Malavika Prasanna - Week 9


FOOD AS A REPRESENTATION OF DALIT CULTURE

Food has always been a central feature of most cultures around the world. I have always associated famous food with known cultures and regions - Tacos are a part of Mexican culture, Maharashtra has great sabudana vada, the best dhoklas are made in Gujarat and the tastiest dosais and chutneys come from my own home State. But the piece titled 'Caste on Your Plate: Where is Dalit Food?' was a shameful realization that I only know of dominant cultures and their food habits. The lives and foods of the lower castes in Indian States are not within my cultural vision. 

Whether we live in cities, suburbs or villages, we live within reachable distance to people of diverse caste backgrounds, and yet we know nothing of their cultural affiliations. Our surface level understanding is of them as savage, uncivilized eaters. But we pay no heed to the history that only allowed them access to certain foods, which later birthed a beautiful culture of their own. 

It is an unfortunate reality that the world forgets to see how caste has dictated every aspect of Indian life. Diets are influenced by caste, popularity of cuisines is influenced by caste, and access to ingredients is also influenced by caste. Initiatives by students such as Rohith Vemula and Dalit Food Entrepreneur Chandra Bhan Prasad deserve to claim spaces that have been long occupied by the likes of Sanjeev Kapoor and Tarla Dalal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

week 10- Aishwarya Ramkumar

DALIT MUSIC Arivarsu Kalainesan, fondly called Arivu amongst Tamilians is a popular playback singer who has sung songs for mainstream setups. However, his focus lies on writing music and poems about caste and poverty. He is highly inspired by Ambedkar and Buddha, and his music brings to life many of their ideals. He is a proponent of the Arivoli movement which is a southern left literacy movement and got introduces to these ideas by his parents who discussed these with him. His family used to attend Dalit culture events which celebrated anniversaries of leaders and organized protests. He is currently working on writing lyrics a project called the 'Casteless Collective' and had made raps on Ambedkar by drawing inspiration from various Dalit poems. While many have deemed his raps anti-Indian, others appreciate his ideas and welcome these into mainstream cinema and music. He was written various songs for other pertinent social causes such as the LGBTQIA+ movement, and his rap...
Read more

Nayonika Sen Week 2

Contested Citizenship, Caste, and the Politics of Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’             The CAA-NRC agitations have perhaps reached a tipping point in mainland India. Yet, the contention and agitation has been brewing in Assam for a while now. Until the threat of a nation-wide NRC, it wasn’t even a peripheral topic of discussion. ‘We people’ were largely unfazed by it. However, a brief reading of the recommended articles and a short explanatory video with Ms. Bina Pallical reaffirms my continuous contention with the NRC. Even the ‘Liberals’ comprising mainly of upper-caste educated persons have bought the narrative of it being an exclusively Hindu-Muslim problem. Yet, how is it going to affect the people who have historically never been considered Hindu? The current political narrative is trying to homogenise the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ identity. The BJP has repeatedly issued statements about how the CAA is pro-Dalit and yet...
Read more

Week 10 - Samyuktha Rao

I'm sharing something interesting that I've come across during my search for dalit music. In the state of telangana, India's largest tribal festival is conducted on an annual basis in the month of February. The festival witnesses largest gathering of dalit communities as the goddess who is worshipped during the festival belongs to the Koya tribe. However, Hinduization of this festival has begun to take place in the last few decades. I'm attaching articles from the wire and feminism in india which talks in detail about how upper castes are controlling the image of the goddess as theirs and their other  other practices of Hinduization that are taking place during the festival. There are multiple songs on the internet (by upper castes) but most of them as talked above, fail to emphasize on the history and story and are centered around celebration of the festival.  https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/feminisminindia.com/2020/03/18/the-medaram-jana-jatara-indias-largest-tri...
Read more