The politics of food

Written with wry humour and sharp insights into Indian society, James Staples' book is a fascinating social anthropology of food and politics in India

Sacred Cows and Chicken Manchurian: The Everyday Politics of Eating Meat in India

Author: James Staples

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 179

Price: Rs 299

Long ago, when the internet in India was still in its infancy, a huge fight broke out, much to everyone’s amusement. When the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals launched their website (Peta), another Peta website was launched— by the People for Eating Tasty Animals. At the time, conspiracy theorists attributed the riposte to the advocacy of vegetarianism to being funded by the meat processing industry in India. The debate did not last long, as is the way of the internet. But it did reveal the deep cleavages, as also the unifying force, of food and beliefs around what you eat.

Before James Staples’s book was published, another one came out on food and what it means in contemporary India. Civil rights activist Nandita Haksar wanted her memoir, The Flavours of Nationalism to be a light hearted book. “But with the present controversies over beef and vegetarianism, the book took on a more serious and darker side of the politics of food.  The bias, the prejudice, the ignorance, the bigotry around food reflects the general intolerance in India,” she told a reporter.

Indeed, in Uttar Pradesh, Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched (2015) merely on the suspicion that he had beef stored in his fridge. In Jharkhand, Santoshi Kumari, 11, died (2017) of starvation because her name on the ration card was not linked to the Aadhaar card that entitled her family to food grain. The “authorities” claimed she had died of “other reasons”, not starvation. She died because she was not in the food “system”. Mr Staples quotes sociologist Ashish Nandy: “The crucial issues that have come to dog Indian cuisine are not radically different from questions that dog Indian cultural life in general”.

Mr Staples’s primary focus is the sociocultural significance of meat, particularly beef and its connotations and contestations. It is an ethnographic book that is a culmination of 35 years of fieldwork in coastal Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad. Mr Staples analyses the connections between meat-eating and caste and communal politics, particularly in the context of Hindu nationalism, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and cow vigilante violence against Dalits and Muslims. He explains that many of his sources must remain anonymous or be identified only by initials, given the sensitivity of the issues involved.

This book has many rich layers. For instance, while it discusses the Vedic references to meat and beef-eating (the Upanishad says that the sage Yagyavalkya, when reminded it was sinful to eat beef, said: “That may well be; but I shall eat of it nevertheless if the flesh be tender”), it also discusses attitudes to beef and meat-eating during the 1880s when widespread “cow riots” broke out in north India. It explores Gandhi’s position on meat and beef, which was derived to challenge the British belief that puny vegetarians could never win against the Empire, Swami Dayanand and the Arya Samaj view of vegetarianism and the ideas of Vivekanand.

Equally interesting is the exploration of the post-independence debate on cow slaughter, Jawaharlal Nehru’s assertion that he would resign if a private member’s Bill on cattle slaughter was passed, and Indira Gandhi’s equivocation by setting up a committee to discuss the issue. The matter was then put in cold storage, including during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when LK Advani promised in 2002 that it would enact a ban on cow slaughter but failed to do so under pressure from alliance partners.

When Narendra Modi could sense he was coming to power, he promised to review subsidies on buff export and tax breaks on the buff trade. But while the debate (and violence on the ground) around beef grew more frantic after 2014, the author argues Mr Modi took the Indira Gandhi option when Dalits in Gujarat were attacked by gau rakshaks for skinning a dead cow. He said “more cows have died from consuming plastic than from slaughter”. He realised the need to keep Dalit and Muslim voters on the side of the party. The book adds: “The institutionalisa­tion of vegetarianism as the norm in a society where between 60 and 88 per cent of the population identifies as non-vegetarian, is clearly political”.

The author explains the linkages, market mechanisms and client-patron relationships in the beef trade. It is an activity that has to be carried out surreptitiously, and yet the end product is enjoyed, but always a bit fearfully, even apologetically. On the other hand, eating beef, some of his interviewees imply, is also an act of defiance to assert identity.

The book also describes the rise of alternative meats — chicken for instance, and the political economy around it. For those not eating at home, idli- dosa in Andhra Pradesh has been supplanted by chicken and the dizzying number of ways in which it can be presented — hence Chicken Manchurian in the title of the book. This has nothing to do with Manchuria, doused as it is in soy sauce, chilli sauce and other condiments. Chicken Manchurian is a metaphor for a new economy — which presents prepackaged, pre-cut and sometimes frozen chicken in different cuts, shapes and sizes.

Equally interesting is the review of the era of economic reforms, when infrastructure development made it easier to transport meat across the country; and the rise of packaged food that have changed cultural mores.

This is a fascinating and readable social anthropology of food and politics in India, written with wry humour and sharp insights into Indian society. The contradictions of creating a dharmic nation are peeled back with understanding and sensitivity.