Opinion Express View on meat bans on Independence Day: Withdraw them

The proposed imposition of meat-sale bans by civic bodies in Maharashtra — from Kalyan Dombivli to Malegaon to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalgaon and Nagpur — on August 15 strikes a jarring note. Citing a 1988 government order as precedent, officials have framed it as a routine measure to maintain “public order”. But the curbing of personal liberty in the name of decorum, even for a single day, selectively targets communities, threatens livelihoods — and goes against the spirit of celebration of freedom.

Not just opposition parties like the Shiv Sena (UBT), even Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has questioned the rationale behind the prohibitions (even if he has controversially upheld their necessity on religious occasions): “While it is important to keep public sentiments and faith in mind on certain occasions like Ashadhi Ekadashi or Mahavir Jayanti … there are no reasons why there should be a ban on meat and non-vegetarian food on Maharashtra Day, Independence Day, Republic Day.” CM Devendra Fadnavis has backed his deputy and said his government is “not interested in (knowing) who eats what.” Unfortunately, however, the imposition of vegetarianism by state diktat is not a Maharashtra-only phenomenon. In Telangana, for instance, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has announced a two-day closure of meat shops, on both Independence Day and Janmashtami (August 16). During the annual Kanwar Yatra or Navratri, in states such as Uttar Pradesh, bans on the sale of meat have become a routine assertion of a state-backed majoritarian impulse, couched as deference to “public sentiments”. They are an infringement, as Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has termed it, responding to the GHMC’s decision, of the “people’s right to liberty, privacy, livelihood, culture, nutrition and religion”.

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That such bans continue to find official favour points to a deeper discomfort with diversity — cultural, religious or culinary — and a political and administrative imagination that is homogenising, and sees the idea of India as a monolith. As India’s industrial and commercial nucleus, Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, has long been a bastion of pluralism, sustained by a tapestry of faiths, languages, cuisines, traditions, commerce and aspirations — moving forward not despite, but because of, its diversity. Recent rollbacks by the Fadnavis government in Maharashtra — from caste disclosures on exam hall tickets to the eggless midday meal policy — show that discriminatory decisions can, and should, be reversed before they cause damage. In the same spirit, the meat bans must be withdrawn immediately.