A row over the right to name a dairy product has erupted from southern India’s Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, over 2,200 km south of New Delhi. The controversy follows a directive from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to milk federations and dairy producers to rename dairy products. According to the direction released initially, ‘curd’ (English) or ‘tayyir’ (Tamil) will be labelled as ‘dahi’ (Hindi).
After ‘Tayyir-Dahi’ fight snowballed into a political controversy, FSSAI revised the directive.
FSSAI’s latest notification says that curd can also be labelled as per following examples: “Curd (Dahi)” or “Curd (Mosaru)” or “Curd (Zaamut daud)” or “Curd (Thayyir)” or “Curd (Perugu)”.
Is curd or ‘dahi’ the same as yoghurt?
The term ‘curd’ refers to the solids in the yoghurt. That’s why curd and yoghurt are often used interchangeably. Yoghurt or Dahi or curd is the child of the marriage between milk and bacteria. While the manufacturing process for nearly all commercial yoghurt relies on introducing bacteria into the milk as a ready-made bacteria powder, domestically, a bowl of curd is made by mixing a few drops of leftover curd in lukewarm milk.
The versions of curd in parts of India may taste different because the bacteria in the atmosphere used to ferment milk to turn it into curd is different. That’s the reason curd in New Delhi may taste different from the one consumed in Chennai.
‘Curd’ in Indian cuisine
The curd is often depicted as ‘a cooling food’ in India.
While the West only discovered yoghurt a century ago, Indians knew all about it and its healing properties 500 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s when the first reference to dahi in ancient Indian texts is found. Many medicinal writings from the ancient period suggest yoghurt as a remedy for stomach ailments.
In the works of leading Indian food historian KT Achaya, it is said that curd-based marinades (Rayata or Raaytha) are mentioned in the Arthashastra, which was written long before Jesus Christ was born. Achaya vividly explains the significance of curd.
Referring to Rayatha, a tangy assortment of curd with some spices and selected grated vegetables, he mentioned: “Rayatha is referred to in the Manasollasa (ancient Sanskrit text) of the 12th Century.”
Food connoisseurs say that the tradition of including yoghurt in an Indian meal (as a raita, chaas or on its own) was a way of ensuring that there were enough good bacteria in your system to fight off infections.
Curd is also regarded as one indigenous ingredient that unites India’s Hindi-speaking north and non Hindi-speaking south. If north Indians need lassi and raita, so south Indians need curd-rice or just curds by themselves. Meats are marinated in curd by all communities across India.
The Great ‘Curd’ controversy: It’s all in the name
The row is rooted in what the politicians in southern India’s Tamil Nadu call ‘Hindi imposition’, a pattern they say is the modus operandi of Hindi-speaking administrative apparatus to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people of Tamil Nadu.
The state has a long history of agitations against ‘Hindi imposition’.
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The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M.K. Stalin raged at what he said were the ‘unabashed insistences of Hindi imposition’. He posted a tweet on Wednesday evening, saying: “(Hindi imposition has) … come to the extent of directing us to label even a curd packet in Hindi… relegating Tamil and Kannada in our own states.”
“Such brazen disregard to our mother tongues will make sure those responsible are banished from (the) South forever,” he said, sharing a screenshot of a news report that said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka milk federations must ‘prominently’ label curd as ‘dahi’.
In a note which many saw as patronising, the FSSAI said the Tamil and Kannada words – ‘tayyir’ and ‘mosaru’, respectively – ‘can be used in brackets’, with ‘Dahi’ (Hindi) written in prominence.
The state-run Aavin milk producers co-operative in Tamil Nadu had said firmly it will not use the term ‘dahi’ on its packets and will only use the word ‘tayyir’.
The FSSAI’s move was not well-received in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states. Hindi’s perceived imposition has been an emotive issue since the massive anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s, when the Congress-led centre tried to make it the ‘official’ language.
In the past too – recently over the education policy – regional parties like the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, which is allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party that is in power at the centre – have spoken out.
In relation to that controversy, the Tamil Nadu unit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party has voiced its opposition.
“Notification by FSSAI for use of ‘dahi’ in curd sachets produced by state-run cooperative societies is not in tandem with policy of prime minister Narendra Modi to promote regional languages. We want immediate rollback…,” K Annamalai, the chief of BJP’s state unit, said in a tweet.
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