Food as a Metaphor for Cultural Hierarchies*

Food as a Metaphor for Cultural Hierarchies GOPAL GURU CASI Working Paper Series No. 09-01 October 2009 The above title, I claim, represents multiple meanings that are attached to Food as substance and the Jaika or “taste” as an idea emanating from the substance. Hence, it is necessary to lay bare different possible meanings that are associated with food. These meanings are both contiguous to and separate from each other. Let us see how they assimilate and dissociate from each other. Food and cooked food are different from each other in a major way. Food has a universal value to the extent that it, as a substance, becomes an essential need for the very survival of all the organic bodies: plants, animals and human beings. Thus, food, at one level, suggests an ontological equality cutting across several organic bodies. Of course, food acquires a specific importance when looked from the point of view of human beings. Unlike plants, human beings require a particular kind of food for their very survival. They require, in most cases, food grains as a primary condition. Thus the denial of food would jeopardize the very survival of human beings. Hence, food falls into the realm of human rights. Furthermore, the denial of food constitutes a violation of human rights. Some of the laudable efforts led by Jean Dreze – who with the help of some NGOs has prepared the bill concerning the right to food – are directed towards making the right to food a safety network against the violation of human rights. Gopal Guru Visiting Scholar, Center for the Advanced Study of India Professor of Social and Political Theory, Center of Political Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University © Copyright 2009 Gopal Guru and the Center for the Advanced Study of India