To my astonishment the meal began with a watery soup and followed its course through indifferently-prepared English dishes – mince chops with bones stuck in, fried fish, roast mutton and a steamed pudding. Instead of the famed Hyderabadi moghlai cooking I faced a meal as dull as my daily hotel fare. I accepted my fate, but noticed that the family only picked at their food, which I attributed to their noble blaséness. My friend managed to whisper that the English meal was a touch of modern formality of which no one took notice; the real meal was yet to follow, and it did. As soon as the pudding was removed, there began an unbelievable succession of dishes served in beautiful Persian-style utensils: pullaos and biryanis, naans and farmaishes, rogan joshes and qormas, chickens, quails and partridges, upon which the family . . . fell to. Indifference gave way to healthy vocal appetites, and I followed suit with my second lunch.48
British attitudes to Indian attempts to assimilate European culture into their courts were often condescending. Central to the justification of British rule was the assertion that Indians were incapable of achieving civilisation on their own. It therefore undermined British self-confidence to acknowledge that Indians did understand and suavely adopt their ways. The army wife who visited the court of Sadaat Ali Khan claimed that while she was in Lucknow a misunderstanding arose over chamber pots. A set of Worcestershire china had arrived from England and in celebration the nawab had invited the British inhabitants to a breakfast. The table looked splendid except for about twenty chamber pots placed at intervals in the centre of the table, which the ‘servants had mistaken for milk bowls’. Surprised by his guests’ reluctance to drink the milk, ‘the Nawaab innocently remarked, “I thought that the English were fond of milk.” Some of them had much difficulty to keep their countenances.’49 Such mistakes, or a weakness for garishness, were interpreted as a sign that the Britishness of Indians was always a thin and fragile veneer. Lady Reading’s personal secretary regarded the gaudy palace of the Maharaja of Bikaner as a sign that his ‘Europeanism . . . for all its show, [was nothing] more than skin deep’. Unfortunately, a number of maharajas appeared to confirm this British conceit by displaying a weakness for foolish European things. The Maharaja of Scindia’s palace was like a ‘pantomime palace and rather fun, I think. Vast chandeliers, glass fountains, glass banisters, glass furniture and lustre fringes everywhere. It is really amusing and comfortable.’ He also had a vulgar device for delivering after-dinner drinks and sweets: ‘Then he pressed a button – and the train started. It is a lovely silver train, every detail perfect, run by electricity and has seven trucks – Brandy – Port – cigars – cigarettes – sweets – nuts – and chocolates. If you lift the glass lining to the truck or a decanter the train stops automatically. It is the nicest toy – and perfect for a State Banquet!’50
Maharajas were not the only Indians to adopt British habits. The British introduced an English system of education into India in the hopes that this would foster a collaborative elite, in the now well-worn phrase of Thomas Macaulay, ‘Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’.51 In and around the presidency towns, and particularly in Calcutta which was the seat of British government, new business opportunities created by British commerce, the reform of the Indian judicial system and eventually the creation of parliamentary institutions, generated jobs for the Western-educated Indians. Alongside the Indian sepoys in the army, these clerks, lawyers, doctors, publishers, engineers and teachers provided a raft which kept the British Raj afloat, and they began to adopt aspects of the dominant British culture. As early as 1823, Bishop Heber noticed that among the wealthy Indians ‘their progress in the imitation of our habits is very apparent . . . their houses are adorned with verandahs and Corinthian pillars; they have very handsome carriages often built in England; they speak tolerable English, and they shew a considerable liking for European society’. The 1832 Select Committee, investigating the sale of British goods in India, found that Indians had developed a taste for wines, brandy, beer and champagne. Yet as Heber remarked, ‘few of them will . . . eat with us’.52
