Column | When politics goes to the cats and dogs

The September 10 presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has generated a meme-fest.

“In Springfield they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

With that line from his September 10 debate with Kamala Harris, U.S. Vice President and the Democratic Party’s nominee for the upcoming Presidential election, Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee, became the subject of a meme-fest. Or rather a meme-feast.

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, debunked Trump’s claim that immigrants, specifically Haitians, were eating their neighbours’ pets. But now the South African band Kiffness has a song called ‘Eating the Cats’ with Trump’s voice set to a reggaeton beat. Memes have surfaced of cats and dogs watching TV, nervously realising their human is an immigrant. Late night host Jimmy Fallon said while Harris seemed prepared at the debate, Trump was like, “My homework was eaten by a dog that was eaten by people in Ohio.” A punster friend quipped, “At which meal do they eat the pets? High Tea, of course.”

But amidst all the hilarity and eye rolls, there is some food for thought here.

Food is often a way to break down barriers between people. That’s why we break bread together. But food is also a way we can other some people. That has been unappetisingly on display in the U.S. presidential campaign. After Harris posted on X about her Indian heritage, far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer said if Harris becomes President, the White House will smell like curry.

Loomer said it’s a joke but it cuts close to the bone because many desis would complain how they found it hard to rent homes in the West because landlords objected to the smell of curry. Food is the first thing immigrants show off about their culture. But food is also the first thing they censor and hide.

Greens and fish head curry

Many decades ago, my parents lived in London when Indian food was not as ubiquitous. On days when the Polish landlady was out and couldn’t complain about the smell, my mother would try to cook dishes that reminded her of home — like greens with fish head curry. Too embarrassed to admit she ate fish head and bones, she would pretend to her English fishmonger that she had a cat. I sometimes imagine my mother coming home, past English flowers like hydrangea and daisies, clutching her packet of smelly lies wrapped in newsprint.

Loomer’s comments predictably made news in India with many outlets dubbing it a racist cringe post. But in some ways, she’s not that far removed from those in India who won’t rent to people whose food they deem weird and smelly. The film Axone is about the chaos that erupts when a bunch of friends from Northeast India try to cook a pungent delicacy for a wedding in Delhi. It’s fiction but it’s based on very real stories about people from the Northeast facing the ire of landlords suspicious of ingredients such as fermented yams, soya beans and bamboo shoots, which have strong distinctive smells that other Indians are unused to.

Food delivery platform Swiggy tells us that biryani is their most-ordered item. But when public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam was worried there might be some sympathy for 26/11 terror accused Ajmal Kasab, he casually claimed that Kasab was eating biryani in prison. Later he admitted he made up the story. In the process, he coolly communalised biryani as the food of the terrorist. After 9/11, FBI agents in moon suits burst in on a desi family trying to make biryani in Pennsylvania. A suspicious neighbour saw the big pots and thought they were making bombs.

Immigrants: the real issue

Of course, eating the pets takes the whole narrative another step downhill in an election where immigration is a flashpoint: ‘these immigrants don’t just eat weird-smelling food. They are not just taking our jobs. Now they are stealing our pets and eating them.’ Yet, even this is not a new low. In the 2000s, The Sun tabloid in the U.K. claimed that refugees were stealing the swans in the Queen’s parks and barbecuing them. It even published a photograph of immigrants with the caption ”immigrants like these are blamed for eating the birds”. Later, it was discovered that it was the ‘Swanbake’ story that was cooked up, not the swans.

Using food to mark the other is a tried and tested strategy. We all indulge in it in some form. We make fun of Bengalis and Gujaratis for putting sugar in their curries and we complain Kerala food is doused in coconut oil. But these are just gripes. Where it gets dangerous is when we start going through the neighbour’s refrigerator to figure out what animal the meat came from. When people are lynched not just because of what they eat but because of what we think they might be eating, that should get harder to digest for all of us.

The columnist is the author of ‘Don’t Let Him Know’, and likes to let everyone know about his opinions whether asked or not.