MasterChef Veg: The New Hindu Conspiracy!

This is the buzz in some circles: that MasterChef India is turning veggie under pressure from Hindu fundamentalists. Now, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

A front-page Economic Times story yesterday reported that the Indian edition of the worldwide reality culinary show MasterChef that airs on Star Plus will go all veg this coming season.

The piece predictably created a kerfuffle with people ranging from literary critics to foreign policy experts from Pakistan chiding the channel for putting India’s diverse culinary culture through the hand blender of homogeneity. What’s more, the story involved Gautam Adani, the new poster boy of India’s “crony capitalism”.

The ET story, quoting an anonymous source, presumably inside the TV network, said that “at least one sponsor (the two lead sponsors of the show being Dairy co-op Amul and Adani-Wilmar, the Adani group’s edible oils arm) was in favour of a MasterChef that keeps non-vegetarian food out.”

MasterChef India’s kitchen, or for that matter, the studios of several other regional copycat shows decked with desirably shiny steel and ceramic pots and pans, is hardly an equal opportunity workplace. For, the “protein” inside the “mystery box” is more likely to be crabmeat rather than cowpea.

The estimate of ghas-phoosians in India ranges from 31% to 42%. The very format of such reality shows poses a somewhat insurmountable entry barrier for a substantial chunk of society.  A season-long gatepass in an amateur cookery show for this gastronomic minority is hardly a big deal. In fact, champions of minority rights should cheer the move instead of questioning its majoritarian motives.

But food, politics and business make for a tasty conspiratorial cocktail.

Stretch and Spin

Talking about diet-derived conspiracy theories, don’t be surprised if the following argument is soon trotted out. According to this 2006 report authored by Sanjay Kumar and Yogendra Yadav of CSDS  “…as many as 55 per cent of Brahmins are vegetarians. The corresponding figure for Adivasis is 12 per cent. Hindus who worship every day are more likely to be vegetarian…Most land-locked states, especially in the west and north, are places with the highest proportion of vegetarian families: Rajasthan (63 per cent), Haryana (62 per cent), Punjab (48 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (33 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (35 per cent) and Gujarat (45 per cent).” These were the ‘puritanical’ Hindutva laboratories that catapulted Modi to power, and therefore an Adani-sponsored TV show is trying to peddle pan-India cultural norms the RSS ratifies. QED.

Dietary habits of entrepreneurs dictating their business decisions is not uncommon in India. The country’s largest conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) shuttered its meat retail business Reliance Delight and shelved plans to open KFC-type non-veg heavy quick service restaurant chain Chicken Came First, reportedly on account of pressure from shareholders who felt Reliance’s ‘non-vegetarian’ business hurt their religious sentiments.

On the other hand, several large format retail chains owned by ‘vegetarian’ Marwari businessmen happily sell meat products. In fact, one such chain prides itself for having the ‘widest’ selection of seafood thanks to its Kolkata roots. Another Marwari entrepreneur, as part of the mandatory process to become the franchisee of one of the largest fast food chains, underwent training in Indonesia flipping beef burgers.

The suggestion as far as this episode is concerned seems to be that Mr. Moneybags Adani, a Gujarati Jain by birth and presumably a vegetarian, has forced Star Plus to tailor a general entertainment show to reinforce a variety of culinary culture he subscribes to. By the same token, he should be spending sleepless nights wondering whether consumers fry batata vada or bombil in Fortune sunflower oil.

That one of India’s largest TV networks which has business relationships with hundreds of big ticket advertisers could be arm twisted by one to fundamentally alter the format of a flagship show seems somewhat farfetched.

Sorry, the dish called ‘majoritarian excess’ isn’t under this cloche. Try the next one.