European travellers to Mughal India were often disconcerted when their Indian hosts simply sat politely by and watched them eat, but would not touch any food in their presence. The East India Company surgeon, John Fryer, commented that ‘every cast in India refuses to eat with those of contrary tribe or Opinion, as well as Gentues, Moors, and Persian, as any other’.53 Anglo-Indians in the nineteenth century were surprised and shocked to discover that they were considered impure by the majority of their supposedly inferior subjects. This was forcibly demonstrated to Mrs Deane, travelling upriver in the early nineteenth century. Every evening the boatmen would prepare their food on the river banks. First, they would carefully create a flat circle of mud, at the centre of which they would place their stove. ‘A number of these plans had been formed on the ground near our boat, and being ignorant at that time of their customs, I unfortunately stepped into one of the magic circles in my attempt to reach the high land.’ Nothing was said, but when she reached the top of the river bank and turned to look at the view she observed the boatmen ‘emptying the contents of their cooking pots into the river, and afterwards breaking the earthen vessels in which their food had been dressed’. By stepping inside the circles, she had polluted the food and made it impossible to eat. As there was no village nearby the boatmen had only parched grain to eat that evening.54
As the British became a powerful presence in India, the question of inter-dining became more pressing. For the British, sharing food was an important way of cementing bonds and creating friendships. Some Indian communities found it easier to compromise than others. The fact that the British tended to employ Muslim cooks and waiters meant that Muslims would often overlook their scruples, as long as no pork was served. The Parsee merchant community in Bombay was particularly enterprising and adaptable. By the end of the nineteenth century, a high proportion of Bombay’s factories and businesses were owned by Parsee gentlemen, who dressed like the British, ate at dining tables and, if they were very wealthy, employed three cooks, to make Goan, British and Parsee dishes.55
The group which most enthusiastically embraced Western education were the Bengali Hindus. Under the Mughals, Muslims had dominated in government positions, but as power was transferred to the British they were slow to adapt and reluctant to learn English (the language of government had been Persian). The Hindu community quickly stepped in and grasped the new opportunities offered by a Western education. And yet the Hindus were the community for whom westernisation caused the most problems. Orthodox Brahmans were said to take a purifying bath after any contact with Europeans who ‘contaminated themselves by eating beef, by the employment of cooks of all castes, and by allowing themselves to be touched by men and women of even the lowest castes’.56
Some members of the Indian middle classes firmly rejected the adoption of British dining habits, let alone eating with Englishmen. In fact, many Indians employed in the British administration increased their observance of Brahminical rituals of distinction as a way of demonstrating their newly elevated social status. But, as educational and employment opportunities increased, Indians wishing to take advantage of them became increasingly vocal in their criticism of caste taboos. The evidence of an evangelical vicar in the 1820s may have been wishful thinking, but he claimed that ‘in numerous instances, we find that groups of Hindoos, of different castes, actually meet in secret, to eat and smoke together, rejoicing in this opportunity of indulging their social feeling’.57 Influenced by Western philosophy, a number of Bengali intellectuals criticised Indian culture, arguing that the caste system was an anachronistic obstacle to social progress. When Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, a future member of the Hindu revivalist movement in Bengal, attended the Hindu College in Calcutta in the 1840s, he discovered that ‘open defiance of Hindu social conventions in matters of food and drink was then considered almost de rigeur by the avant garde students of the College. To be reckoned a c
ivilised person, one had to eat beef and consume alcohol.’58
Meat-eating among educated Indians was a response to the British claim that vegetarianism was at the root of Indian weakness. By the end of the nineteenth century, the British were less enthusiastic about the creation of a westernised Indian elite. They found that they had placed their own weapons in their subjects’ hands. Armed with an understanding of Western philosophy and politics, educated Indians were able to demonstrate the injustices of imperialism using the rhetoric of their rulers. They began to demand their right to participate in the government of their own country. In retaliation, the British denigrated educated Indians, arguing that they were too degenerate to govern themselves. In the early nineteenth century, the British had argued that the steamy climate and frugal vegetable diet made all Bengalis languid and feeble. Now, in an attempt to justify their racially discriminatory policies, the British specifically labelled educated Indians as weak and effeminate.59
