Without naming NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Harmeet K Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the US Department of Justice, waded into the rice controversy as she shared a photo of rice and lentils in two different pots with spoons in both of them. “Mom sent me home from the weekend with daal and rice…which I’m hearing and eating with a spoon — not like some like some performance artist LARPing philistine!” Dhillon, who was born in India (Punjab) wrote. A major controversy broke out as a video of Zohran Mamdani eating rice with his hand went viral. The anti-Mamdani sentiments soon turned into anti-India as eating with hands is an accepted form of eating in India.GOP leader, Congressman Brandon Gill called Mamdani uncivilized as he pointed out that civilized people in America don’t eat with their hands. “If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World,” Gill wrote. The Congressman was reminded that his wife is of Indian-origin and she definitely eats with her hand. Brandon Gill’s wife Danielle D’Souza Gill joined the debate and said she did not grow up eating rice with her hands and always used a fork. “I did not grow up eating rice with my hands and have always used a fork. I was born in America. I’m a Christian MAGA patriot. My father’s extended family lives in India and they are also Christian and they use forks too,” Danielle wrote.Danielle’s father Dinesh D’Souza, a Conservative commentator who was born in India, said eating with hands is gross in America, but not in India. Reating to a now viral photo of him eating with his hand, D’Souza wrote: “My culture lesson for Mamdani: Eating with your hands is acceptable when it’s bread, naan or pizza. Not when it’s soup, meatloaf or mashed potatoes. Indians sometimes eat rice with their hands in India, but it’s much more common in rural areas. In America, it’s considered gross.”

What is the row over eating rice with hands?

Mamdani’s video grossed many Americans out but a section of social media users debated that it was not eating with hand that disgusted them but Mamdani choosing to do so for a video while he definitely does not use his hands always for eating came across as performative modesty that Mamdani was aiming at.