Twelfth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Hindu sacred texts, their sundry interpretations, Indian (Hindu) literature, and movies are replete with transcripts cataloging who eats and with whom, who starves, and what is prohibited as food in each facet of life. Food: this brief, four-lettered word, that is perhaps considered unexciting, and an unimportant thing. However, it has the power to describe a community or an individual beyond its strictly prosaic and material sense of physical sustenance. Moreover, when “food is no longer a widely (locally) accessible and equally produced means, [it becomes] a central and tangible trace of the dominant ordering of social relations” (Cooks 95). To dissect and dig deep into Cooks’ words, my paper explores the untouchability issue within the caste system, the concept of Joothan, and the lives of widows to expose the food politics within the caste and gender systems in Hinduism through various movies and fictions. Caste, religion, and gender divisions in India decide the kind of food is pure and impure to manipulate and exploit an individual or a community, and if it is ever opposed then the religious fanatics threaten the whole community.