Jayati Godhawat
JWB Blogger
Dalitfoods.com Is Slaying The Caste System One Spice At A Time
- JWB Post
- July 5, 2016
When I came across the eatables supplier website, Dalitfoods.com, I was intrigued.
According to the website, Chandra Bhan Prasad started this venture along with his wife to “make Unadulterated Foodstuffs fashionable, the adulterated, Taboos. Let buyers force manufacturers to come clean, serve nature pure.”
But, why the name Dalitfoods you may think. Well, as per Mr. Prasad, he wants to treat the mentality of Indians through shock therapy.
“We should shock Indian society. Most societies have modernised after some shock therapy. Indian society has never undergone this shock therapy. It is good for people,” he said in an interview.
Chandra Bhan was appalled when he observed the atrocities caused due to the caste system in India. Still, the Dalits are considered untouchables by the so-called upper caste. Prasad said that during his stay in Uttar Pradesh in, 2008 he observed that Dalit people lived in poor conditions, yet they lead longer and healthier lives because of the high-quality food they were eating.
He said, “There was a hierarchy in foods… fewer Dalit families could afford wheat chapatis and ate things like barley and millet which are now considered superfoods. They also used less oil and spice, and it was not due to the knowledge that millets are super foods, but because of compulsion,”
Right now, their website offers just a few items like pickles and spices, which according to Prasad will increase with time. Dalitfoods is not a regular site selling its products but a vision to eradicate the barriers of caste by serving foods off and by the ‘untouchables’ to the ‘upper-castes.’
“The idea is by that 2050 when the Republic will turn 100; Dalits should gain a distinct public imagery- a class of people that sell only pure things and never indulge in adulteration. It’s a movement to inspire millions of Dalits to enter the food business, launch eateries. A community once considered impure now sells the purest,” Prasad concluded.
Indeed, it’s a start of a revolution!
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