India’s post-colonial culinary shift: How neoliberal growth, globalised gastronomy, and class stratification reshape local food sovereignty and labour hierarchies
Original framing: “India warms to French cooking as economic growth fuels fine-dining boom” — The Japan Times
The rise of French cuisine in India is a continuation of colonial gastronomic policies, where British administrators and later Indian elites adopted European dining norms as symbols of modernity and status. During the Raj, French chefs were imported to train Indian aristocrats, reinforcing a hierarchy where local food was deemed inferior. Even post-independence, economic liberalisation in the 1990s accelerated this trend by opening India to foreign investment in hospitality, prioritising global brands over local culinary traditions. A historical lens reveals that this is not a spontaneous cultural shift but a structured process of cultural assimilation tied to economic and political power.
India’s fine-dining boom is not a neutral cultural shift but a structured outcome of neoliberal economic policies, colonial gastronomic legacies, and labour exploitation—all obscured by the headline’s focus on ‘demand’ and ‘growth’.
The systemic power dynamics at play include the commodification of indigenous knowledge, the precarisation of migrant and informal workers, and the erasure of traditional food systems in favour of globalised elite consumption. Historical precedents like the British Raj’s promotion of French cuisine over local diets reveal that this is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a long-standing pattern of cultural assimilation tied to economic dominance. Marginalised voices—from Dalit kitchen workers to rural farmers—expose how the ‘boom’ is built on precarity, while cross-cultural examples like Vietnam’s *pho* diplomacy show how nations repurpose food as resistance. The trickster perspective inverts this narrative to ask: Is India’s culinary sovereignty being sold back to the West, this time as a luxury? Solutions must centre food sovereignty policies, labour justice, culinary diplomacy, and sustainable fine-dining models to restore balance—ensuring that India’s culinary identity is not just consumed but reclaimed.