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Periyar, the flamboyantly bearded founder of the Dravidian Self-Respect Movement, used frequently to spit out the Tamil word vengayam (meaning ‘onion’) as an expression of derision; since there was much in politics that he found worthy of disdain, the pungent whiff of onions used forever to hang over Dravidian politics in an earlier time.

Evidently Periyar considered the onion lowly because beneath its many layers of skin, there’s only empty nothing, much like a vacuous political argument.

His bearish assessment of the onion’s value comes fairly close to that of the music critic James Huneker, who wrote Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it.”

Today, however, it appears that the open market valuation of the onion’s worth far exceeds Periyar’s (and Huneker’s) uncharitable estimation.

Prices have run up so fast recently that for budget-balancing households, even an unpeeled onion induces a free flow of tears.

The onion’s centrality in the political discourse has also been reinforced by the upsurge in the volume of political commentaries revolving around the aromatic plant.

That’s partly because, given the widespread use of onions by all but the most austere adherents of sattvic diets, extraordinarily high onion prices arguably have a bit of ‘regime change’ potential.

The many medicinal properties attributed to the onion — it’s touted as a cure for everything from common colds to coronary diseases to cancer — have given rise to the formulation: ‘an onion a day keeps the doctor away’.

It’s more likely, that it’s the distinctive after-effects of an onion-flavoured diet — in particular, a odoriferous breath that would, well, make an onion cry — that keeps everyone, including doctors, away.

In any case, that’s a technique that former US presidential candidate John Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz Kerry famously invoked. Campaigning along with Kerry, which required her to travel for extended periods, she devised a way to ‘get some privacy’ whenever she wanted: she’d pull out a sandwich made with cheeseand raw onions.

The onion’s curious olfactory effect — which, ancient Egyptians believed, could even bring the dead back to life — was perhaps one reason why Egyptian pharaohs were mummified along with onions.

In the Middle Ages, the onion additionally served as a form of currency — it was used as rent payments and even as wedding gifts.

If there’s one thing, though, that reeks even more than the onion today, it’s the stench of speculator-driven corruption that underlies the high prices, for which administrative incompetence acts as a flavour enhancer.

The same authorities are making an elaborate show of cracking down on hoarders and speculators. It’s the kind of cynical politicking that might induce anyone to say, derisively, vengayam.