Salt Assault

editorial:-
Sikkim too succumbed to the salt shortage/ price hike rumour, and panic buying was witnessed across the State on Friday. No surprises there because the State has consistently proven that it is always only too eager to latch on to the latest rumour and whip itself into a frenzy over it, or, in the alternative, offer itself up for the latest scam doing the rounds. Remember how, some years back, Sikkim had emptied out into the streets convinced that an earthquake was coming? With the salt panic, it reinforced these credentials and also embarrassed itself because it joined the lines of the duped nearly two days after the con had been played out and by when it had become obvious that the panic elsewhere was being driven by rumours. Be that as it may, neighbourhood shops opened to eager early hoarders who cleared out the shelves. People were clearly buying surplus stocks and even before profiteering shopkeepers could decide to hoard, people had begun doing so. Groceries ran out of stock in most areas and soon more ugly rumours entered circulation – of people having been asked to pay nearly ten-times the MRP for their pinch of salt. It is obvious that some shopkeepers would have profited by selling salt in ‘black’, but the usurious scale of ‘premium’ being attributed in the present case is too astounding even keeping the gullibility of the consumers here in mind. A rumour which Sikkim could have laughed about over the weekend took an insidious turn with neighbourhood shops being looked up as opportunist profiteers by the people and general nastiness surfacing in how people engaged each other on the issue. And that is very the real worry begins.
Rumours are no longer circulated just by word of mouth or through anonymous pamphlets mailed by post; they now have the power of technology backing them in the form of online networks and the mobile phone and its multitude of apps to supplement the existing network of neighbourhood chatter. The same networks can also be used to dispel these rumours and were deployed this time as well and since early Friday morning, clarifications and reassurances were being communicated over these channels. These however did very little to settle the panic and it took public displays of inspections and ‘raids’ to discourage hoarding and opportunist profiteering. The disturbing aspect is not the gullibility of the people, but the more worrying sign that the success of such obviously improbable rumours convey – the obvious trust deficit. Rumours succeed not because people trust everything they hear but because they don’t trust others not to cheat or scheme. Isn’t it worrying that people can believe that the supply of an essential commodity like salt can be stopped or reduced? They end up believing this because they don’t trust their leaders or fellow citizens to do the right thing anymore. Many people on panic buying mode clearly knew that there was going to be no supply crunch or price hike, but wanted to play safe, worried that panic buying by others will empty the stocks and inconvenience them later. This is clearly not healthy because successful rumours will not always be harmless ones like this…