A Unique Flavour of Nationalism

Joydip Ghosal

The Flavours of Nationalism, Recipes for Love, Hate and Friendship by Nandita Haksar is a personal memoir where she remembers her culinary journey. The publisher of the book is Speaking Tiger. Food is also deeply related to the fundamental political questions. Food defines certain traits of the country–who are eating partners, who are despised or hailed for their eating habits, and what food is denigrated. In this book, Haksar recounted how food shaped her political consciousness. Apart from those ideas of nationalism, aspects of socialism were also related to her culinary experiences. India’s cultural tapestry also gets reflected in the book. This book deals with a large range of issues. According to Shakshi Arora, the book focuses on contemporary politics, globalisation, and spaces of women in Indian society, or the lack of it. A common thread binds them all–food.

She thought of writing this book when she attended her first human rights conference in Amritsar in the early 1980s. At that time, she had just begun her life as a human rights lawyer. There she met people from all walks of life who dedicated their lives to fighting against state repression. Many had put their jobs and security at stake for justice. While relishing the fabulous food at the conference, she heard one of her fellow travellers from Andhra, who was a member of the Organisation for Civil and Democratic Rights, ask for ‘rasam’. As she was brought up with the Nehruvian idea that one should appreciate the cuisines and cultures of others, she was at first infuriated. She thought that man was not respectful enough to the ethos of unity in diversity ideals. Then she perceived the humour in the situation and laughed to herself. She pondered writing a book titled ‘Rasam in Amritsar’. That idea stayed with her for a long time. At first, she wanted to pen down a light-hearted book that would mock at people’s everyday prejudices. But the book later turned out to be quite grim that dealing with cultural intolerance and rights violations. In India, upper caste Hindus are not accustomed to inter-dining with tribal people, Muslims, and Dalits because of their food habits. Nandita Haksar showed how the trait remained the distinguishing feature of Indian society and culture. In the midst of India’s freedom struggle, leaders debated the efficacy of the ban on inter-dining. But people are not conversant with the facts. Nandita Haksar discussed in detail that in 1920, Gandhi said that Hinduism did not emphatically dissuade intermarriage and interdining. According to him, the leash on inter-dining was beneficial for the rapid development of the soul. But after that, he changed his mind and in 1932 he wrote “Restrictions on inter-dining and inter-caste marriage is no part of the Hindu religion.” According to Nandita Haksar, if anyone dared to challenge the caste system, there would be a riot.

Nandita Haksar also delved deeper into the historical debate to trace the real flavours of Indian nationalism.

In 1935, the secretary of the Society for the Abolition of the Caste System invited B R Ambedkar to voice his views on the caste system in India at their annual conference in 1936. Under the title ‘Annihilation of Caste’, Ambedkar penned down the speech and sent that in advance to the organisers for distribution. But after finding many paragraphs disturbing and provocative, organisers wanted to delete them. Nandita Haksar showed that Ambedkar was not willing to even change a comma. The organisers were ultimately forced to withdraw their invitation. This speech contained a discussion on the viability of intermarriage and inter-dining.

She unequivocally believes that the language of human rights is based on the primacy of an individual’s inalienable rights to liberty, equality, and fraternity. In order to fight the menace of the exclusion of millions of people who are collectively denied those human rights, people require a political discourse that is based on firm ground.
She also dreams that one day all Indian citizens will learn to sit at the national table. No one will remain hungry, and people will eat together with equality and dignity. It would be a living testament to India’s pluralism and diversity. She cited Pablo Neruda, who aspired for nothing more than “justice of eating”:

“Hunger feels like pincers,
Like the bite of crabs,
It burns and has no fire.
Hunger is a cold fire.”

The author sometimes wonders how relevant this dream is, which is manifested in ‘The Great Tablecloth’. “Is it a dream worth keeping alive; worth fighting for?”

It is this hope of finding answers to these questions that this account has been authored.

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Vol 58, No. 9, Aug 24 - 30, 2025