Unwanted food debate at Kerala arts festival
This time the Kerala School Arts Festival, the largest gathering of budding artists in Asia, hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. More than enjoying the feast of dance and music presentations, people seem to have relished the controversy surrounding the food served, spicing up the debate with communal and casteist ingredients. As it usually happens, the spark flared from social media. Questions were raised about the practice of serving only vegetarian spreads for the contestants and officials, a custom followed for decades. Heavy phrases like ‘Brahminical hegemony’ were casually and irresponsibly thrown into the discourse, making the master chef’s caste the main focus of the debate, not the food he served.
As the clamour for a non-veg menu got louder, Minister for Education V Sivankutty suddenly declared that the government would consider changing the festival manual to bring in the change. The contour of the discussion then changed with the Hindu Aikya Vedi asserting that it would block halal food. Veg and non-veg thus became not just two varieties of food but the symbols of two cultures, which are jostling for supremacy. As the controversy raged, the chef, Pazhayidom Mohanan Namboothiri, announced he will stay away from the festival from now on. He also made a disturbing observation that his team had to stand guard in the kitchen as he feared sabotage.
The unwanted debate has left a lingering distaste. The government should have acted more responsibly and curtailed the discussion before it took a communal turn. As Indian Union Muslim League leader K P A Majeed said, Sivankutty could have ignored the demand for non-veg food raised through inconsequential social media accounts. Those who triggered the debate probably had nefarious intentions, and, unfortunately, the government fell prey to their designs. It should have considered the practical issues involved in including non-veg in a feast that is served to more than 20,000 people at a time.
Moreover, no one has complained about the quality of the vegetarian food served in the past. What is important is serving safe food, not providing variety. The debate is also a warning signal. Recent developments in Kerala highlight the alarming fact that even innocuous and insignificant issues are assuming communal dimensions with the slightest provocation. It points to the presence of a deep-seated malady in Kerala society, which looks for occasions to manifest itself.