The controversy over beef — more social and political than religious — recalls a lunch in a chinese restaurant in Dhaka hosted by a distinguished Bangladeshi bureaucrat. As he pored over the menu murmuring “What can we order for you…” I realised what bothered him. Beef posed no problem for me, I explained.

“Oh, very good!” exclaimed another guest, also Bangladeshi. I was about to fling courtesy to the winds and retort “Would it have been as good if pork was ordered?” when my host, an eminently civilised man, intervened gently, “There’s nothing good or bad about it. It’s a question of personal sensitivity that others should respect.”
I wish more people were as understanding. Living in a world where lifestyle determined identity, vivian Derozio and his Young Bengal peers exulted in guzzling beef, beer and whisky, and flaunting their action in the face of others to demonstrate their freedom from the fetters of prejudice. Similarly, the “reformed Hindu” (mocked by D.L. Roy in a well-known satirical song) who refused to join the Brahmo Samaj also made a point of eating beef to broadcast repudiation of orthodoxy.
Those gestures of defiance were decreed by the age. But it seems to me that the Jawaharlal Nehru University group calling itself the New Materialists is bent on fighting yesterday’s battles all over again. It would have been perfectly all right if their March 20 discussion of the “Politics of Food Culture: The Holy Cow and Unholy Swine” had been planned as an academic exercise. But the organisers sound evangelical when they say they “felt there were a lot of wrong notions and misunderstanding associated with the concept of beef and pork, and (that) educating people around it should be the first step to start”.
Start what? Another religious movement? No, it’s just hostel catering they want changed. It must be stressed here that pork is twinned with beef only as a diversionary strategic tactic. While some Hindus may identify eating beef with social emancipation, pork has no such symbolic significance for either Muslims or non-Muslims. It’s a religious taboo for the former and just food for the latter. The former external affairs minister, M.c. chagla, had no inhibitions about pork because he wasn’t a practising Muslim.
“JNU is a residential campus that sees an influx of students from every religion including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians” say the New Materialists. “The food habits of each sect vary widely. When it comes to ‘beef’ in particular, students from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Northeast India eat both beef and pork. In addition, there is a sizeable number of students from foreign nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Africa, Korea, China, Japan, Afghanistan, America and Russia who come to study in JNU…”
“For many of them beef is a basic food item. All of them believe they live and come to a country that is democratic and secular (and not a Hindu nation)… Then why should there be any limitation on what one wants to eat?”
There isn’t. The charge is as fallacious as the accusation that Mamata Banerjee has “banned” all newspapers. West Bengal’s 2,500 state libraries may subscribe to only eight listed dailies but other papers print, publish and circulate freely. No one cares who reads what. Similarly, students are at liberty to eat beef to their hearts’ content even if the college dining hall doesn’t provide it. In my teens I lived in a hostel that served only beef because it was the cheapest meat. I accepted the economic logic and didn’t feel a victim of “food fascism”.
JNU is not obliged to cater to the culinary tastes of visiting students from Germany, France, Italy, Africa, Korea, China, Japan, Afghanistan, America and Russia. Nor does India have to prove its secular credentials to foreigners. The “students from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Northeast India” cited can wallow in beef to their hearts’ content in the kebab stalls around Jama Masjid. There must be other restaurants for pork addicts.
Indians posture far too much about food. The Young Bengal leaders and “reformed Hindus” didn’t start it. They followed tradition. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, whose brilliance didn’t save him from sometimes sounding stupid, told me Indians couldn’t speak English because they weren’t brought up on beef. After settling down in England, he argued that Westernisation meant savouring ripe cheese.
My butcher was amused by the Union government’s March 16 notification that beef would not be exported which Organiser hailed as “victory for Hindus”. Beef was exported, the butcher says, even when the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled in New Delhi. It’s like the hypocrisy of swearing by prohibition and disguising drinks exports as “Potable Alcohol”.
As Raja Rajendralala Mitra’s Beef in Ancient India shows, not only is there no scriptural prohibition, but venerable authorities can be cited to prove beef was both a desirable and an essential food. But that’s no reason why it should be forced down the gullets of people who have for generations regarded cows as sacred. A more rational attitude to livestock would be welcome but that, alas, is not the campaign’s purpose.
The newly-empowered at one end of the spectrum are up in arms against entrenched dogmatists at the other. They were more open about it in Hyderabad earlier this month when the Dalit and leftist organisers of a beef festival clashed with vishwa Hindu Parishad activists. I suspect the true purpose is casteist.
That’s why there’s no similarly defiant pork festival. Though the two are linked to create a universalist impression, beef is the only target. Its prohibition is seen as a relic of the Brahmanical leadership of Hindu society and, therefore, a challenge to be overcome.

The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author