Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. The traditional French phrase when loosely translated into English means, “Let them eat cakes”. Wrongly attributed to the infamous Queen Marie Antoinette, the phrase is first mentioned in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (Book 6) which was published in 1765 when Antoinette was nine years of age. The context in Rousseau’s autobiography for the phrase is an occasion when he has stolen some wine and is looking for bread to accompany it. “Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: 'Let them eat brioche (a form of cake)',” wrote the philosopher who did not name the princess.

Back home, home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram lets them eat ice-cream. The minister lost his cool while briefing the media about the UPA’s achievements on Tuesday. Taking on the urban middle class for bemoaning soaring prices of fuel and essential commodities, he said if they can buy ice-cream for Rs 20 and mineral water for Rs 15, they should not grudge the price rise. Trying to justify increase in prices, Chidambaram said, “The rise has directly benefited farmers. We raised fuel prices because the global crude prices had gone up. We also gave relief by bringing down the petrol price twice. There need not be any complaint for price rise when things are on the side of poor farmers.” I assume the minister must have been short on time and so desisted from detailing how greatly the government’s next big move – decontrolling the diesel prices – is going to benefit the farmers.

For somebody born into a royal family (Chidambaram was born into the royal family of Chettinad in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu in 1945), exulting in the rise of the middle class is unacceptable nine out of every ten times. Did the royalty ever like the idea of commoners getting out of their yoke and eating ice-creams and drinking mineral water? Years after we successfully drove kings into oblivion, it is a marvel that seats of power remain; these have just changed houses. Moreover, middle class in the present scheme of things is a problem area: illicit babies of an unwanted change. A natural progression of the yesterday’s yoked largely accounts for the present middle class. But education and accompanying regular incomes have had its side-effects. Because of the class’s weak strength, poor voter turnout and its growing scepticism in politics, it is barely on the radar of the political class. However, this does not undermine the class’s contribution to the economy: its taxpaying abilities are frequently experimented with and a final word on its tolerance level is yet not out. 

The second thing in Chidambaram’s favour is the enormity of the occasion. He was asked to brief the media about the UPA’s achievements. Even a Martin Luther King Jr. with all his I-have-a-dream eloquence would have faltered. While prime minister Manmohan Singh has already earned his place on Time’s cover, the cover-up time for Chidambaram would not have gone without its own awkward moments. The ice-cream and mineral water comment should be seen in that light. Any similarity with the historic French phrase “Let them eat cakes”, my stray guess is, is merely coincidental.

Remark that provoked protests

Here is the controversial comment of home minister P Chidambaram in his media briefing in Bangalore on Tuesday that his ministry released here on Wednesday to assert that it was a "matter-of-fact" statement and no mocking or chiding anyone:

“You mentioned high food prices. Yes, food inflation is high. But higher procurement prices will reflect in slightly higher food prices. But higher procurement prices benefits millions of farmers. If you increase the price of sugarcane, sugar cannot be cheaper than before. If you increase the price of procured wheat or procured paddy, rice and wheat for the consumer cannot be less. Sometimes, and I have written about this once, we are prepared to pay fifteen rupees for a bottle of water but we will not bear one rupee increase in the price of a kilo of wheat or a kilo of rice. We are prepared to pay rupees twenty for an ice-cream cone but won’t pay one rupee more for a kilo of wheat or rice.”

Instead of putting a video on its site to deny contents of the media reports that "shocked and disgusted" Chidambaram and evoked strong protests, the Home Ministry said: "The video is available at timesofindia.indiatimes.com."