We are ‘not’ what we eat: Food and dalit identity in Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan

Abstract

‘We are what we eat’ has become a popular phrase we often hear as we are gently nudged toward healthier eating habits. Before being taken over by consumerism, food in India was a symbol of one’s socio-cultural and religious affiliations, which were mainly defined along caste lines. This paper analyses the depiction of food as a factor and product of caste discrimination in rural India in Omprakash Valmiki’s memoir Joothan (जूठन, meaning leftovers). Much like the abstract ‘culinary triangle’ of the categories of raw, cooked, and rotten food (Strauss 1965), “delimits a semantic field, but from the outside,” so does the liminal category of non-food for food and what is seen as edible in a culture. Valmiki’s narrative, detailing his family’s struggles for food and its lack, reveals how only leftover meals and by-products are made available for consumption to untouchables in his village, symbolizing how dalits are treated as the discarded by-products of society. While the upper castes enjoy rice meals, the discarded rice starch becomes the milk of the untouchables. While the rich enjoy elaborate feasts in weddings, Valmiki’s family is shown to rejoice in receiving scraps stuck on used plates. This paper analyses how Valmiki’s narrative exhibits retrospective awareness of the village’s food structure to seek agency and redefine his identity.