India must not shy away from being a path-breaker, even when it comes to dining diplomacy just because the West set the norms back when it called the shots. As Prime Minister Modi is not embarrassed or diffident about being vegetarian, the West has learnt to accommodate it. – Reshmi Dasgupta
Two years ago, India’s President Droupadi Murmu “broke with tradition” and served an entirely vegetarian menu for the official banquet for the heads of state and government gathered in New Delhi for the G-20 Summit. The star of the menu was millets, now widely acknowledged as a planet-friendly superfood, which was once an Indian staple but had fallen out of favour during the hybrid-seed, high-yield grain mantra of the Green Revolution era.
The foreign media was initially in two minds, whether to appreciate India’s bold assertion of its unique food philosophy that has led to the world’s largest repertoire of vegetarian fare, or criticise President Murmu for depriving guests of customary animal proteins. Finally, the consensus was that India had shown the way to healthier, sustainable diets and shown that vegetables and heirloom grains need not be mere boring ancillaries to meat-centric meals.
Those most cut up about this ‘restriction’ and ‘imposition’, however, were mostly Indian diehards, who trotted out the usual line about denying honoured guests their daily meat, as if G-20 leaders would be laid low by one meal without meat. They also pointed out that most Indians are supposedly non-vegetarian—itself a concept familiar only to sub-continentals—ignoring the fact that meat/fish/eggs are usually not consumed at every meal, much less daily.
Two years on, the same debate erupted again when President Murmu’s official banquet for the visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin was also vegetarian. The same Indian diehards imagined that he was unable to digest a morsel—let alone a morel—at Rashtrapati Bhavan. They surmised he only gorges on beef stroganoff or solyanka, with chicken a la Kiev off the menu for the time being. The fact is, he has a mostly vegetarian, high protein food regimen.
In short, Putin is well acquainted with vegetables and vegetarian staples and would not have been startled or put off by the Rashtrapati Bhavan banquet menu. But the issue was not Putin’s palate but the broader principle of cultural confidence. And that is why President Murmu’s resolute decision to keep her table green deserves more than just a cursory reiteration of the mantra that vegetarianism is the healthier and more planet friendly alternative.
Once upon a time, Indians accepted the dominant Western thinking of the 19th and 20th centuries that being vegetarian was a necessity, either due to lack of money to afford meat or ill health. No one was thought to be willingly, healthily or proudly vegetarian in the West, at least among those who decided the protocol and components of formal dining. And until India gained independence in the mid-20th century, no independent nation had the gumption to differ.
Now the West has turned 180 degrees, with the elite opting for vegetarian diets—none of which have the variety and brilliance of Indian cuisine—and the relatively poorer lot depending on cheap cuts of meat. Hence the White House happily dished up a marinated millet and corn salad with compressed watermelon and avocado sauce, stuffed portobello mushroom with saffron risotto, and a rose and cardamom infused strawberry shortcake for PM Modi’s 2023 visit.
Neither the invitees nor the media protested in Washington in 2023 but certain elite circles in India remain convinced that vegetarian fare was an imposition. Even now, India deciding to persist with dishes drawn from our vast vegan and vegetarian repertoire for official banquets is being predictably spun as an attack on the composite culture. These are often the very same people who want to save the planet, save animals, and thereby save humanity itself.
These people do not pause to wonder how and why India indisputably has the largest array of vegetarian dishes in the world; all its regional and micro cuisines have distinctly different fare using hyper-local and seasonal produce. Had Indians been indeed such compulsive meat-eaters as they would have us believe, such a diversity of vegetarian food would never have evolved here. The reality is that Indians draw their protein from both veg and non-veg sources.
Indeed, the definition by which India has been declared a largely meat-eating country is specious. Indians consider eggs to be non-vegetarian, unlike the West which obviously does not identify yolks and albumen with meat. Westerners simply do not understand the concept of “non-veg”; to them it is like calling a vegetable “non-meat” or “non-fish”. However, Indians who eat only eggs but no meat/poultry or fish are flagged as “non-veg” in surveys here.
That skews perceptions about India’s dietary preferences. The National Family Health Survey shows that eggs are the most consumed animal protein at 78 per cent. And just 10 per cent Indians eat some form of “non-veg”—which need not be meat, poultry or fish—every day, while 60 per cent do so weekly. Even then, animal protein is never the largest portion of food on a plate or thali; rice or wheat form the bulk. So why do some Indians always protest the absence of ‘non-veg’?
It is tough to be different, especially in the hidebound, protocol and precedent focused world of high office. The book Around India’s First Table published by Rashtrapati Bhavan during the term of President Pranab Mukherjee, chronicled how every incumbent who tried to bring in change in the protocol and processes of what was once the Viceregal Palace faced overt and covert resistance from the permanent staff, who were accustomed to Raj-era practices.
In the initial years, the book says, “If the Indian governor general or president had served Indian food at a banquet it might have seemed gauche, as if the Indians were not au fait with international standards. And so European food dominated at the early Indian state occasions.” That diffident mindset was expected in a nation just emerging from centuries of colonial domination. India’s ancient culture and cuisine had to wait decades for a more confident espousal.
So, the book recounts, at the first official banquet of the new republic—when India’s status as a British dominion was finally over with the adoption of the new Constitution—for President Sukarno of Indonesia, the menu featured spinach soup, pomfret fillet with tartare sauce, roast duck with vegetables and Pommes Chantilly or stewed apples with cream. Only vegetarians were served dum aloo, gobi curry, raita and papad. No one evidently saw the irony then.
Hearteningly though, Rashtrapati Bhavan has been Indianising slowly but surely, through the efforts of successive presidents in every aspect, including dining and entertainment. President Murmu, 15th in that line of reformers, has brought in her own modifications, which includes serving vegetarian fare at official banquets. That signals India is now confident about all aspects of her culture—including those that do not dovetail with prevailing or outdated western norms.
India must not shy away from being a path-breaker, even when it comes to dining diplomacy just because the West set the norms back when it called the shots. As Prime Minister Modi is not embarrassed or diffident about being vegetarian, the West has learnt to accommodate it. Official repasts hosted by heads of government for the current Indian top dignitaries are invariably entirely vegetarian now. with their senior chefs taking it up as a challenge rather than a chore.
India’s vegetarian legacy is finally getting international respect. – News18, 15 December 2025
› Reshmi Dasgupta is a freelance writer.
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