The tales of Survivorship: The food history of the Dalits in India directing towards a booming industry

Abstract Amidst the social stratification, the ones left behind the shadow of power, were in Sanskrit, termed as Dalits, meaning The Oppressed. Because of the social ranking made, they were marooned from the enlightened, educated and the powerful. Casteism stigmatised sharing of means leading to untouchability. As a result, they had to contrive a world of their own. This world that they made, consisted of new attires, new codes of living, and particularly a new variety of food, that being the most vital parameter of sustenance. Being the human left-overs of the society, they formed cuisines of their own, crafted from the residues of the people. The ingredients of the cooking therefore were not only nutrition deprived, but a lot more factors regarding hygiene were compromised. Surprisingly, contrary to the prevailing situation of the Dalits, it can be traced over time that those cuisines, that once the elites twitched their noses about, are refashioned by the crowd of today, tagging them as ethnic specimens of resilience and distinctiveness. The acceptance of this newness in the world of food has also opened a phenomenal dimension in the business perspective. The reformed, simple, easy to make foods, and the remaking of leftovers, with an affixed tinge of hygiene, have resulted in adding versatility to the stereotypical tastebuds of commoners, adding to a new genre of food in the restaurant business. The typical soaked-rice and dried-fish formula of the Dalits, therefore, nowadays can be seen transformed into a glamorous and wholesome cuisine culture. This paper is an attempt to find out the roots and reasons of the birth of a varied style of cooking by a discarded class of strain, by assessing their immediate circumstances, to the tracking down of the act of the unimagined inclusion of Dalit food culture into the restaurants, directing towards their acceptability in the contemporary society, along with their sustainability in the modern time, acknowledging them as a thing once discarded downright, making it a fulfilled and prospective booming business.