Thus, in the Modi worldview, eating mutton is somehow against the interests of Indians. Eating fish is similarly anti-national, as was evident from the PM’s reaction to a video of Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav
eating fish. Not only is eating mutton and fish anti-Hindu, but the Congress party itself, is, for some reason, akin to the Muslim League.
The messaging here sounds patently absurd but is, in fact, cunningly communal. Come election time and Hindu-Muslim polarisation becomes reflexive for Modi, a politician whose career has been built on religious name-calling and polarisation. Accusing the Opposition of eating non-vegetarian food during Navratri and calling the Congress manifesto similar to that of the Muslim League is designed to “other” the Opposition and cast it as un-Hindu, anti-Bharat, and anti-national while stigmatising it as somehow ‘Muslim
The assumption here is that Hindu society or the “majority” is a homogenous group that remains “pure vegetarian” during Navratri, while Modi’s political competitors are meat-and fish-gobbling quasi-Muslims who present ‘Muslim’ manifestos, appease Muslims, have a Mughal (read Muslim) mindset, and thus can’t hope to represent India. The pitch is that Modi is a true Indian and true Hindu because he eats vegetarian food during Navratri. The others are a pack of anti-Indian non-vegetarians who are the enemies of Bharat.
Muslims are the perpetual enemy, and all “Muslim” symbols such as the Mughals, biryani, and the Muslim League are hate objects that need to be constantly vilified to keep the Hindutva flock galvanised.
The suggestion that Hindus are supposed to be vegetarian or that only those who eat vegetarian food during Navratri are true Hindus without a “Mughal mindset” is ludicrous, sly, manipulative, and certainly not constitutional.
First, large sections of India, such as West Bengal and parts of South India do not observe Navratri rituals in the same way as North India. In Bengal, for example, devotional occasions are often accompanied by non-vegetarian feasts such as the
Jora Ilish (a pair of hilsa fish) during Saraswati Puja and mutton curry during Vijaya Dashami. Second, a 2006 State of the Nation survey on food habits conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for
Hindu-CNN-IBN found that only 31 per cent of Indians were vegetarian. A 2021
India Today survey deduced that more than 70 per cent of Indians ate non-vegetarian fare. The BJP’s first PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was
famously non-vegetarian and when researching my biography on him, I found no evidence that he ever observed Navratri or periods of vegetarianism. So why is a pan-Indian narrow-minded “food
sanskriti” being sneakily imposed as a cultural standard across India?