Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Complex food themes emerge in Damodar's words. It is not merely the nutritional qual-
ity of food that has declined, but also, it would seem, the chemistry of the grains them-
selves, because they behave differently when boiled. It is not just an increase in human
selfishness observed, but a causal link posed between the moral failures of modern times
and the products of modern agricultural practice. In this passage, decline of “solidarity”
or the morality of food sharing, discussed earlier in this chapter, is linked inextricably
with specific agricultural technologies, on the one hand, and a food-based biochemical
alternation of human nature, on the other.
Concluding Thoughts
The three themes highlighted in these sketches—solidarity, separation, and the con-
joined decline of flavor and morality—intertwine in several ways. For example,
Damodar Gujarati posits decline as undermining solidarity, when he claims that people
no longer share the food that is no longer nourishing. Decline also undermines separa-
tion. In the 1990s I heard persons belonging to low-ranking, historically meat-eating
communities voice, as a kind of black humor, the critique that nowadays Brahmins and
Baniyas (priests and merchants),who traditionally would adhere to strict vegetarianism,
were eating all the eggs and chickens, leaving none for them. Jamuni Regar, from one of
the dalit or former untouchable communities, put it this way: “Nowadays, in our colony,
all things are finished. Nowadays, Brahmins and Baniyas eat meat, all our chickens are
finished because of that” (Gold and Gujar 2002: 102). That is, the poor folks who raise
chickens can no longer afford to eat them—because, just like Sohan Lal, they care more
about money than they do about relishing food. Ironically, when the keepers of chickens
sell their animals to persons of superior wealth, the buyers lose their ritual superiority
in the process. Brahmins and Baniyas ought to be pure vegetarians, and, therefore, these
economic transactions are simultaneously a sign of degeneration of traditional Hindu
hierarchies: not just chickens but “all things” are finished.
Down the road from Ghatiyali in the small market town of Jahazpur, a very differently
framed reversal of eating habits has shaken up society: the majority of those who belong
to the “butchers' ” (Khatik) community have become vegetarian. Formerly traders in
livestock, now produce-vendors and dealers in used goods, the Khatik have erected, in
the heart of town, a glamorous temple dedicated to the vegetarian deity Vishnu. With
a devotional solidarity at least partially grounded in food practices, they were able to
overcome high-caste opposition to this enterprise. One of the leaders of the Khatik caste
of former butchers described their shift of occupation, diet, religiosity and status over
the last quarter-century as bringing many kinds of well being, including economic and
social progress, to their expanding population (Gold n.d.). Many interviews that I con-
ducted in 2010-2011 in Jahazpur found members of higher castes (priests and merchants
alike) readily affirming Khatik progress, and attributing it to a variously proportioned
combination of religious self-transformation and innovative, tireless entrepreneurship.
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