Cake Cutting (Second Ed.)

By examining the practice of cutting cake that is still popular in India, the book attempts to expose the inherent hypocrisy behind nationalist narratives that call for authenticity of identity, often placed in opposition to the adoption of Western culture. The act of cake cutting can be viewed as a metaphor for imperial policies and communal conflict, for example violent divisions of land or more symbolic forms of division along socio-economic lines. The ephemeral archive of the internet, at once a vehicle for misinformation as well as a tool for vigilance and veracity forms the vocabulary of this book, exposing the inconsistencies in the dominant narrative by looking at instances of cake cutting as an unwitting player in political posturing and rumour mongering.