Padma Rao Sundarji | BRICS: The Guest Isn’t Always a Vegetarian God

I said this to a disgruntled lady whom I’ve never met, let alone broken bread with, when she grumbled on X that I was “mocking food”. Not that I really give a garba-grooving grain about what people think of my food choices or opinions.

Like nearly all Indians, I am mostly vegetarian anyway. So why would I care, whether PM Narendra Modi chooses to serve kodi gassi or kodo khichdi to his personal dinner guests, as long as he does so in his own home and at his own expense?

But to all sanctimonious social media subscribers, outraged that anybody should dare criticise the menu the Government of India offered to international dignitaries at the Brics banquet last Saturday, here’s the singular point: that dinner was not the PM’s private bash. It was ours: the collective feast of 1.5 billion — mostly tax-paying — citizens.

In a functioning democracy — and we have many other reasons to be proud of it — an official menu at a multilateral summit shouldn’t undemocratically dictate a unilateral, state-sanctioned — in this case, all-vegetarian — palate. Most other meats are controversial, so it was fine to omit them. But fish or chicken could have been included. Besides, there’s Atithi Devo Bhava. The Guest is God — but not always vegetarian. Remember?

Once upon a time, there were no shrill TV reporters with big hair and bigger attitudes, setting a narrative even before the human brain could gather time to form its own opinion. Back then, our lone channel focussed on tomato crop disease, and we relied on dog-eared newspaper clippings as archival material. There were no elaborate press kits containing suntan lotion and all-paid cruises to the Bahamas, no gargantuan, eat-till-you-drop buffets either.

A free Natraj pencil or a Bittoo notepad always thrilled us — but never into timid submission, hyper-nationalism and faux outrage. There was balanced reporting on all sides of the political fence, and enlightened discussion in living rooms. The lady on X and I would have debated loftier aspects of the summit in an informed fashion, laughed away its quirkier sides and walked out into the starry night.

Last week, the only relevant commentary on the Brics Summit came from journalistic and analytical heavyweights, whom I hardly need name. The rest just yelled things at us from the Mathura Road site where the blood-red spaceship landed. And instead of, say, analysing the unsurprisingly cautious wording of the Brics Declaration in what is essentially a bear-eat-dragon-eat-elephant-eat-eagle world, most ‘story-tellers’ and ‘institution builders’ on social media outlets circumvented the key question: who were the real hosts of the Brics banquet?

Be that as it may, glitterati chow-downs have always been gristy fodder for tabloids.

* During a 1973 wild boar hunt north of Moscow and at the peak of the Cold War, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev ordered US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to slice a sausage and knock back vodka with him, while he shot wild boar from inside a wooden cabin. He also grilled Kissinger aggressively over America’s cosying up to China. The American master diplomat calmed Brezhnev down by joking that his boss, the then US President Richard Nixon, had probably swilled too much Chinese liquor. It was booze-filled diplomacy, but it achieved momentary rapprochement.

* Then there is ‘Bushu-suru’—a Japanese term meaning ‘to do a Bush’, coined when US President George H.W. Bush fainted and vomited into the lap of a Japanese PM, without even trying the raw salmon on the table.

* In 2005, French President Jacques Chirac’s jibe that Britain had the “worst food” enraged the British. They changed the state menu and served him haggis.

* In 2008, G-8 leaders wrung their hands over global food shortages, while digging into Kyoto beef, smoked salmon and caviar in Japan.

* At the G20 Summit in 2011, European politicians bled their hearts out over a bankrupt Greece, while piling their plates with sea bass and roasted veal.

* In 2018, US President Donald Trump pushed away fine seafood and artisanal cheeses in Quebec for a beef burger with fries.

* In 2019, Wagyu beef — one of the highest methane-producing food sectors — was demolished by delegates discussing the global carbon footprint.

After the Brics banquet was done and dusted to death, trolls hit a new low by turning their guns on a hapless government official next.

In a video of the two-day summit, an external affairs ministry officer was spotted nibbling some of the snacks placed on all tables. He happened to be seated behind the Iranian foreign minister.

The grand expose? Nothing. Just a vile attempt to ridicule someone who might have been ravenous, unwell, or managing a health issue and dared eat in public.

His larger, unpardonable crime? Of being Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the government headed by Mr Modi.

Opposition to the government is fine. Deriding the ‘godi media’ has clear logic. But weaponising the simple optics of an official doing his job just because you dislike his boss, hits below the belt.

In any case, Mr Jaiswal is hardly the first public figure to masticate in public view. Because:

* Former Australian PM Tony Abbott unexpectedly chomped down on entire, unpeeled raw onions — twice — during farm tours.

* In 2014, the UK’s Ed Miliband struggled inelegantly with a BLT sandwich, sending tabloids into a feeding frenzy.

* New York City’s former mayor Bill de Blasio once committed heresy by tackling pizza with a knife and fork.

* In 2018, Delhi Congress netas tucked into chhole bhature just before a public fast for “communal harmony”, while two BJP leaders gorged on sandwiches and chips before their own televised “fast”, days later.

Back to Brics.

Seated near Mr Jaiswal was another prominent muncher, scarfing down dry fruits and nuts. But the VVIP largely escaped the trolls.

India’s security forces routinely find the same survival fuel — pistachios and almonds — inside the rucksacks of infiltrators crossing into Jammu & Kashmir.

Clearly, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval was merely staying combat-ready, securing the diplomatic perimeter, one high-energy cashew nut at a time.

The writer is an independent foreign correspondent and author