Introduction

The recent boycott of an Anganwadi centre in Odisha following the appointment of a Scheduled Caste woman (SC) as helper-cum-cook raises questions that extend beyond one village, one institution, or one appointment. The resistance came from sections of the local Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, who refused to accept food prepared by the SC (Dalit) woman. News reports noted that families withdrew children from the centre because they did not want them to consume food prepared by a Dalit woman. At first glance, the incident may appear to concern disagreement over employment or administrative decisions. Yet the resistance emerged specifically around cooking and feeding. This distinction matters because it shifts attention from employment alone to the social meaning attached to food, care, and who is considered acceptable to provide them.

The incident raises a deeper question: who is permitted not only to work but to feed, care, and occupy positions of public trust? When refusal appears through food prepared by a Dalit woman, the issue exceeds individual preference and enters the domain of social recognition. This essay begins from the Anganwadi incident but moves beyond it to examine a broader question: what happens to the language of SC/ST brotherhood when untouchability, food, dignity and social equality enter the relationship?

I argue that the persistence of exclusion cannot be understood only through individual prejudice or isolated acts of discrimination. Instead, it reveals how equality often remains conditional and how everyday social practices continue to shape whose labour is valued, whose care is recognised, and whose humanity becomes negotiable. The article, therefore, asks not only why a Dalit woman’s appointment became contested but also what such moments reveal about the limits of solidarity, the politics of recognition, and the conditions under which equality becomes socially acceptable.

Food as a Social Boundary: Why Equality Stops at Shared Eating

The boycott over the appointment of a Dalit woman as an Anganwadi cook raises a question that extends beyond a single institution or an isolated event. Why does resistance intensify when food enters the relationship? Food is often treated as ordinary and private, yet social life imbues it with meanings that go far beyond nourishment. Food creates relationships. It establishes belonging, trust, care, intimacy, and recognition. To eat food prepared by another person is not only to consume what they have made but also to accept their presence within a shared social world. For this reason, food-related practices frequently become sites where social boundaries are protected and reproduced.

This helps explain an important contradiction that appears across many contexts. People may accept working together, exchanging labour, sharing neighbourhood space, and maintaining everyday interaction across caste groups. Yet the same relationships can become unstable when eating together or accepting food prepared by a Dalit becomes involved. The boundary does not emerge at the interaction itself but at the point where the interaction begins to imply equality. In many village contexts, food continues to function as a marker of social distance. A Dalit may be accepted in everyday interaction but encounter resistance when entrusted with cooking and feeding others. Refusal to eat food prepared by Dalit communities, therefore, cannot always be understood as personal preference or individual taste. It reflects deeper assumptions about whose touch, labour, and care become socially acceptable.

This contradiction becomes especially visible in public institutions such as schools and Anganwadi centres. These institutions are organised around the principle that all children should receive care without social distinction. Yet opposition to Dalit cook reveals that inclusion itself remains conditional. The conflict is not about cooking as work but about who is considered socially worthy of preparing and serving food. Cooking is recognised as necessary labour, yet it becomes contested when the cook is a Dalit woman. She may care for children, but faces resistance when publicly recognised as a cook or caregiver.

There is a deeper violence in this contradiction. When a Dalit woman cooks for children, and her food is rejected, the refusal is not directed solely at the meal. It denies her capacity to care, nurture, and participate as an equal human being in the social world. Caste, therefore, regulates not only food but also whose care is deemed socially legitimate, even in government places. Untouchability survives not through separation but through selective inclusion. A Dalit can be appointed, but not to cook. Relationships remain acceptable as long as historically established boundaries are not crossed. Once food begins to signify equality, inherited hierarchies reappear. The question, then, is not why people refuse food. The deeper question is what becomes threatened when shared eating begins to signify social equality.

Beyond MADA: When Development Meets Untouchability

The boycott of the Anganwadi centre following the appointment of a Dalit woman raises a question about the relationship between development policy and everyday caste practice. If the appointment was made in a MADA (Modified Area Development Approach) area, questions of eligibility and policy implementation are legitimate. MADA was introduced to address historical inequalities in education, employment, infrastructure, and welfare among tribal communities. However, administrative eligibility and untouchability are not the same issue. If the concern was only about eligibility under the MADA scheme, why did the protest emerge through the refusal to accept food prepared by a Dalit woman?

