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Waste not, Want not by Hemchhaya De
Food minister K.V. Thomas is examining the possibility of bringing in a law to contain the wastage of food at weddings and other social gatherings. Will such a law be feasible, wonders Hemchhaya De

The gala British royal wedding might have gripped the world, but are big, fat Indian weddings justified? It’s a poser that the Indian food minister, some senior Congress leaders and former bureaucrats are trying to deal with at the moment.

In fact, minister of state for food and consumer affairs K.V. Thomas is setting up a national committee this month to examine the possibility of a law to stop the wastage of food at Indian weddings and other social functions. “We shall consult top experts from various organisations across the country. We’ll weigh the pros and cons,” says Thomas, who has so far struck all the right notes about containing soaring food prices and expediting the National Food Security Bill that aims to provide foodgrains to 75 per cent of the country’s population at highly subsidised prices.

The minister says that he will soon embark on a widespread public awareness campaign to educate the people on the social and economic implications of wasting food at big gatherings, particularly weddings. According to some back-of-the-envelope estimates, he says, about 15 per cent of the country’s foodgrains and vegetables are wasted at extravagant dos. The minister is also believed to be enlisting the help of people like N.C. Saxena (former member of the Planning Commission) and M.S. Swaminathan (the father of the Green Revolution in India) to do something about containing the wastage of food.

“Right now there’s no law in India to curb food wastage in social gatherings. In addition to the Food Security Bill, we feel that there should be some kind of a mechanism to regulate the huge amounts of food wasted at weddings or otherwise,” says Thomas. “Pakistan has a law whereby guests at weddings are apparently restricted to one plate of food. We’ll examine that law as well,” he adds.

Some senior Congress leaders are also in favour of some sort of legislation to trim lavish, wasteful social gatherings. Party MP Rajeev Shukla raised the issue in Parliament recently. “There is tremendous wastage of food at parties, social functions, hotels and restaurants. According to a general estimate, thousands of kilograms of food is being wasted at parties every day which add up to millions of tonnes in a year,” says Shukla. “If we can reduce this colossal waste, not only will we be able to feed the poor but also bring food prices down. The import of food items will also decline and it will be easily available to the people at large.”

Apparently, Sonia Gandhi too has cracked the whip in this regard. She is believed to have repeatedly asked party men to avoid organising ostentatious weddings. In fact, Congress leader Kanwar Singh Tanwar’s son’s marriage with the daughter of a fellow party leader was in the media glare earlier this year for precisely this reason. About 30,000 guests attended the wedding which had a spread of 100 vegetarian dishes.

Sources say that although there’s no law at the moment to stop the inordinate wastage of food, the infamous Guest Control Order of the 1960s and 1970s could be made a reference point. Some states like Assam and Mizoram followed it. The legal notification, now extinct, restricted the number of guests at “ordinary parties” to 25 whereas 100 people were allowed for marriages or funerals. It also had provisions whereby policemen not below the rank of sub-inspectors were expected to check any violation of the law. Jammu & Kashmir also tried to promulgate such a law in the middle of the last decade, but with little success.

Shukla believes that restricting the number of guests at lavish parties may not be fruitful. “The guest control part will not work, so there should not be any restriction on the number of guests,” says Shukla. “But restrictions can be imposed on the number of dishes; if we serve five dishes instead of 50, it will certainly help a lot.”

Some legal experts and food activists say the intention of any such initiative is laudable. But they doubt whether a law against the waste of food can really be implemented. “The right to food is a fundamental right. So there’s a constitutional justification if anyone tries to regulate wastage of food and re-distribute it among the less privileged,” says Shameek Sen, associate professor, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. “But it remains to be seen how such a law can be drafted without it becoming arbitrary.”

The Supreme Court has passed interim orders from time to time, ensuring people’s access to food, particularly with regard to a writ petition filed by human rights organisation People’s Union for Civil Liberties in 2001. The latter seeks the legal enforcement of the right to food.

Harsh Mander, food activist and member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, is sceptical whether a law modelled on the defunct Guest Control Order is the need of the hour. “It’s a fact that overindulgence is on the rise even among the middle class. But we should not focus only on weddings, but also on other aspects of life,” says Mander. “There is a law against untouchability, but has it totally eradicated the social ill? Nevertheless, such laws do serve to clarify what’s not acceptable socially.”

Needless to say, wedding planners and those associated with the Indian wedding industry (believed to be worth Rs 1,25,000 crore) don’t think much of the food minister’s initiative against lavish social gatherings. “First of all, it’s not practical — even if a law comes into being, people will circumvent it by bribing junior officials who would be sent for inspection,” says Chiripal Kailash, owner of the Delhi-based Sanskriti Shaadi Planner. “Even today, high-end weddings are few and far between. Middle-class people do budget — they tend to spend more on the bride and the groom than they do on food.”

Others say that holding lavish weddings is an intrinsic part of the culture of many Indian communities. “Some communities like, say, the Punjabis, are known for elaborate weddings. Apart from food, people might also overindulge in buying flowers for weddings. How can you legislate to stop people from buying flowers in excess,” wonders Murali Kaushik, a Supreme Court lawyer. “It’s tantamount to invasion of privacy or our fundamental rights.” He adds that instead of instituting a law, non-government organisations could be encouraged to distribute the excess food at weddings among the poor.

“I am against wasting food at home. But sorry, I can’t let lawmakers decide how much food I should order for parties or marriage,” says Kaushik, who’s planning to get married soon.

Is the food minister listening?