Resham GellatlyMunna, a worker at the NaMo tea stall who uses only one name, pouring tea in Patna, Bihar, on Sunday.
PATNA, Bihar — Arun Pathak, a social worker,
and his friends have been meeting at a tea stall near Patna University’s
College of Arts & Crafts for years. “We’re all regulars here,” Mr.
Pathak said, taking a sip of strongly brewed masala chai.
Last month, a new face showed up at the stall
– the printed visage of Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi, whose
Bharatiya Janata Party seeks to unseat the governing Congress Party in
national elections next spring. In a bid to increase publicity before
the massive rally held in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of
Bihar, local B.J.P. officials asked tea vendors to brand their
businesses “NaMo tea stalls” by putting up promotional posters using Mr.
Modi’s nickname.
Mr. Pathak and his friends have continued to
gather at the same shop despite its recent branding as a NaMo tea stall.
“We are all Congress supporters, but we don’t mind them putting up this
poster,” he said, pointing to the image of Mr. Modi. “It’s a democracy.
Everyone has the right to speak his mind. We come here and pull out the
newspaper and say whatever we feel. It doesn’t matter if Modi’s face is
right there.”
“This is the one place in politics where
caste doesn’t matter. People all vote on caste lines, but over a cup of
tea we’re all secular,” Mr. Pathak said, pointing out the diversity of
the customers gathered. “This is where you find the real pulse of
Patna.”
Mr. Modi’s rally on Sunday, marred by a
series of low-intensity bomb blasts, was seen as an important
opportunity for Mr. Modi to woo voters in Bihar, a state with over 100
million people considered crucial to his party’s chances of taking power
from the long-dominant Congress Party, which faces growing unpopularity
amid corruption scandals and weak economic growth.
And the tea stall campaign is an effort to
draw a contrast between Mr. Modi’s humble beginnings as the son of a tea
vendor in the western state of Gujarat, which he has governed as chief
minister since 2001, and Rahul Gandhi, his Congress Party rival who is
the son and grandson of previous Indian prime ministers. In his youth,
Mr. Modi carried tea in a kettle from his father’s shop to customers
waiting for trains at the Vadnagar train station.
“Here is a man born into a simple, poor
family who worked hard to rise up,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, deputy
opposition leader in the upper house of Parliament. “Compare that to the
Nehru-Gandhi Congress Party dynasty. They have been passing down power
from one generation to the next, but after 60 years of this rule, the
people have had enough. Modi’s rise from a chai wallah to the prime
minister’s chair will show the great power of Indian democracy,” Mr.
Prasad said, using the Hindi term for tea seller.
Resham GellatlyMukesh
Nandan, a Bharatiya Janata Party worker who administered the NaMo tea
stall campaign, at Gandhi Maidan in Patna, Bihar, on Sunday.
On Saturday, B.J. P. leaders took a break
from rally preparations to make tea for reporters at a mobile stall,
mimicking the elaborate movements for which India’s chai wallahs are
famous, pouring sugary milk tea from one cup to another. “This is our
way of saying we are with the common people,” said Mukesh Nandan, a
local party worker administering the NaMo tea stall program.
Over two hundred tea vendors had signed up to
participate, according to Mr. Nandan, although local residents said
they had not seen more than a handful of NaMo tea stalls.
On Fraser Road, a main thoroughfare where
thousands marched to the rally waving B.J.P. flags and singing songs
dedicated to Mr. Modi, Gopi Tiwari, a tea vendor, said he was proud to
show his support through his stand, a wooden cart which he had draped in
the signature saffron-orange of the B.J.P.
“It is time for a change. Modi ‘Ji’ was a
chai wallah like me so he understands the poor,” Mr. Tiwari said, using a
Hindi title of respect.
“Manmohan Singh just sits on his hands,” he
said in reference to the current prime minister. “Modi Ji will solve our
problems. He will attack Pakistan and bring development like he has in
Gujarat.” The customers around Mr. Tiwari’s stand shouted in agreement
as a pot of tea began to boil over.
This is not the first time a politician has
used tea to curry favor with voters in Bihar. When Lalu Prasad Yadav, a
former chief minister of Bihar, became national railways minister in
2004, he mandated that in trains and on station platforms tea be served
in kulhars, handmade clay cups, to provide employment for local potters
and show his respect for tradition. The effort largely failed and today
India’s train tracks are littered with used plastic cups.
“It makes sense that these leaders use tea as
a promotional stunt,” said Abhay Singh, a political analyst at The
Times of India based in Patna. “Tea stalls are where people gather to
discuss politics, and of course candidates want people to talk about
them when they are taking tea.”
Not all tea vendors have been eager to
participate in the promotion of Mr. Modi. Manoj Rai, a tea vendor who
was approached by the B.J.P. but declined to brand his stand a NaMo tea
stall, said he did not want to offend potential customers. “I like
Congress, B.J.P., J.D. (U), R.J.D., all of them,” Mr. Rai said, listing
the abbreviations of major political parties in Bihar. “If my customers
like them, I like them.”
While Mr. Modi is trying to use his humble
origins to electoral advantage, he does remain the prisoner of his
failure to stop the anti-Muslim riots in 2002 in which over 1,000 people
were killed. Many of the riots occurred in neighborhoods where poor
people lived, including many tea vendors.
Memories of this tragedy still lingered with
some of Patna’s tea vendors, who said they would never consider branding
their shops as NaMo tea stalls. “Muslims cannot trust this man,” said
Mohammad Phul, who runs a teashop in Phulwari Sharif, a predominantly
Muslim neighborhood with narrow alleys dotted with mosques. “If Modi
wins there will be riots in the streets,” Mr. Phul said.
Zach Marks is a journalist based in India.
He is researching roadside tea vendors around the country with Resham
Gellatly. Read more of their work at chaiwallahsofindia.com
厭飫久未下，鸞刀縷切空紛綸。」元˙無名氏˙陳州糶米˙第三折：「爺說道，前頭有的儘你吃，儘你用，又與我一件兒厭飫的東西，敢是苦茶兒。」亦作「饜飫」。
平安時代から中世にかけて山岳仏教の中心であった霊仙寺（りょうせんじ）。和銅2年（709年）、元明天皇の勅願寺として湛誉上人が開山したと伝えられて
います。山険しく絶景に恵まれた霊地に叶ったところで、幾多の名僧が修行したところです。九州でも代表的な寺でしたが、現在では江戸時代に建立された乙護
法堂（おとごほうどう）を残すのみです。また、建久2年（1191年）宋より帰朝した栄西禅師が茶の種を持ち帰り霊仙寺の西の谷の石上坊の庭に捲き、あわ
せて茶の製法を伝えたことから「日本茶樹栽培発祥の地」と言われています。