The sequence of events is revealing. Initial reports and statements from members of the local ST community made their objection explicit: they opposed the appointment because the Anganwadi cook was a Ganda (SC) woman and stated that, according to their custom, they would not eat food prepared by a Dalit. Villagers withdrew their children from the Anganwadi and demanded that she be replaced. Only after police intervention, media scrutiny, and public criticism did the focus shift to whether her appointment complied with MADA provisions. It suggests that the initial conflict centred on caste and untouchability, while MADA later became the administrative language through which the boycott was justified. The central issue was not simply policy eligibility but the refusal to recognise a Dalit woman’s right to cook and care in a public institution.

This sequence also raises questions about the role of government institutions. Appointing a Dalit woman to a public position is an important step, but recruitment alone cannot ensure equality. The state also has a constitutional responsibility to protect Dalits’ right to work with dignity and free from caste-based discrimination. However, when administrative responses focus more on addressing the objections of those practising caste exclusion than on protecting the rights of the Dalit woman facing untouchability, the state risks reproducing rather than challenging caste inequality. Equality cannot end with an appointment. It requires government institutions to ensure that constitutional guarantees are upheld in practice and that public employees can perform their duties without caste and gender-based discrimination.

The consequences of such actions should also be taken seriously. A caste-based boycott is not merely a form of protest or public disagreement. It inflicts humiliation, psychological trauma, social isolation, and the denial of dignity. In this case, the boycott did not simply target an appointment; it targeted a Dalit woman who had been selected through a government process. Who takes responsibility for the harm caused by such caste-based exclusion? Is it only those who organised the boycott, or do government institutions also bear responsibility when they fail to protect the constitutional rights and dignity of the person who was targeted? Restoring administrative order alone is not enough. Justice also requires recognising and addressing the harm caused by untouchability.

The case also reveals a broader contradiction within development policy. MADA recognises that many tribal communities experience structural disadvantage and therefore require targeted state support. Yet developmental marginalisation does not automatically eliminate social power in everyday life. Communities may experience exclusion within state structures while still exercising authority in local social relations. The ability to collectively shut down an Anganwadi centre and challenge the appointment of a Dalit woman demonstrates that developmental disadvantage and social power do not always operate in the same way.

This is not an argument against MADA or tribal development. Rather, this case demonstrates that development policies alone cannot dismantle caste. Even within a development programme designed to address one form of marginalisation, practices of untouchability can continue to shape everyday social relations. The appointment of a Dalit woman in a public institution became contested not only through questions of policy but through caste-based ideas about who could cook, care for children, and occupy a position of public trust. Policy can address developmental inequalities, but it cannot by itself transform the social hierarchies that determine whose labour, care, and dignity are recognised as equal.

Conditional Brotherhood: Equality and the Limits of Recognition

The refusal to eat food prepared by a Dalit woman reveals a larger pattern in how caste operates in everyday life. The issue is not always complete rejection or social separation. Instead, acceptance often remains conditional. Communities may live together, exchange labour, maintain neighbourly relations, and depend on one another in everyday life. Yet these relationships remain stable only as long as historically unequal social boundaries are not challenged.

Since childhood, I have often heard the phrase that SC and ST (Dom and Kanda) are bhai bhai (brothers), connected through shared experiences of marginalisation, village life, and everyday coexistence. This language of brotherhood carries political and emotional significance. It evokes solidarity, collective survival, and mutual support among communities that have themselves experienced exclusion. Yet my own experiences have repeatedly led me to ask: what happens to brotherhood when equality enters the relationship?

I use the term conditional brotherhood to describe a form of solidarity that allows coexistence but limits equality. Communities may work together, exchange labour, and support one another, but these relationships become fragile when historically excluded communities move beyond service to claim equal dignity, recognition, and public trust. Brotherhood, therefore, is not rejected outright; it is accepted only within the boundaries of inherited social hierarchies. This contradiction appears in everyday life. A SC person may be accepted in work and social interaction, but encounter resistance when seeking equal recognition and dignity. Inclusion remains acceptable until it begins to challenge caste boundaries.

This contradiction is also reflected in my own village experiences. There have been moments when some ST and OBC families approached our household for labour support and, at times, financial assistance during periods of difficulty. These interactions reflected closeness, cooperation, and mutual dependence. Yet despite accepting our labour and support, they would not always eat food in our house. This experience remained with me because it revealed that dependence does not automatically produce equal recognition. Dalit labour became acceptable, but Dalit dignity remained conditional.

