Just four years ago, high prices had put pulses beyond the reach of the poor, and the middle-classes were skimping on it. In mid-2015, at the height of the price shock in pulses, I accosted people at Delhi’s Khari Baoli spice market, for a TV programme on the issue. Ira Shukla, a former school teacher had said, “Instead of twice a day, we are eating watery dal once a day, because rates have almost doubled. Poor people cannot eat it; middle-classes like us manage somehow.”

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