A map of Indian cuisine is a mosaic of cooking methods, spice palates, and common ingredients that change from state to state and culture to culture. From coconut-rich foods popular in the southern state of Kerala to northern Rajasthan’s famously spicy dishes, regional cuisines in India can vary widely. However, it might not be necessary to traverse the entire country to get a taste of the many foods India has to offer. It is easier to simply walk from one city block to the next, stopping at each market table, portable cart, and pop-up stall to try another bite of India’s popular street food. In a country in which food is religiously significant and universally important, yet strikingly different between cultures, street food is particularly integral to social structure and group interaction. Indian street food’s wide variation, economic heft, and importance to daily life make it a particularly effective tool for political or religious groups in India to increase their social influence.

Street food is wildly popular in India, with a recent survey finding that more than eighty percent of Indian citizens across all age groups prefer eating street food to eating in a restaurant (Pilz et al. 196). Many Indian families derive their livelihood from selling their own version of a favorite street snack; street food vendors represent a significant portion of the informal sector of India’s economy, which employs more than ninety percent of the country’s workers (Pilz et al. 192). Additionally, street food in India is as diverse as it is ubiquitous. Indian chef and restaurateur Gaggan Anand says quite seriously, “In India…food changes every fifty-two meters” (“Gaggan Anand”). Steaming cakes made of fermented lentils, spicy vegetables encased in crisp fried dough, and cubes of freshly seasoned paneer represent only a few of the types of food sold from street to street in the country.

Like all food in India, street food is heavily influenced by the religious beliefs of the people cooking and consuming it. In India, Hinduism is the largest religion by far; according to the 2001 census, nearly eighty-percent of the population is Hindu (“C-1 Population”). The next two most populous religions in the country are Islam and Christianity, respectively (“C-1 Population”). In all three of these religions, food and eating have integral roles in spiritual practices that often also translate to social hierarchies. Upper-caste Hindus, for example, are typically vegetarian. Some groups of Christians and Muslims, on the other hand, purposefully eat meat to reinforce their own minority communities’ separate religious identity, despite the class inferiority associated with meat and especially beef consumption (Staples 232). However, traditional Indian street foods are most commonly vegetarian, an indication of the prevailing majority in the country.

The combination of its economic significance and cultural implications makes street food a particularly valuable asset to any group. Therefore, religious and political movements in India often use street food—or more specifically, their ability to control when, where, and what kind of street food is sold—to increase their social influence.

The batata vada, one of many types of savory, fried Indian “snacks,” has found itself at the center of a political power play in the west-central Indian state of Maharashtra in recent years. A golden-brown sphere of fried potato, batata vada is spiced primarily with red and green chili, and is sometimes accompanied by even spicier chutneys and sandwiched between warm bread rolls to make vada pav, one of the most popular street snacks in Mumbai, Maharashtra’s capital (Solomon 65). The Maharashtran-based coalition Shiv Sena, a group that promotes economic opportunities and political influence for Hindus, attempted to monopolize the vada pav market in Mumbai in order to transform the cultural capital found in the ever-popular street food into power, opportunity, and employment for party members (65). Since India so often defines its regions by their foods, the party hoped that by controlling one of Maharashtra’s most iconic dishes it could, like a link in a chain, become inextricably associated with the character, culture, and control of the state.

To this end, the Shiv Sena held a celebration in 2008 at which vada pav vendors competed to have their own version of the dish selected and marketed as the “official” vada pav of the party (Solomon 71). At the events, thousands of the fried potato sandwiches were given away to attract future customers and to advertise the official, stainless steel “Shiv vada pav” cart that party members would soon be using to sell vada pav across the city. However, Mumbai citizens’ defense of their favorite street food was perhaps more vigorous than the Shiv Sena had anticipated. The party’s actions provoked retaliation from those who did not want the group to monopolize the vada pav market. Opposition political parties scrambled to market and sell their own official vada pavs (74). Companies hoping to commercialize vada pavs advertised their pre-made, packaged products as safer than the street-vended snacks sold by the party (81). Individuals belonging to minority groups continued to hawk their own vada pavs wherever possible (74). Even certain Shiv Sena members refused to reject their families’ vada pav recipes for the one chosen by the party (79).

The conflict surrounding vada pav and street food in Mumbai is ongoing, but the Shiv Sena’s failure to fully realize their plans illustrates the profound attachment that people in India have to their food. Their attachment is one that reaches beyond economic or political motivations to find its roots in deeply-held religious beliefs and cultural traditions. India may be united in shared appreciation for food, but the country and its citizens can also be strongly divided by the cultural associations that seem to bind its food so strongly.

Yet, food in India may not always remain as closely tied to specific regions or religions as it is today. As transportation and communication technologies increase, more people across India are experiencing each other’s cuisines and incorporating new spice palates and ingredients into their own methods of cooking. Continued cultural exchange will gradually allow people living in different areas of the country and practicing different religions to embrace important aspects of each other’s cuisines. Thus, groups such as the Shiv Sena will be less and less able to capitalize on the differences in regional cooking to manipulate the food landscape and advance their own causes. If a seemingly simple fried potato sandwich were not so closely linked to Maharashtran cuisine—if perhaps, it were a street food claimed by regions and cultures across the country—the Shiv Sena would never have honed in on the vada pav as a potential political and social asset. As time goes on, individuals or groups seeking to gain power through food will have to turn to new strategies in order to mine the cultural treasure that is Indian food.

 

 

Works Cited

“C-1 Population by Religious Community.” Census Digital Library, Government of India Ministry of Home Affairs Office of the Registrar General and Census Commisioner, 2013, http://www.censusindia.gov.in/DigitalLibrary/MFTableSeries.aspx. Accessed 1 Dec. 2017.

“Gaggan Anand” Chef’s Table, season 2, episode 6, Netflix, 27 May 2016.

Pilz, Matthias, et al. “Skills Development in the Informal Sector in India: The Case of Street Food Vendors.” International Review of Education, vol. 61, no. 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 191-209. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.1007/s11159-015-9485-x. Accessed 27 Nov. 2017.

Solomon, Harris. “‘The Taste No Chef Can Give’: Processing Street Food in Mumbai.” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 30, no. 1, 2015, pp. 65-90. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.14506/ca30.1.05. Accessed 27 Nov. 2017.

Staples, James. “Beef and Beyond: Exploring the Meat Consumption Practices of Christians in India.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, vol. 82, no. 2, 2017, pp. 232-251. Academic  Search Premier, doi:10.1080/00141844.2015.1084017. Accessed 1 Dec. 2017.