Why Indians have always been suspicious that their ghee is adulterated

The Spectator was vehement: “We may imagine, therefore, the horror of that immense community at the adulterated ghee, the eagerness to put down the accursed thing, the spirit in which the action of the Government would be scrutinised the moment the offence was made known.” The London weekly declared that failure to act would mean “it was an accursed Government, not to be obeyed by anyone to whom the lotus was a symbol…”

Had the world’s oldest continuously published magazine suddenly taken a rather bombastic interest in Tirupati’s ghee turmoil? Was it really advocating protests from members of the Bharatiya Janata Party?

In reality those words are from The Spectator issue of September 25, 1886 and lotus was already shorthand for Hindus. The article referred to allegations of adulteration in Bengal and commended the Calcutta authorities for rapidly defusing the situation by drafting a law to ensure the purity of ghee.

This fortnight, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s allegations about the ghee used in laddus at the Tirupati temple caused much speculation about the political games at play. But claims and rumours about ghee and edible fats in general, which result in social and political tensions, are nothing new. Even the crisis management strategy used by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, of a four-hour Homam purification rite, was prefigured in another Calcutta controversy almost 100 years ago.

This broke out in 1917 and targeted Calcutta’s Marwari community. In Community and Public Culture, historian Anne Hardgrove’s study of the community, she notes how the rumours of adulterated ghee were accompanied by fears of the decline and displacement of Bengalis: “Marwaris and other ‘up-country’ Hindus were perceived as replacing the Bengalis in trading and shopkeeping; the production of sweets was now perceived to like in Marwari hands.” She quotes one report from a local newspaper proclaiming that “unless the practice of adulteration is put to a stop at an early date, the Bengali race will become extinct”.

It was against this charged background that the Marwari Association decided to be proactive in detecting ghee adulteration. On July 22, a meeting was held to examine charges against specific merchants, who denied wrongdoing. But a few days later, Hardgrove writes that “the founders of the Association Ranglal Poddar, Ramdev Chokhany and others, conducted a surprise inspection in which they collected two or three tins of ghee from the storage godowns of every ghee businessman”. These were sent for testing and, sensationally, out of 67 samples of ghee, only seven were found to be pure.

This news exploded in Calcutta. “Thousands of Brahmins gathered on the banks of the Ganges river, locally called the Hooghly, and began fasting to death to punish the businessmen who had adulterated ghee,” writes Hardgrove. The Brahmins also declared that those who felt they might have contaminated themselves by eating the adulterated ghee could purify themselves by conducting a Homam on the banks of the river. Hardgrove quotes Lord Zetland, the governor of Bengal, who wrote in his memoir that by August 19, between 4,000 and 5,000 people were undergoing purification.

August 19 was also the date on which the Marwari Association, which had earlier faced internal dissensions, came together with a hastily convened panchayat of 100 people to decide how to punish the guilty. Heavy fines were levied on the accused and those who refuse to pay were boycotted for periods ranging from one year to life. “In all, Rs 75,000 were collected, and the money was used to purchase pasture land at the pilgrimage site of Vrindavan… where ghee could be produced,” writes Hardgrove. “On hearing this, the crowds of fasting Brahmins called off their action and the matter was declared resolved.”

Hardgrove speculates that this all might have been a performance. “The numerous links between Marwaris and Brahmins in other social contexts leads me to suggest that the Marwaris themselves were the ones to stage the event as a public solution to the ghee crisis.” In this reading, the whole drama was a daring response to growing distrust of Marwaris and their role in the ghee trade.

Instead of letting suspicions mount dangerously, the Marwari Association might have invoked the authority of British scientists – who analysed the samples – and then admitted the guilt of some members (possibly settling internal scores in the process). The spectacle on the Hooghly and the punishments from the panchayat helped proclaim their sincere commitment to pure ghee. It might be like a savvy politician coming to learn of potential ghee problems at a famous shrine and taking preventive action by exposing it, to blame it on a political rival.

Fat cats

The single certain point is that suspicions about quality and envy over profits have always been intrinsic to the trade in fats like ghee. This is because, since ancient times, production of fats was the one food processing task outsourced from homes. People grew their own grains and vegetables, raised and slaughtered livestock, ground their own flour and even brewed their own alcohol, but the fats, whether solid (butter, ghee, lard, suet) or liquid (oils) needed for cooking, lighting, greasing and other uses was usually obtained from outside sources.

