Follow Us
Renu Sud Sinha
Food, in its multi-ethnic avatars, is the prism through which Nandita Haksar has presented her understanding of India in her latest book — The Flavours of Nationalism. Since childhood, we don’t just imbibe food, unconsciously we also imbibe many biases connected with it and which often shape our understanding of politics, caste, class, culture, religion and even our inherent differences about these.
A human-rights lawyer and activist, Haksar has penned several books in the past where she has kept herself confined to her niche. A book on food may seem like a digression, but she has beautifully brought out our everyday prejudice, which often goes unnoticed, about something as mundane as food, our eating habits and cooking practices. Born in a family of Kashmiri Pandits, her assertion that she belongs to a community of meat-eating Brahmins sets the tone of what is to come.
Despite a strong self-belief that often turns out illusory, the book persistently exposes chinks in our veneer of liberalism. The practice of caste discrimination prevalent even today in many upper-caste households of having separate utensils for sweepers, et al. evokes a similar cringe-worthy childhood memory. The Supreme Court may assert that societal morality cannot trump constitutional morality. On the ground, however, it would sadly continue to do so as we keep discriminating against people due to their food choices, even lynching them.
Food as a tool of subjugation is oft-visible in many of our patriarchal norms and practices. Habits she finds ingrained, to her surprise, in many of her Naxal comrades. They fight for the right to equality, dignity and self respect for their marginalised brethren, but deny the same to their wives and women comrades. Because men refused to shoulder their share of house-hold work and childcare, women couldn’t actively continue to participate in political activities, recounts Haksar. She also bristles at the memory how many of her fellow activists expected her to cook for them during their many campaigns together.
From every nook of India, Haksar recounts a patriarchal society’s expectations about gender roles and the resultant conflict that arises not just in many political ideologies but also various communities. The only exception she finds are Nagas.
Food, or the lack of it, remains an index of gap between the rich and the poor and starvation deaths, even in 2018, are a bitter reality, which we all are squeamish about accepting. Despite development and a growing economy, the Global Hunger Index 2017 exposed the disconnect between high levels of growth and its low ranks of human development. The author’s activism comes across as she highlights injustices against many marginalised communities — street vendors, migrant workers, domestic workers, hawkers, tribals, particularly tribal women.
Not all is grim though as the well-researched book provides some interesting asides — how prasad at Shivaratri celebrations of Kashmiri Pandits features mutton and raw fish, Buddhism, while shunning animal sacrifice, allows monks to eat meat if received as alms, debates between Ambedkar and Gandhi on inter-dining and caste and much more.
Though a memoir, we could have done with a little less of amma-papa and other relations. The lengthy accounts of family weddings and feasts could have been avoided. Highly readable, the book holds a mirror to society with pretences of liberalism.