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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Politics of diet -Divya Trivedi

Politics of diet -Divya Trivedi

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published Published on Jul 23, 2018   modified Modified on Jul 23, 2018
-Frontline.in

Data from various surveys prove that India is anything but a vegetarian nation, but ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre there have been attempts to demonise meat-eating and to impose the vegetarian food habits of certain sections of Hindus on the rest of India.

In parts of Gujarat, eggs are not sold openly. They are placed inside black bags, just like sanitary napkins sold in chemist’s shops. One has to travel quite a distance to buy eggs or meat as they are not available everywhere. When this correspondent lived in Ahmedabad between 2008 and 2010, there were many stories of people checking their neighbours’ dustbins for traces of eggshells, non-vegetarian food and empty alcohol bottles (Gujarat is a dry State where drinking is considered a social sin). Conversations with friends and relatives reveal that the culture of vigilance has not changed much since then. Society is divided along the lines of vegetarian Hindus and Jains and non-vegetarian Muslims and other groups.

After the 2002 pogrom and the ghettoisation of Muslims that followed, Hindus justified not wanting to live next door to them because of their “smelly” non-vegetarian habits. But these issues, considered innocuous, are never discussed openly or debated in television studios. Since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre, there have been subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to impose the Gujarat “model” of food hegemony on the rest of India, and the matter of food preferences is being turned into a hotly contested issue. While the lynching of beef eaters is a violent and overt manifestation of this, promoting vegetarianism and demonising meat consumption as an unhealthy lifestyle are a covert manifestation.

Recently, on April 22, a tweet put out by the Health Ministry created an uproar. It showed two women side by side, one thin and one fat. It suggested that the thin one ate only fruits and vegetables while the fat one consumed meat, eggs, sausages, colas and fries. The accompanying caption read: “Good nutrition is one of the keys to a #healthy life. Choose wisely, live well. #SwasthaBharat #AyushmanBharat #HealthForAll.” By equating non-vegetarian food items with junk food, the Ministry was suggesting that non-vegetarian food was the cause of bad health whereas vegetarian food was the road to a healthy lifestyle. Besides being problematic on the count of food preference, the image was also considered sexist. Kavita Krishnan, secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association, said: “What is wrong with this picture? No, it’s not about health vs bad health. It shames women for body image, promotes a starvation falahaar [fruit-based] diet minus any carbs or proteins and lumps eggs with ‘junk’ food!” Facing a backlash, the Ministry soon removed the picture from its Twitter feed.

Institutionalising vegetarianism


The BJP has always been pro-vegetarianism. The promotion of gau mutra (cow urine) and other allied derivatives as health supplements and ingredients in Baba Ramdev’s FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) products has shown that there is a market for them. What is alarming, however, is the government’s attempts at institutionalising vegetarianism as a matter of policy.

Last year, Air India stopped serving non-vegetarian meals to economy class passengers on all its domestic flights. Earlier, it was not uncommon for flights to and from Gujarat to serve only “Vegetarian Hindu Meal”, but the blanket ban on any non-vegetarian food rattled many passengers. The journalist Kishlay Bhattacharya tweeted: “So the #cattleclass will be served only #veg meals by #airindia the national carrier. Hope they can now repay 52000cr debt!”

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Frontline.in, 3 August, 2018, https://www.frontline.in/the-nation/article24441317.ece?homepage=true


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