The food police, starving children and edible gold dust in India’s dystopian hunger games

In the rest of the world, “food police” is a term used to describe voices that try to dictate what other people should not eat. But increasingly in India, the directives of the food police are not discretionary: you cannot choose to ignore them and continue to enjoy whatever your palette desires.

It could literally be the police who decide which days of the week or season in the year you cannot eat certain foods. They determine how far you will have to travel to buy forbidden foods. They could raid your fridge and even bulldoze your home for storing food items offensive to majoritarian taste. It matters little what the law says.

This is occurring in a global era of food apartheid, as the rich indulge their latest diet fads but the poor and minorities grapple with regimes that determine what they can consume. This is obvious from the fast food-induced obesity epidemics for the African-Americans and famines manufactured through wars and blockades in Gaza, South Sudan or Yemen – each category of powerless people has a diet cooked up by the tastes of their oppressors. The texture of this hypocrisy is as complex as a billionaire’s beluga caviar.

Take the case of mid-day meals for children...

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