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No meat on display in Delhi is the best idea BJP has ever had

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Pathikrit Sanyal
Pathikrit SanyalDec 28, 2017 | 20:05

No meat on display in Delhi is the best idea BJP has ever had

Don’t you just hate it when you’re idly walking in a crowded, dusty, stinking Delhi market on a brisk, smoggy evening, fragrant with PM 2.5, hoping a fly doesn’t lay eggs in your ears or nostrils (because there are so many of them), avoiding cow dung on the road and just watching your step, in case you bump into a gun-wielding lunatic – who first shoots you and then asks if you know who his father is (poor guy, yaar) – and your eyes are suddenly subjected to the hideous display of non-vegetarian items in shops? Eww.

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This is exactly why I think the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (SDMC) proposal to keep all non-vegetarian food items inside shelves, and not be displayed out in the open, is one hundred per cent warranted. The resolution was moved by city councillor Raj Dutt and seconded by Nandini Sharma.

They said that food items displayed in the open posed a danger of “contamination” and also “hurt the sentiments of vegetarian public”. The proposal also added: “If restaurant owners are found displaying non-vegetarian items in public, action against them should be taken as per the municipal law.”

“It has been observed that shops displaying non-vegetarian outside their premises attract dogs and raise hygiene issue. Besides, it is also about hurting the sentiments of people who are vegetarian,” said House leader Shikha Rai, and I must admit she is absolutely correct.

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Photo: Indiatoday.in

As a non-vegetarian, I almost throw up every time I pass by a sabzi-mandi. The smell of raw vegetables is enough to make my stomach churn. Every time I see a cabbage being peeled, I get nightmares (HAVE YOU MONSTERS THOUGHT ABOUT WHT HAPPENED TO THE POOR CABBAGE’S BABY?). And I once bailed from my parent’s anniversary after I saw the caterers at the venue serving veg momos. The pain I feel when I see vegetarian items being displayed with abject insensitivity helps me empathise with the repulsion vegetarians feel when they are forced to look at kebabs or shawarmas or (the worst of the lot) tikkas.

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The BJP has its heart in the right place, but they are slaves to habit. Simply claiming this was an attempt to massage the sensibilities of herbivores would have sufficed. Who would argue with something as sane as that? But, no. An unnecessary issue about hygiene just had to be created, perhaps, with the express purpose of oiling the outrage machine. The BJP is divisive like that. I mean, how else can anyone in their right mind suggest that food displayed outside may be unhygienic, huh?

Have you ever seen the flies swarming around the hunks of meat in shawarma stores falling sick? Have you ever heard of a dog suffering from food poisoning after eating a chicken kathi roll?

This is nothing but the BJP’s fake-news factory at work.

A lot of people seemed to have outraged over the wrong issue on social media. These people, most likely meat-eating communists from the killing fields of Kerala, seemed to feel that vegetarians should just deal with the meat that is displayed in markets, almost grotesquely like human bodies were put on display in flesh markets centuries ago.

For them, I have a simple suggestion. Please move to Pakistan, where meat is aplenty even if shoes are scarce.

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And even as I find myself pledging to vote for the BJP in the next Delhi Assembly polls (despite the fact that I am a registered UP voter from Noida, I have full faith in EVMs), I would like to make a suggestion to the greatest party in the world: ban gau-shalas from public places.

My empathy, which requires me to feel for my vegan brothers and sisters as well, begs me to argue that milk and producers of milk kept on open display fly in the face of India’s dietary minority. And if the BJP cannot cater to the needs of minorities, which political party in India can?

Last updated: December 28, 2017 | 20:06
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