British arrogance, the fact of their ability ruthlessly to subdue Indians and impose their rule over them, and the assertion that this overwhelming power was, at least in part, derived from their meat-based diet, all gnawed away at Indian self-confidence. Faced with the incontrovertible fact that they were a subject people, educated Indians worried that their diet had made them feeble. This idea occurred to Gandhi growing up in Gujarat: ‘It began to grow on me,’ he explained, ‘that meat-eating was good, that it would make me strong and daring, and that, if the whole country took to meat-eating, the English could be overcome.’60 He and a group of friends experimented by roasting a goat. But the meat was like leather and Gandhi suffered from a guilty conscience. That night he dreamed that the goat was bleating inside him. ‘If my mother and father came to know of my having become a meat-eater, they would be deeply shocked. This knowledge was gnawing at my heart.’61
When Gandhi decided to travel to London to study law in 1888, he was faced with the problem that Indians who travelled to Britain to study or to take the entrance examination for the Indian Civil Service were deemed to have lost caste. Overseas travel was considered polluting, added to which, while travelling, it was necessary to eat food cooked by non-Brahmans, and possibly in the presence of Englishmen. In order to please his mother, he took a vow that he would abstain from wine, women and meat during his stay in England. Nevertheless, the caste elders designated him outcaste and even a purification ceremony on his return did not redeem him in the eyes of the orthodox members of his community.62 For Gandhi, like many of his fellow students, the alternative world which his education would open up to him made him indifferent to the loss of caste. In fact, Gandhi was determined to transform himself into an English gentleman. On arrival in London he took dancing, elocution and violin lessons and spent too much money on clothes.63 Nevertheless, he intended to remain a vegetarian. His one foray into the world of meat eating had put him off for good. Consequently, food in Britain became an enormous problem for him.
The family Gandhi initially lodged with in London were completely stumped by his vegetarianism. As a result, he lived on a stodgy and unhealthy diet of soup, potatoes, bread, butter, cheese and jam with an occasional piece of cake. It was not until he discovered one of the few vegetarian restaurants in London at that time, and moved into lodgings where he could cook for himself, that his diet, and his spirits, improved.
Food was always on Gandhi’s mind when he lived in Britain, and later he wrote a Guide to London for the benefit of Indian students like himself. Almost half of it was devoted to the problem of what to eat. On the ship out, he recommended gradually increasing the number of European dishes the student ate, in order to habituate himself to the British diet. One problem was that ‘there could have been no worse introduction to English cooking [than the food served on the steamships]. Boiled, floury potatoes, raw leaves of lettuce and tomatoes, cold grey and pink, spongy slices of mutton and thick boiled wads of watery cabbage, all unsalted and unflavoured.’64 Once in Britain, Gandhi observed that with time and money it was perfectly possible to observe all caste rules and cook your own food, but ‘for an ordinary Indian who is not overscrupulous in his religious views and who is not much of a believer in caste restrictions, it would be advisable to cook partly himself and get a part of his food ready made’. He was particularly keen on porridge, and gave instructions on how to make it. In fact, apart from the meals he ate at the vegetarian café, Gandhi seems to have lived on porridge, to which he added sugar, milk and stewed fruit.65
