From beef to poha: Why food multiculturalism cannot be an end in itself

Often, we are only too happy to keep the food and kick out the people the food belongs to

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,

The mild-eyed melancholy poha-eaters came.

— With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Poha, it turns out, is the new anti-national. BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya made national news when he spotted the poha-ring among construction labourers working at his house. To mix food metaphors, he smelled something fishy when he noticed they ate “only poha”. They might be Bangladeshi, he surmised.

Flattened rice fans from Maharashtra to Bengal erupted in outrage. Poha eaters came out of the woodwork. Someone found a picture of cricketer-turned BJP MP Gautam Gambhir eating poha. Indigo offers poha alongside upma as part of its in-flight offerings. Will Vijayvargiya come for upma next? Will Indigo be inculcated into the tukde tukde gang? I had a savory poha-muri snack outside the ancient temples of Pattadakal in Northern Karnataka. The poha hunters clearly have their work cut out for them if poha becomes a test of citizenship.

To paraphrase the old Martin Niemöller warning:

First they came for the beef eaters, and I did not speak out / Because I was not a beef eater.

Then they came for the egg eaters in Madhya Pradesh, and I did not speak out / Because I was not an egg eater in Madhya Pradesh.

Then they came from the Muslim food delivery boy during Shravan and I did not speak out / Because I was not a food delivery guy.

Then they came for the poha eaters and I did speak out / Because I ate poha/ cheerey/ chivda/ choora.

But all the poha jokes hide a more troubling truth. We are so used to using food as a way of designating the other. In Bengali TV soaps, the bad Westernised girl wants continental food and cake while the good Bengali bahu makes payesh and fish. There is no soap opera plot line where you can be a good girl and like cake and payesh.

I remember food writer and TV host Madhur Jaffrey talking about how she would share meals at school with classmates — Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. “I remember all those specific tastes and each one being so marvellous. With Partition, all our Muslims friends were gone and we were bereft.” Lunch tasted different. Partition had entered the tiffin box.

Food as a bridge

When I went to America, I would constantly meet people who told me they loved Indian food, almost as a badge of some multicultural honour. Food is the bridge between cultures, sharing food is the way we break down barriers. Or so we would like to believe.

Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat, was recently at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet. In Chocolat, Vianne Rocher, who might or might not be a witch, arrives in a tiny and deeply Catholic French village and opens a chocolaterie. She is viewed with suspicion by the local priest and the town busybodies but the chocolate works its magic.

In a follow-up novel, Peaches For Monsieur le Curé, Vianne returns to the village which is crackling with tension because of the arrival of a group of Muslims of Moroccan origin who have built a mosque. It’s Ramadan, and Vianne’s chocolates have no effect but food still helps both ignite and defuse cultural tensions. Harris has talked often about why she uses food as a motif. “It’s the first contact with a culture because it’s something that everybody can understand. It’s a simple way of offering or accepting hospitality.”

Harris, on her first visit to India, was certainly game about trying out everything on offer, including the nolen gur sandesh on the dessert table. But she also said that food as a conduit for tolerance of the other has its limits. It’s only a first step. Food multiculturalism cannot be an end in itself. Often, we are only too happy to keep the food and kick out the people the food belongs to. Islamophobes can be biriyani lovers. Donald Trump can boast about loving tacos even as he wants to erect a wall to keep out Mexicans. ‘But I eat curry, don’t call me a xenophobe,’ can be the culinary equivalent of ‘I can’t be racist, I have a black friend.’

The ‘I-love-tandoori’ multiculturalism can be grating. But food policing is even more toxic. In the new India boiling with talk of papers to prove you belong, could the slogan of resistance du jour ‘Hum Kaagaz Nahi Dikhayenge’ be extended to our grocery lists?

The writer is the author of Don’t Let Him Know, and likes to let everyone know about his opinions whether asked or not.