'Brahmanical hegemony' charge sours Kerala Youth Festival food menu
Allegations of Brahmanical hegemony levelled by some social media users have added spice to the controversy. The art festival of children is billed as Asia's biggest cultural event at the school level.
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FollowShould the menu of the state school art festival include non-vegetarian dishes? That's the raging debate underway on social media platforms on the sidelines of the Kerala School Arts Festival, which is taking place in northern Kozhikode.Â
Allegations of Brahmanical hegemony levelled by some social media users have added spice to the controversy. The art festival of children is billed as Asia's biggest cultural event at the school level. The allegation stems from eminent culinary expert Pazhayidam Mohanan Namboothiri leading the catering team.
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State General Education Minister V Sivankutty sought to downplay the controversy and snubbed the debate as totally 'unwanted'.Â
To note, Kozhikode is regarded as the 'culinary capital' of Kerala. For decades, participating children, their teachers, parents and media personnel have been served lip-smacking vegetarian delicacies at the food pavilions of the annual gala. The Kerala School Arts Festival witnesses massive participation.
Mohanan Namboothiri and his team have been preparing and serving dishes to thousands of people every day at the food pavilions of the festival. However, some netizens questioned the years-long practice of serving only vegetarian delicacies at the cultural event.Â
Some alleged that there is a 'Brahmanical hegemony' in the kitchen of the art festival. They demanded that all kinds of food be served in its pavilions.
One Facebook user, known for his alleged Left liberal views, charged that the 'vegetarian only' menu in the festival was part of 'vegetarian fundamentalism' and a 'reflection of caste belief'. Another Facebook user lamented that the presence of Brahmins in the kitchens of art festivals was the commemoration of the "surrender of renaissance and democratic values at the feet of Brahmanism".
However, several users of the platform lashed out at the debate as an attempt to create division in society and to give religious colour to food.
Reacting to the criticism and the social media debate, Mohanan Namboothiri said he was acting as directed by the government and that the vegetarian dishes were not his choice.
"What I am doing is the overall monitoring of their work. The government has to decide whether non-vegetarian dishes should also be included in the menu. I have a good team who are experts in preparing non-vegetarian delicacies as well," he said.Â
But according to Namboothiri, there were several technical issues with preparing and serving non-vegetarian dishes in an event like a youth festival, where in the number of people to be fed cannot be ascertained. "In sports festivals, there might not be much difference in the number of expected crowds. But, in the case of youth festivals, the number of people arriving at the food pavilion cannot be exactly calculated in advance," he said.
Today, even though there were 9,000 participants, the total number of people who ate in the pavilions was over 20,000, Namboothiri explained.Â
Minister Sivankutty said the state government did not take the stand that there should be no non-vegetarian delicacies at the state youth festival. However, he said that there are practical issues with preparing huge quantities of non-vegetarian dishes to serve such a massive number of people.Â
"I really wanted to serve them mouth-watering biriyani. Not this time, but we can surely expect this next year," the minister said.
He outrightly rejected the allegations of Brahmanical dominance, stating that such an issue has never been raised in the last 60 editions of the art festival.
The breakfast menu includes appam-stew, idli-sambar and so on. The traditional lunch spread includes rice, sambar, thoran, kichadi, masala curry, buttermilk and so on. The dessert menu included varieties of 'payasam'. According to sources, the menu differs daily.
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