While teaching postmodernism as a theory in social science and anthropology, I always start with this question for my students: Are they modern or traditional? Most say that they are both. But can one be both? This answer is peculiar because it doesn’t just reflect my students’ understanding, but also our country’s. India is a country of paradoxes. We worship goddesses, but we also commit heinous crimes against women. We preach ‘Atithi Devo Bhava,’ but we don’t have an ecosystem to practice it. We preach Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, but we make our own citizens, who may not follow the majority religion or language, feel alienated. These and many other paradoxes that I sat with have been rekindled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led West Bengal government’s decision to hand over the responsibility of mid-day meals in government schools to ISKCON and its subsequent announcement of removing eggs from the scheme.This has particularly opened a Pandora’s box of debates on India’s heterogeneous culture, the relation between culture and food, vegetarianism, purity, nutrition, public health, and the state’s overall responsibility. It is also worth noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, has contributed to and capitalised on this link between food and culture by eating jhal moori during the West Bengal assembly election campaign. The gesture has been imitated and amplified by other BJP candidates and campaigners who went around with fish in hand in the run up to the assembly elections.This was apparently a counter-tactic by the BJP after the TMC asserted that the saffron party will attack the very nature of Bengali culture and interfere with food habits. Less than two years ago, TMC politicians and a larger section of Bengali society had defended eating meat during Durga Pooja celebrations, in an apparent counter-narrative and jibe at other BJP-ruled states imposing a meat ban during the Navaratri festival. Bengal is obsessed with eating fish – from paying a high price for Hilsa during the season to serving it mandatorily as the mark of utmost respect accorded to the son-in-law during the Jamai Shashti; or having a supernatural entity called a Mecho bhoot that steals your fish in folklores; or having a fascination with fish-shaped sweets as part of Tattwa during marriage; or the hierarchy between freshwater and seawater fish; or attributing one’s ‘Bengali-ness’ to eating Macher-Jhol Bhaat. Given religious reasons, such as the normalisation of Tantric rituals and worship, and the acceptance of fish as one of the Panchamakara, along with the easy and relatively inexpensive availability of fish because of the region’s many rivers, water bodies and coastal areas, it is understandable why Bengal is obsessed with fish. Along with fish, Bengal (or the erstwhile Bengal Presidency and the regions influenced by it) is also obsessed with eating potatoes regularly.Recently, The Guardian released a video titled ‘How British Colonialism Increased Diabetes in South Asians.‘ The video shows that British colonial policies caused famines – notably the Bengal Famine of 1876-78 and the 1943 Bengal famine). Madhusree Mukerjee’s book Churchill’s Secret War also traces the connection between the Bengal Famine and British colonial policies. These famines not only killed millions of people at that time but also had a cascading effect on the population to develop diabetes and other non-communicable diseases in later generations due to altered food practices. In addition to the impact of famine on genes that cause diabetes, the dietary preferences and unusual love for potatoes among the people of Bengal are less studied. Potato is not just a vegetable for a Bengali; it is an emotion. Though I was aware of Bengal’s love for potatoes, I only grasped the intensity of that love after moving to West Bengal for work. Being born and brought up in the southern part of India, I was raised with several stereotypes surrounding potato consumption. My parents believe that eating potatoes makes one ‘gassy’ and is also one of the main reasons for joint pains, so naturally, potatoes would figure less than twice a month in our diet. The South Indian terms associated with the potato tell us it is not a native vegetable. In Tamil and Malayalam, a potato is called Urulai–kizhangu (kizhangu or Kilangu is a tuber, and Urulai means one that rolls or is round). In Telugu, potato is called ‘Bangala–Dumpa’ (Dumpa is a tuber that comes from Bengal), ‘Alloo-gadda’ (Gadda also means tuber), or ‘Urula–gadda’ (Urula may be influenced by Tamil). The Kannada term for potato is Alloo–Gadde. The lack of indigenous terms stemming from the cultural past or made-up terms (the one that rolls) clearly indicates that it is a later addition to the diet and thus justifies the reluctance and stereotypes associated with consuming potatoes in South India. But potatoes are not native to Bengal either. Historical evidence suggests that the potato or sweet potato is native to Peru or the Andes in South America. Its portability and longer shelf life make it a good feed for sailors on long voyages. Eventually, the Spanish brought potatoes to Europe in the 1500s. But upon its arrival, it became integral to Europe’s food, culture, art, and social transformation. Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Potato eating peasant family’ became the subject of study for anthropologists, public historians and art aficionados. Potatoes, though considered a poor man’s food and food for revolutionaries in France, later came to dominate their diet. European history from the vantage point of the potato also corroborates how the potato, and food culture, has been altered in the global south by colonial forces. How did a vegetable introduced by colonial forces become so integral to the people’s diet that it is next to impossible to imagine a meal without it? More importantly, what does this tell us about the ruling class’s impact on food, culture and demography? Food and schoolingThe mid-day meal scheme was first introduced in Tamil Nadu during Kamarajar’s tenure as chief minister to bring children, especially from marginalised sections, to school. The subsequent Dravidian governments have invested heavily and improvised on policies providing free bus service to school-going children, giving them laptops, books, cycles for commuting to school, and other measures to arrest the dropout rate among children.Soon, other governments recognised the importance of providing mid-day meals to schoolchildren and the Union government made it a national policy. Certain BJP-ruled states, however, have meddled with eggs being served as part of the mid-day meal scheme.It is worth noting that the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) ran a huge campaign in the 1980s with the slogan, ‘Sunday ho ya Monday, roz khao ande!’ This, to a certain extent, convinced a section of the Indian population that considered eggs impure to embrace it as part of their children’s diet. The egg, one of the cheapest sources of protein, has a positive cascading effect through its inclusion in the mid-day meal scheme.In a country where millions of children are malnourished and suffer from stunted growth, depriving them of basic nutrition is not only unethical and cruel but should also be regarded as a crime against the nation.The scheme also holds a mirror up to the reality of poverty in our country, where parents need to be convinced to send their children to school on the promise of at least one day’s meal for them in school. Food as an integral part of culture and politicsFood delineates and creates an identity in India, which is also deeply entrenched within caste, socio-political history, religion, economy and weather conditions. The right to choose what to eat according to one’s will and culture is a fundamental human right.However, a state with all its might, is going after some people’s food habits and dictating what kinds of food are acceptable, at the cost of denying basic nutrition to children. This should be considered a crime, and those responsible should be held accountable. If the state is so concerned about food and purity, and about what kinds of food are acceptable to the ruling regime, they should also take measures to ensure the required nutrition is met through the means the state sees fit. To do so, the government must ensure the eradication of multidimensional poverty and bring about equality (political, economic, and social) for all the people of our country. Before addressing this, the government has no right to meddle with the nutrition of the children and impose the hegemonic ideologies of purity and pollution using the constitutional offices entrusted to them by the people. Sipoy Sarveswar teaches anthropology at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. He tweets at @SSarveswar.