Indian students in Britain were pressurised to eat meat. The British believed that the animal energy contained within meat was essential to sustain the body in a cold climate. Gandhi was told he would die without meat. Indeed, the British faith in its mythical power was quite equal to the Indian faith in the purifying and polluting potential of food. Victorians were cautious about giving meat to women or sedentary scholars as it was believed to arouse passions which, finding no outlet, would lead to nervous introversion and illness. But it was regarded as the ultimate food for the strong, aggressive and manly Englishman.66 Like Gandhi, Behramji Malabari, an Indian tourist in Britain, was horrified by the carcasses of animals hanging in the shops. ‘The sight is invariably unpleasant and the smell is at times overpowering . . . It is an exhibition of barbarism, not unlikely to develop the brute instincts in man.’67 But a great many Indian students quickly gave up the struggle to remain vegetarian. A diet of porridge was not very appealing, and the majority lacked Gandhi’s qualities of stubborn perseverance. In fact, they revelled in ‘the sense of freedom [and] liberty from social restrictions’.68 A few even developed a liking for fish and chips, tripe and onions, and black pudding.69
Indian students in Britain were joined in their rebellion by ‘apparently orthodox Babus’ in India who could be found ‘in convenient European hotels in Calcutta and elsewhere, [enjoying] a hearty meal of forbidden food, cooked and served up by Muhammadans’. It is possible that they consumed British food in the hope that they might absorb some of the essences which made the British so powerful.70 Besides, strict observance of caste restrictions had few benefits for a lowly office clerk. No matter how scrupulous he was in his eating habits, no Indian from the upper echelons of the caste or class system would deign to dine with him. Instead, he derived a certain satisfaction from the fact that ‘if he cannot eat with the Brahman, he can do so with the Sahibs who rule India’.71
During the 1920s and 30s, Indianisation of the services and political reform meant that pressure increased for both sides to find ways of working and socialising together. Wealthy Indians responded by installing in their houses English kitchens, staffed by Muslim cooks. This meant that they could provide for British guests without compromising their own vegetarian kitchen. Reforming British administrators counted it a triumph to be invited to eat with their Indian colleagues. When Henry Lawrence was invited to dine at the home of a Brahman friend of his, where he was served by the women of the family, he considered it ‘the greatest compliment he has ever received’.72 The British made allowances on their side and would often provide Indian food for their guests. When Lord and Lady Reading had the Shafi family for dinner, they provided ‘Persian Pilaw for dinner – so good. Pink and green rice with curry and Mangoe chutney.’ For less relaxed guests, special arrangements were made and at her purdah party Lady Reading provided the Hindu ladies with separate metal plates and mugs, and lemonade and fruits prepared by Brahman cooks.73
The British, however, were always most comfortable with less educated Indians, where there was no pretence of equality. In the 1930s, Prakash Tandon worked as an advertising executive at the British firm Unilever. He described how the Indian agent for the firm at Amritsar, ‘old Lala Ramchand’, would invite the sahibs and their wives to his home where he would ply them with Indian sweets, spicy savouries, sickly rose- and banana-flavoured sodas and milky sweet tea, ‘with cheerful unconcern for the gastronomic capabilities of the protesting sahib’ who did his best to disguise his fear of ‘life
long dysentery’. But when the thoroughly westernised Tandon and his Swedish wife attempted to socialise with his British colleagues it was a failure. The British made it clear that they would find Indian food unacceptable, explaining that although they liked their curry and rice on Sundays, made to their taste by a Goan cook, they did not want to eat it more often. The Tandons compromised and served Swedish food but they could find no neutral topics of conversation and they never received a return invitation. ‘This lack of response soon stifled my good intentions, but left me a little sad.’74
Meanwhile, educated and thoroughly westernised Indians were made to feel uncomfortable by the example of Gandhi. The same young man who had set off for London determined to transform himself into a proper English gentleman had, by the 1930s, metamorphosed into a dhoti-clad ascetic, who nibbled on the occasional fruit or nut, and had carefully eradicated Western influences from his daily life. Gandhi’s bold celebration of the Indian body was a powerful challenge both to the British and to westernised Indians. Following his example, a number of Indian campaigners for independence flung away their ‘Savil Row suits’ and donned home-spun cotton, renounced their ‘roast lamb, two veg. and mint sauce’, furtively consumed in British restaurants, and replaced them with vegetarian rice and dhal.75 But even Gandhi seems not to have altogether abandoned British table etiquette. When he died, among his few possessions were a couple of forks.76
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