India, Dec. 14 -- In Mumbai, nativist politics play out in several spheres. The most fraught is, of course, language, followed by history, cinema - and food. In the past, vada pao, poha and zunka bhakar have been pawns in electoral games. The Shiv Sena famously championed vada pao with its Shiv Vada Pav stalls in 2009. Two years later, perhaps before another election or political event, the Congress endorsed kanda poha. If the parties had a taste for irony, they might have realised the absurdity of their food fights - and of the idea of the native.

It started with the vada pao. Mumbai's emblematic snack is said to have been dreamt up in a rush of nativist zeal by Ashok Vaidya, a street food vendor in Dadar in the 1960s. In 1966, he heede...