The Politics Of Food
Did you
know the Mughals only drank Ganga jal? That the Dalai Lama eats meat? That the
heroes of Hindu epics were often non-vegetarians? Food is more complex than
politicians make out
India
was never a vegetarian country. The view that ancient Hindus were all
vegetarians is nothing but a myth
Ancient texts such as The Arthashastra
contain many references to meat eating.
As you probably know, one
of the triggers for the great revolt of 1857 (or the First War of Independence
or the Mutiny, depending on your perspective) was a story that spread across
India. According to those who claimed to be in the know, the British army had
coated cartridges with animal fat. Soldiers had to bite off the covering of the
cartridges to use them. This meant that they ended up eating bits of the animal
fat.
But, or so went the
story, the fat came from cows and pigs. So soldiers were now required to
consume beef fat and pork fat. This offended both Hindus and Muslims and led to
revolts in army units.
The British said that no
pig or cow fat was used and that the story was just a rumour. But when it comes
to the politicisation of food, facts often count for less than perceptions.
(And it is entirely possible that the Brits were lying, anyway!) Much of
today’s so-called food history tends to be only about perception. Truth seems
to matter less and less.
In fact, I am beginning
to believe that, at no point since 1857, has food been as politicised as it is
today. The renewed furore about beef eating is mostly political. The battle
between khichri and biryani is really not about rice dishes at all. It is about
so-called Hindu foods and Muslim foods. And the debate is prolonged only for
political reasons.
In the popular
imagination, a certain caricature of Indian food habits persists. According to
this version, good Hindus were always vegetarians. Meat eating was a great sin.
Beef eating was an even greater sin. Then, along came the Mughals. They
promoted meat eating. They took their biryanis all over India and contaminated
the pure vegetarian Indian tradition.
By prosecuting those who
eat beef and by honouring vegetarianism, we are told, our country is going back
to ancient Indian traditions. We are restoring this great Hindu nation to a
time when gods walked the earth and peace ruled the land.
The problem with this
caricature is that almost every single fact in it is wrong.
First of all, India was
never a vegetarian country. Whether you went North or South in ancient India,
the kings usually ate meat. (So did the gods in our epics.) Ancient Indian
rulers did not just eat meat or chicken. They ate tortoises, deer, peacocks and
other birds and animals.
Even during the Indus
Valley Civilisation, one of the world’s oldest urban civilisations dating back
to 3,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, animals were raised and
slaughtered for food. During the Vedic period, non-vegetarianism was common.
Even Ayurveda, which we regard now as a purely Hindu vegetarian phenomenon,
advocated remedies based on meat.
The popularity of
vegetarianism came from the Jain, rather than Hindu, tradition. Even the Buddha
(who came after Mahavir and the founding of Jainism) did not insist on
vegetarianism. (Indians are always shocked to discover that the Dalai Lama eats
meat; he ate beef till his doctors told him to go easy on red meat.) Ancient
texts such as
The Arthashastra contain
many references to meat eating. So, the view that ancient Hindus were all
vegetarians is a myth. See page
46
What about the Mughals,
the subject of much demonisation these days? Well, almost everything that you
will read on many popular Internet sites about the Mughals is wrong.
First of all, they did
not call themselves the Mughals. That name was given to them centuries later by
British historians on the grounds that Babur’s mother may have descended from
Genghis Khan. Babur himself would have been horrified to have been called a
Mongol or a Mughal.
Secondly, the Mughals did
not arrive in India, defeat valiant Hindu kings and then establish a
beef-eating, tyrannical dynasty. There had been Muslim rulers in India for
centuries. Babur defeated the Delhi Sultanate, a Muslim kingdom and not some
perfect embodiment of Ram Rajya.
Thirdly, the Mughals did
not turn a peace-loving, grass grazing, meat-abjuring populace into
non-vegetarians. Not only were the Muslim kings before the arrival of the
Mughals non-vegetarians, but so were many Hindus.
If anything, the Mughals
were actually less keen on meat than many Hindu kings had been. Many Mughal
Kings and nobles would give up meat before battles. And the Emperor Akbar
developed such a distaste for meat that he became virtually vegetarian in later
life. Keeping in mind medieval (but not necessarily ancient) Hindu
sensitivities about the cow, he actually banned cow slaughter. He drank only
Ganga jal.
Many of these practices
were continued by his son Jahangir and his grandson Shah Jahan, both of whom
were vegetarian on certain days of the week and continued to impose Akbar’s ban
on cow slaughter. (They also drank Ganga jal.)
So yes, the Mughals were
non-vegetarians. But then so were many Hindus. And the so-called Mughlai
cuisine served in restaurants today does the Mughals a great injustice. Most of
the recipes and many of the dishes have nothing to do with the Mughal court.
Which brings us to the
whole khichri versus biryani debate. In today’s crude popular parlance, khichri
is truly Hindu whereas biryani is some Middle-Eastern dish brought to India by
the Mughals. This is nonsense. Khichri is Indian but it is not, and never was,
purely Hindu. Indians of all religions ate it (Buddhists, Jains and even
Muslims). Nor was there only one type of khichri. In medieval India, any dish
that combined grain and lentils came to be called khichri. So there were
hundreds of variations.
Let’s take the example of
one variation that delighted the Emperor Humayun and the Shah of Persia. One of
Persia’s great claims to fame is that it says it invented an early version of
the pulao and sent it around the world. It became pilaf in Turkey, paella in
Spain and risotto in Italy. But even the Persians will concede that they
borrowed one great rice dish from India.
When Humayun lost his
throne, he spent 15 years in exile. He spent much of that period in Persia
seeking the help of the Shah. During this period, his cooks taught the Shah’s
local cooks how to make khichri. This variation used peas and delighted the
Shah.
When Humayun reclaimed
his throne, this North Indian variation of khichri became a staple of the
Mughal court until Jahangir (Humayun’s grandson) found a new kind of khichri
while travelling through Gujarat. This khichri was made from millets not rice
and it soon became the Emperor’s favourite dish (though the court cooks used
more ghee than the Gujarati original). And it was cooked in the palace kitchen
nearly every day.
Why was khichri so
popular all over India? Not because of our devotion to vegetarian cuisine. It
was a one pot meal that used dal (one of the defining characteristics of Indian
cuisine through the ages) and any local grain that was available (not just
rice). People ate it mainly because it was cheap and easy to cook. During wars,
when soldiers would cook their own food, there would often be hundreds of fires
lit before a battle as each solider made his own khichri.
Most khichris were
vegetarian because even nonvegetarian Indians found meat too expensive. (This
was as true of the rest of the world, even England under say, Henry VIII, where
the nobles consumed all kinds of animals while the peasantry could not afford
much meat.)
Which takes us to
biryani. Did it descend from the pulao? Probably, but it had to be wetter, more
heavily spiced, was usually ‘assembled’ (the meat and rice were first cooked
separately in most biryanis, whereas everything was cooked together in a pulao)
and it was a main dish, whereas a pulao was a side dish.
Opinions vary on when it
was invented (one popular version gives the credit to Akbar’s cooks; others say
it was created a century before) but there is no doubt that it is an entirely
Indian dish.
So don’t believe all the
currently popular lies about pure vegetarians and evil beef-eating invaders.
There is no all-Hindu khichri nor any invader biryani. The history of Indian
food is too complex for simple stereotypes. And our cuisine is too great for
its history to be twisted to suit the needs of today’s political debates.
Politicians will come and
go. But India’s many wonderful cuisines will outlast them all.
HTBR 20JAN19
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