People who kept cows could make their own butter, but even then there were lean seasons when milk flow stopped. Ghee, which is cooked to remove water and develop compounds that prevent rancidity, was probably developed for exactly these periods. But not everyone kept cows, and even those who did often needed to get extra supplies from outside. Many people have memories of skimming cream from milk and saving that to make ghee at home, but the amounts produced rarely matched their requirements.

In coastal areas like Goa, coconut trees were another easy source of fat, so important that leases usually stipulate that landlords still collect the nuts for oil. As with home-made ghee, some oil could be made at home by making and then boiling coconut milk. This makes a wonderfully fresh, light and aromatic oil, but again, the quantity is relatively small. The bulk of coconut oil requires drying the copra and then sending it for pressing in an oil mill.

Oil pressing is, given the slippery, sticky nature of fats, always a messy job and usually done by specialised communities. When the Bene Israel Jews arrived on the Konkan coast, according to legend around 175 BCE, they took up oil pressing and this, combined with their practice of keeping the Sabbath on Saturdays, resulted in the community being referred to as Shaniwar Telis. Because of strict kosher laws on which animals can be consumed and against mixing different food sources, Jewish communities have historically always been careful about the fats they consume, which extended to making and trading in it to be sure.

Traditional oil mills, usually powered by animals, have often been seen as rather sacred or scary spaces, best avoided except by those who work there. In Birds, Beasts and Relatives, Gerald Durrell’s memoir of life on Corfu, he recalls the local olive press as “a gaunt, gloomy building… presided over by Papa Demetrios, a tough old man, as twisted and bent as the olive trees themselves”. Inside was a circular trough with a grindstone tied to a wooden strut harnessed to a horse, blindfolded to prevent it getting giddy as it kept pushing around the press.

The local peasants “would deliver their olives, and depart from the press with all speed. Because you were never certain whether anybody like Papa Demetrios might not have the evil eye”. This could describe, down to the similar design and dodgy reputation, oil presses across much of the world. Only the animals might differ, with oxen, mules, donkey and camels all being used, but nearly always blindfolded the same way. In rare cases, like in prison for punishment, humans were also used to turn the oil press.

Fats were also produced by scraping it from animal skin and organs and rendering it, which meant gently heating to melt and separate it from animal tissues. This was an even messier, smellier job. Ghee was comparatively easier to make, which probably added to its reputation for purity. Milk was made into yoghurt and then churned to make a slightly sour butter, or cream was separated and then churned for a sweeter butter. The butter was then heated, first to evaporate water and then to brown the milk solids, giving ghee its characteristic taste.

The distinction between ghee made from yoghurt or cream butter was historically important, and Ayurveda still prefers the former. There were regional variations in the extent to which ghee was browned, and also stored. Cooks in Lucknow prized aged ghee, while some districts in Bengal produce a richly browned ghee. Ghee also came from the milk of different animals, most commonly buffaloes, but the milk of goats, sheep and camels can all be used to make it. Some market is developing for these ghees now, but it was all commonly mixed in the general milk supply in the past – one name for it was SheCaGo milk.

India also had historical sources of vegetable fats apart from coconut. One of the most ancient is the seeds of sal trees, which are collected by tribal communities and boiled to separate their fat. Fats are also harvested from trees like kokum and mahua, all usually solid at room temperatures. Sesame is one of the most ancient Indian oils, which can be seen by how its name til became synonymous with tel or oil of all kinds. The seeds of mustard, castor, safflower and niger have all been pressed for oil, with groundnut and palm oil becoming more recent sources. And now there are oils extracted by chemical solvents, like rice bran oil.

Diversified industry

This all adds up to a huge, ancient and very diversified industry. This has several implications. Not seeing the fats being made tended to make people suspicious – could they be sure about what they were getting? It doesn’t help that fats tend to be invisible in cooking, meaning that their presence is evident in foods fried or kneaded with them, but you rarely observe and consume them directly, other than buttering bread or dipping it in extra virgin olive oil. Even when uncooked, fats are easily combined, so it can be hard to tell when different oils are mixed, or solid fats, either vegetable or animal based, are mixed with ghee. Cooks have a few superficial tests, like rubbing on the hand or tasting, but the reality is that adulterating fats is alarmingly easy.

Hence, the importance of scientific tests, as the Marwari Association realised in 1917. But it is quite a mistake to imagine that there is a settled science of testing fats. In parallel with the controversies over ghee in the public press, there were ongoing debates in scientific journals over how to test fats. In June 1933, for example, Current Science devoted several pages to “The Ghee Problem in India”. The publication reported on a special symposium jointly held in Bangalore by the South Indian Sciences Association, the Society of Biological Indian Chemists and the Madras branch of the Indian Chemical Society on the question of ghee detection.

