Resisting Culinary Nationalism: Dalit Counter-Cuisines in the Life Narratives of Urmila Pawar and Baby Kamble

Culinary nationalism in India has given rise to a hegemony of vegetarianism, excluding numerous regional and ethnic cuisines the process. A homogeneous culinary identity is attempted by othering specific communities like Christians Muslims, lower caste Hindus, tribal groups, disputing legitimacy their national belonging and, hence, traditions. The traditional gender roles women kitchen spaces, along with higher vulnerability food insecurity, make prominent motif Dalit women’s writing. This paper analyses how practices, as recounted life narratives Urmila Pawar Baby Kamble, contest redefine subvert notion ritual pollution or purity. Pawar’s Weave My Life Kamble’s Prisons We Broke detail everyday practices women, particularly those concerning food, resistance ethno-religious nationalism. Using Michel de Certeau’s theorization life, reads tactics that resist strategies Hindu/cultural By depicting carnival silenced counter-cuisines documenting recipes same, these literary works assert identities provide site for contestation right-wing hegemony.