This does not mean that every relationship is based on domination or that hierarchy exists in the same way everywhere. However, shared experiences of marginalisation do not automatically create equal relationships. Brotherhood becomes conditional when one community continues to define the limits of another’s equality. Conditional brotherhood means that solidarity lasts only as long as caste boundaries remain unchallenged. When a Dalit woman is appointed to cook in a school or an Anganwadi centre, she crosses a caste boundary by occupying a position of public trust and care. In many contexts, this is precisely where resistance emerges from sections of ST, OBC, and dominant caste communities. The issue is not cooking itself but the equal recognition of the Dalit woman who cooks. The question, then, is not whether communities live together or call themselves brothers. The question is: what kind of brotherhood survives only until equality begins?

One explanation often offered is that some Adivasi communities have, over time, adopted practices associated with the Hindu caste order through long interaction with dominant caste society, a process often described as Sanskritisation. Such historical processes may help explain how ideas of purity, pollution, and untouchability entered some local contexts. However, explanation should not become justification. Historical influence cannot excuse the continued practice of untouchability or the humiliation of Dalit communities. Nor should Dalit be expected to bear the consequences of these historical processes in the name of SC/ST brotherhood. Dalit are not responsible for the historical transformation of some tribal communities, nor should they be asked to tolerate caste discrimination for the sake of maintaining solidarity. If the SC/ST brotherhood requires Dalit to endure humiliation while others continue to practise untouchability, then that brotherhood demands sacrifice from only one side. It is not solidarity but unequal coexistence or slavey.

Dalit Women, Care Labour, and the Burden of Equality

The contradictions discussed so far become sharper when viewed through the experiences of Dalit women. Questions of food, dignity, and social acceptance are not experienced in gender-neutral ways. In many villages, women sustain everyday life through fetching water, preparing food, caring for children, and maintaining households and community relationships. Yet the value attached to care often depends on who performs it. Dalit women frequently occupy positions where their labour is necessary, but their dignity remains conditional. The Anganwadi case illustrates this contradiction. It shows that the burden of caste falls not only on Dalit communities in general but particularly on Dalit women, whose everyday work is centred on cooking, caring, and sustaining life. Their labour is expected, but their equal recognition is often resisted.

The burden of maintaining relationships also falls disproportionately on Dalit women. They are expected to continue caring, continue adjusting, and continue preserving social harmony even when they experience humiliation and exclusion. The responsibility for keeping communities together is placed on those whose equality continues to be questioned. This raises a deeper ethical and political question: why are Dalit women expected to bear the burden of maintaining harmony while others continue to define the limits of their dignity? Why must those who experience humiliation also carry the responsibility of preserving social relationships? The issue, therefore, is not whether Dalit women care for others. The issue is whether society is willing to recognise that care as equal. As long as Dalit women’s labour is accepted but their humanity remains conditional, caste continues to shape not only work but also the ethics of care itself.

Conclusion

What Kind of Brotherhood Survives Equality?

This essay began with the boycott of an Anganwadi centre following the appointment of a Dalit woman as helper-cum-cook. Yet the incident revealed something larger than a disagreement over employment or administration. It exposed how food, care, and public recognition continue to remain unequal social spaces. The argument of this essay is not that solidarity between communities does not exist, nor that all relationships are defined by hierarchy. Rather, it suggests that coexistence should not automatically be confused with equality. Relationships may appear close through labour exchange, everyday interaction, and mutual dependence, but these relationships become more difficult when historically excluded communities move from participation to equal recognition.

The incident also reveals the limits of development and inclusion when everyday practices continue to organise dignity through caste. Employment may become possible while social acceptance remains incomplete. A person may receive a position but still encounter rejection when their labour enters spaces associated with food, care, and public trust.

This contradiction becomes especially visible in the experiences of Dalit women. When a Dalit woman cooks for children, and her food is rejected, the refusal is not directed only at the meal. Caste denies humanity when Dalit women cook for children and share care. The rejection extends beyond food and enters the question of who is recognised as capable of nurturing, caring, and participating as an equal human being in social life. This leaves behind a difficult ethical and political question: if communities boycott one another in the name of caste, can they still claim the language of brotherhood and solidarity? Brotherhood cannot mean accepting labour while refusing equal humanity. Solidarity cannot survive only when social boundaries remain untouched. The question, therefore, is not whether communities can live together. The question is: what kind of brotherhood survives once equality begins?