liturgical-an enacted gesture of proximity with the aam aadmi.

PM Modi's unique political grammar: The body as witness

There is, in PM Modi's political grammar, a long-running theme: the body as witness. One week, he is meditating in the Rudra Gufa near the Kedarnath Temple in May 2019, located at 12,250 feet, offering a tranquil view of the Kedarnath Temple.

Another week, May 14, 2024, another place: PM Modi offers prayers at the Kal Bhairav temple in Varanasi. PM Modi visits to seek blessings from the "Kotwal of Kashi" (guardian deity of Varanasi) before filing his election nomination. Previously, on December 13, 2021, PM Modi had again prayed in........

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