#ByInvitation: Hands Down, let's keep culture out of the political kitchen

A storm has brewed in a rice bowl. One that begins with fingers, travels through the intestines of social media, and ends up as a full-blown political debate, about eating with hands .
We’ve progressed from debating policies and borders to now micromanaging how one eats biryani. Or worse, dosa sambar with hands.
Let’s begin with a simple truth: eating with hands is not a sign of savagery, it’s a sign of deep cultural intelligence. And digestive brilliance. Our grandmothers, armed with neither PhDs nor probiotics, knew what most of us are now discovering via podcasts and wellness influencers: that the fingertips have nerve endings that signal the stomach to prepare for food, that eating is not just consumption but communion. And that turmeric tastes better when picked up with your fingers than poked with imported
silverware.
In Ayurveda , the act of eating with one’s hands is not about rustic rebellion, it’s a mindful practice. It grounds the individual, aligns the five elements (earth, fire, water, air, ether), and makes you chew slowly, eat consciously, focussed on the food and keeping that mobile phone away. And if you’ve eaten a masala dosa with a knife and fork, you already know humility isn’t the first word that comes to mind. Humiliation might be.
The recent kerfuffle around a mayoral candidate, eating rice with his hands, in a podcast in New York highlights a paradox. Indian cuisine is being celebrated across the Michelin-starred universe. Chefs from Madurai to Manhattan are curating regional thalis and fermented pickles with great flourish. But ask someone to eat it the way it’s meant to be enjoyed, and suddenly, it’s ‘uncultured.’ As if culture is defined by the length of your cutlery, not the depth of your connection to food.
Truth be told, some of the most decorated Indian restaurants in the West are now subtly encouraging tactile engagement. Not always with banana leaves and barefoot rituals, but with menus that honour hyperlocal flavours, ancestral methods, and yes, sometimes even hand-eating. Yet there’s still a lingering divide, authenticity is often applauded in the kitchen, not at the table. Foodies and critics may extol the origins of millet or the art of hand-pounded chutney, but god forbid you use your fingers to mop it up.
And now, politics wants to join the dinner table too. As if the menu wasn’t complicated enough. Why must every cultural practice be diced into right or left, liberal or regressive, traditional or modern? Why must eating become a battleground for ideological indigestion?
Let’s pause and remember: how we eat is as personal as whom we love or which divine energy we pray to. It is a sensory, sacred, often spiritual act. When we politicise such everyday rituals, we not only lose the essence of culture, but the freedom of choice. Today it’s about rice and fingers. Tomorrow it could be about chapatis and chhole bhaturas.
The banana leaf didn’t ask for votes. Nor did your grandmother’s rasam recipe. So let’s keep culture where it belongs, in the heart, not in a party manifesto.
Whether you choose to eat with chopsticks, forks, or fingers dipped in sambar is your business. As long as you’re not flinging food at others (online or offline), let taste trump trolling. And remember, tradition like ghee cannot be cancelled. It simply rises to the top.
Hands down, some things are best left out of the political kitchen.


#EatingWithHands #ZohranMamdani #Culture