Does the Plate Reflect the Pyramid and Legitimacy? Contesting Dietary Hierarchies in India

Food in India is more than a source of nourishment; it is a powerful symbol of caste, identity, legitimacy and social power. The article studies how dietary practices have historically shaped and reproduced caste hierarchies through purity and pollution, while also developing as sites of resistance, cultural assertion and democratic contestation. Using sociological, anthropological and political lenses, the article examines how food hierarchies were historically constructed, the supremacy of Brahminical vegetarianism, politics of beef, caste-based exclusion in food spaces, nutritional inequalities and implementation of welfare schemes. It goes on to study the continuing influence of structural inequalities relating to caste, class, gender and institutional discrimination over access to food, nutrition and public services.

A recent scholarship on Dalit food politics, symbolic legitimacy, livelihood vulnerability and food justice shows that food is still an important site through which social distinction, citizenship and political identity are negotiated in present-day India. Even though open caste discrimination is declining, dietary hierarchies are furthering unequal social relations in subtle ways. In conclusion, food justice can be achieved by addressing systemic inequality, recognizing diversities in diet and egalitarian access to nutrition, welfare or dignity of food for the historically marginalized.