#BeefBan: Holy cow! It's just food
It was the year 2012, when Manipur one of the seven states in the Northeastern part of the country had its Legislative Assembly elections for its 60 seats of which 42 seats went to the Congress. The BJP which is currently playing with the idea of a country call for a beef ban had zero in its kitty in the state. While there are "n" number of reasons as to why the Congress seat count was a whopping 42 out of 60 seats, a contributing factor was a significant appeal that was used specifically in the hills of Manipur where the Congress candidates started their election campaigns with a "Are you sure you want to vote for a party that will decide that we will stay off beef? What will we eat then?" This would be met with the crowds shouting back a resounding "No" followed up by speeches and then rounded off by a meal that served beef! A more recent phenomenon that got a certain amount of media mention was when the BJP's party president and the PM's favourite Amit Shah was met by a beef party when he arrived in Meghalaya in April this year for a tour of the region.
And even as people across the country and those on social media talk about the freedom of choice and the tyranny of the political majority, what is important to realise for all of us is that food, that basic necessity for all living beings is necessitated by factors beyond religion, factors like the terrain of a region or even what is available in that environment. Many practicing Buddhists who affirm their faith in non-violence also eat meat, more so those living in high altitude areas like Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, etc.
When a political party gets on its high horse and decide to call a ban on beef, we would definitely need a moment of sanity and ask whether they are talking of this very country called India that has often prided itself for its diversity. Then again, politicians, they say are the worst scoundrels: They will change colour, shape, form and what not. There is hope in this too: They are known to backtrack and to contradict each other. Isn't that all that we have seen many in the current political leadership doing? Home minister flagging off that beef ban call, Menaka Gandhi joining in (wait again, will she make a ban milk offensive, that being her favourite pet peeve?), followed by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi who kindly showed the way "to Pakistan and other Arab countries", followed by Kiren Rijiju. The last gentleman being the only face from the region in the Central government who gets to be in hidden mode every time the Chinese premier comes visiting. Rijiju has presumably said something on the lines of saying something that was seen as not agreeing with the beef ban but his flip-flop in another state in the region (in Mizoram) resulted in him saying "food habits cannot be stopped but the Hindu faith and sentiment must be respected in Hindu majority states".
Kiren's understanding and knowledge of his own region is that flawed, and if you thought that Hindus do not eat meat, please be prepared to do a double take at the count of 1-2-3… To think that only tribals (read Christians) of Manipur or those living in the other parts of the region are the only consummate meat eaters, that's as misleading as assuming that being a meat eater is an indicator to one's religious affiliations. For starters, the Meiteis who form the majority of Manipur's population are in fact Hindus and eat meat, a far cry from just less than a decade or two when elders in the family simply dissuaded youngsters in the family to eat meat. My father often told me how he decided to stay off eggs following an incident where he demanded to taste an egg, my grandfather asked him to prepare it on a piece of a broken earthen pot outside the gate, have a dip in the river and then have himself "purified" before entering the house again. My grandfather is still alive but his grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have moved to different parts of the country and the world no longer worry about what they eat and where they eat, nor look for his approval over what goes on their plate.
On a delicious note of irony: Manipur's hill districts have elections for the district council lined up on June 1. I would bet my last money that the BJP would also be hosting its share of election-related feasts as is the norm here, where the menu will definitely feature beef, regardless of what its leaders have to say. Holy cow!
Also read: What do Manusmriti and Dharmashastra have to say about homosexuality?