What I found interesting about the article was the commentary on westernization skewing traditional dishes way sweeter than they used to be, and the complicated history of sugar.
Trader Joe’s here, a grocery store with a lot of frozen asian entrees, is notorious for syrupy sweet sauces on many of their popular Chinese American dishes.
But somehow it is not as bad of a problem in their more recent Korean and Thai frozen foods (nor Indian).
So interesting about the terminology you mentioned re Bengal: I have never heard it even though I am surrounded by Bengalis 
There is a similar sweet / not sweet spectrum in Gujarat, where those not familiar think all Gujarati food is uniformly sweet. But in most regions of Gujarat there’s never more than a slight pinch of sugar for balance — anyone who wants sweeter dal or or kadhi has to add sugar later, because the baseline is deeply savory.
However there is also the cultural expectation of something sweet on the thali, just like there is something spicy, pickled, crunchy, and cooling — all for balance. (My mom likes a tiny piece of jaggery on her plate — if she didn’t eat it during the meal, she’ll eat it at the end as dessert.)
