“The food sovereignty movement must be anti-caste”: An Interview with Dalit, Adivasi and other members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance in India

Excerpts

In Food Sovereignty and Spirituality, Agroecology

December 2, 2023

An interview with dalit, adivasi and other members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance in India and  published in Agroecology is worth noting because it is not the usual ‘oppressor caste’ ‘experts’ giving gyan on food, but rather actual representatives from communities that have often been left on the sidelines before. This is an important shift and more and more decision making around food should be centred around what knowledge and traditional practices people have built over generations. Often mainstream politics and policies go against these wisdoms and traditions.

Time to reclaim them !!!

The members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance (FSA) share their fight against dominant, brahmanical, patriarchial ideology which they understand to the root of the caste system. Landless people from the dalit community, indigeneous adivasi communities, marginal and small farmers, animal rearers as well as non food producing citizens in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh  have come together to reject the injustice of the caste system, insist that food sovereignty is about living in harmony with nature and other fellow human beings as well as building solidarity, reciprocity and collective thinking around food and food justice.

“Based on these principles, they are reasserting their own ancestral spiritual practices, including the right to consume beef as part of their cultural heritage and identity. They are also working for the right of oppressed people to liberate themselves and to restore gender equity in farming”.

The Alliance is engaged in countering the dominant narrative that India is vegetarian and recognise that food is not just about cereals, millets and pulses but meat and milk as being very critical for various communities.

Sagari Ramdas says “As an alliance, we have created a space for these kinds of dialogues. Even amongst the social and food movements within India, there is a deep reluctance to acknowledge that meat, and beef in particular, is a critical part of our cultural identity as well our food history and current diets”.

Murugamma,  leader from the Savitri Bai Phule Dalit Mahila Sangham, which is the collective of Dalit women in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh draws attention to the fact that food is a key area where untouchability is practiced. She says ‘ We have multiple relationships with animals, and we eat the meat  of our animals, including beef. Our animals are a source of food, of energy, of dung and manure, and a source of money for us. Brahmanism is telling us that the cattle  we are eating is our God. This animal is placed in the temple and worshipped, and we Dalits are  kept ‘outside’ of that temple’.

Marsakola Kamala , adivasi leader from the Jai Jangubai  Adivasi Mahila Sangham, in Telangana asserts that adivasis are not a part of the caste system but experiencing the effects of Brahminism. “We have a long tradition where all our festivals have been about establishing and sustaining our relationship with our lands, our forests, our crops, our animals and nowhere have we ever had a celebration saying we don’t eat beef. It is not as evident as in caste society, but this colonisation by Brahmanism is happening day by day. We are countering this by reasserting all those amazing diverse spiritual practises of ours”.

Chundru Nooka Raju, leader organising for food sovereignty in Adivasi areas of the Eastern ghats since the early 1990s, particularly in East Godavari district says that there has been a massive invasion of Adivasi lands and territories by corporations for commodity crops like cotton, tobacco, cashew, tapioca etc. He says that “the entire cycle of food from preparing the land till we consume the food, begins and ends with celebration; it’s a coming together because food is a collective community action”. He says that spirituality and God for them is the relationship they have directly with nature “we look after nature and in turn nature looks after us; there’s godliness in us and we need to look after ourselves; and there’s godliness in nature, and it is this relationship which defines our spirituality. Where crops are alienated from humans, humans are alienated from nature, and  in turn this means godliness/ spirituality  is alienated from humans. In Adivasi culture, spirituality is connected to our food which comes from our crops and forests, which is connected to our land, and territory.”

“We have reached a point today, where a strong kind of Brahmanical religion is trying to take control of Adivasi life. Brahmanism coupled with corporatization is destroying this relationship, the interconnectedness, the links between one and the deepening alienation…I am very worried about this because what will be there for future generations? We are actively organising to reaffirm who we are, what is our form of spirituality, otherwise we will no longer be Adivasi and that is my fear that we lose our Adivasiness.”

 Read the full discussion here

Agroecology Now.  (2023). “The food sovereignty movement must be anti-caste”: An Interview with Dalit, Adivasi and other members of the Food Sovereignty Alliance in India. https://www.agroecologynow.com/food-sovereignty-movement-must-be-anti-caste/ (Accessed 31 January 2024).

Additional Resources

Ramdas, S. 2021. Towards Food Sovereignty: Dismantling the Capitalist Brahmanic Patriarchal Food Farming Regime. Development (64: 276-281).

Ramdas, S. 2022. Disruptive Technologies: The Case of Indigenous Territories of Andhra Pradesh, India. Heinrich Boell Stiftung Hong Kong.