What emerges from the reports is the difficulty in testing when the sources of adulteration could be so many. Even “pure ghee” was diverse, depending on the animals it was sourced from and how it was made. And then there was margarine. This was a solid fat, like ghee, manufactured in several ways, but in India most commonly through the hydrogenation of vegetable oils. Some speakers like YV Srikanteswara Iyer excoriated such fats for “very baneful effects regarding the digestion on those who consumed them”. But a Dr R Bhattacharjee countered that “it is always better to consume a standard, pure and refined substitute than a product adulterated with unknown and undesirable constituents mixed up by ignorant and unscrupulous traders”.

Manufactured fats would complicate the fats issue even further. The earliest forms of margarine in the 19th century used animal fats like beef tallow mixed with milk to give a creamy substance like butter. The discovery of hydrogenation meant that vegetable fats could be used – but animal fats continued to be used in parts of the world. Whale oil, in particular, was once a huge (and hugely cruel) industry and used by companies like Lever Brothers (now Unilever) to make margarine in Europe. In the 1930s Arthur Imhausen, a German chemist, even found a way to make “coal butter”, an edible fat derived from paraffin wax.

This leads to the most complicating factor of outsourcing fat production. Since people had to obtain it, by barter or payment, fats became the foundation of some of the earliest systems of trade. The Roman empire developed a huge trade in olive oil, from Spain and North Africa, which went across the empire in giant earthen jars. An artificially created hill grew in Rome called Monte Testaccio, made from testae, the bits of broken jars used to transport olive oil. It was perhaps the earliest example of a landscape transformed by garbage.

Trading in fat led to fortune – and envy. As the example of Calcutta’s Marwaris shows, people might need fats but are not happy to have to pay for them. Across the world, fat-based fortunes caused resentment, which proved fertile ground for accusations about adulteration. It created a no-win situation. If fats were cheap, they were seen as inferior or likely to be adulterated, but if they were expensive, people resented paying for them and started spreading rumours that they were adulterated. Which probably led to some traders adulterating them anyway.

The growth of manufactured fats like margarine added marketing to this mix. Procter & Gamble, founded by a candle-maker and soap-maker (both users of fats), and Unilever, founded by the merger of soap- and margarine-making firms, corporatised the trade in fats. They funded palm oil plantations, developed new sources of oils like cottonseed and invested huge amounts of money in creating markets for edible fats.

Their success pushed the development of local competitors like Tata Oil Mills and Godrej, creating some of the first really competitive consumer brands. They set a pattern that has persisted with fats – sell your own by seeding doubts about the quality of the competition.

All this causes confusion, which the marketers of fats hope to profit from. But in India marketing confusions turn far more vicious when accusations of adulteration by animal fats are made. This has come from all sides of the fats business, and in many malign variations. In 1927, for example, a brand named Veejem claimed to be better than ghee because it was made from animals that could be unhealthy, and could also be adulterated with unknown fats. Veejem called itself vegetable ghee, a term that has caused endless confusion since most ghee consumers assumed it was vegetarian anyway.

The 1917 Calcutta controversy was an inter-Hindu one, but others have easily crossed communal boundaries. The Spectator article of 1886 worried about exactly this, with reports of pigs lard being used to adulterate ghee along with beef and mutton tallow. Coming less that 30 years after the rising of 1857, the potential for trouble was obvious: “the people, influenced no doubt by the senseless talk of the more prejudiced Europeans, believe that the Government would gladly be rid of caste as the first step towards making the population Christian, and would therefore be capable of plotting a breach of caste rules…”

In the Tirupati case, 138 years later, it didn’t take long for similar allegations to be made. The usual sources started talking about Naidu’s political opponent YSR Congress’ Jagan Mohan Reddy being a secret Christian and plotting to build a church on Tirupati. It is absurd to imagine any politician, whose only real religion is the pursuit of power, trying to do something as crudely stupid, just as it is absurd to imagine a large corporation risking its business by using animal fats in ghee or vegetarian products of any kind. Yet such rumours still circulate, and will continue to do so, powered by the opacity of the trade in fats and our centuries long unease in what it might entail.

Vikram Doctor is a writer based in Goa. His email address is vikdocatwork@gmail.com.