Meat ban: Keep calm Maharashtra, treat yourself to Kabirvani

• "Kabira teri jhonpri gal katiyan ke paas,
• Jo karenge so bharenge tu kyon bhayo udaas."
•  

• (O Kabir! Your hut is next to the butchers' bay,
• Why do you feel down? For their conduct they only shall pay.)

Here, the mystic poet, Kabir, tells us to live in the world and focus on our own journey and not worry about the good, bad or ugly going on around us. According to him, the world and its ways will take care of itself, that's not our job - we should focus our attention only on the real reason of coming to the world, to find out who we truly are. All else does not matter. Exactly!

Why should the government bother itself with what the people are eating? Should it not be concerning itself with other issues of governance rather than wasting its time and energy banning food items? Does this not tantamount to "gastronomic terrorism" on its part?

I myself am a vegetarian but have never felt the need to impose my choice of eating or my food habits on others. What's the need? It's a free country and everybody should have the right to decide what one wants to eat. That's the least of the personal liberties that the people of this country expect from a democratic country.

Relevance

This topic becomes more relevant in the background of the meat ban imposed recently by the government of Maharashtra for the period of the Jain festival, Paryushana that prohibited the slaughtering of animals and the sale of meat in Maharashtra, leading to widespread criticism, public uproar and political backlash for the government there.

This was not all, other states like Rajasthan, Haryana and Chhattisgarh, taking a cue from Maharashtra, too banned meat, ostensibly to honour the sentiments of the Jain community in India.

The questions that arise from all this is that is this the role of a government? Should it be allowed to interfere with the Fundamental Rights of the people of the country and dictate its will on their eating habits? How is it that the government remains sensitive to the sentiments of one community and neglects the sentiments of others? And, will it be now the state that will decide on how one should eat, pray, love?

Why should there be any bans in the first place? Banning is retrograde and a slap in the face of personal freedom and Fundamental Rights that democracies are suppose to provide. So, are we still living in a democratic country or has India now become a dictatorship where one leader/political party is deemed supreme to dictate its whims and fancies on the entire population?

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Banned

As if this brouhaha was not enough, the Union minister of culture Mahesh Sharma dropped another bombshell a couple of days back, by saying that meat should now be banned all over India during the nine days of the Hindu festival of Navratras.

Of late, it has been observed that the religious intolerance among the Hindus, especially the Jain and Gujarati communities has been growing and the age old Hindu tradition of tolerance, the philosophy of peaceful coexistence and the ideology of "live and let live" is on the wane.

There have many been instances recently where people from other communities, particularly if they are a non-vegetarian one, have been debarred from seeking residence in a particular area or even be able to take up an apartment on rent in a building where the vegetarians are in a majority.

It is indeed a pity that now, instead of good character and good credentials it will be food habits and religious beliefs that will dictate where one can reside. Where are we heading?

Does this section of the majority community not realise that India is not, by any stretch of imagination, a Hindu nation? Does it know that India is a "secular, democratic" country where people from different religions and faiths coexist peacefully?

Does it respect the Constitution of India that talks of personal freedom, liberties and Fundamental Rights? And lastly, does even the government not spare a thought for the minorities like the Christians and the Muslims of India and for those who have different food habits than those of the pure vegetarian communities like the Jains?

Also read: Impossibility of bans. Be it in Pakistan or India

Judiciary

Thankfully, one pillar of democracy - the judiciary still stands firm. This was exhibited when the Bombay High Court stayed the ban on meat in Maharashtra and when an appeal was made by a Jain organisation to the hon'ble Supreme Court of India to strike down the stay on the ban, the apex court, in a stinging verdict declined to overrule the Bombay HC decision by sending a strong message amidst concerns over mounting curbs on individual liberties and said that "a ban cannot be forced down somebody's throat" and that the "spirit of tolerance" was paramount.

It also asserted that every order of prohibition has to honour the spirit of tolerance and take into account the sensibilities of the people. The bench also quoted the same couplet of poet-saint Kabir, mentioned above, to the advocate who appeared for the Jain organisation, which had challenged the lifting of the ban, and asked him, "So, why do you worry?"

Maybe, another pertinent question that the lordships could have asked the Jain counsel, considering that these blanket and regressive bans affect the livelihood of thousands of workers, who work in abattoirs, meat shops, etc, would have been, "Do you know that one man's meat can be another man's bread?"

Also read: India is wrongly accusing BJP of meat bans instead of Congress