CITYZEN. The new contours of cultural conflict

There are new frontiers of conflict emerging within Indian cities; those of culturally determined food habits. The brutal murder of a man on the mere rumour of having eaten beef is a pointer that this border can be as murderous as any national boundaries. Dalit students have led beef festivals in institutions of higher learning, just as there is a quieter but more determined push by others to make the messes in such institutions vegetarian.

The established approach to such differences in Indian cities has been to go by the supremacy of property; a family being largely entitled to eat what it likes within the boundaries of its home. It is this willingness to treat the home as the final frontier that is now being threatened. There has been an effort to take the practices of some homes into public spaces, as in the aggressive imposition of vegetarianism. And now there is movement in the opposite direction as we take the public, in the form of lynch mobs, into the homes of those with different culturally determined diets.

The potential for this conflict to go completely out of control should not be underestimated. Of the three essentials of roti , kapda , and makaan , food is in many ways the most necessitous. The knee-jerk reaction to such situations these days is to insist that the majority view must prevail.

But this is a lot easier said than done. Even hardline state-controlled cities invariably find it necessary to make concessions to influential minorities. There are Islamic cities that rigidly follow, and strictly enforce, very constraining Islamic norms but are forced to allow enclaves for expatriates where there is no restriction on what is eaten, or drunk.

In India, the problem is one of deciding the relevant majority. There are Hindu, Muslim and Christian majority states. And the variations within these religious groups can be quite substantial. Pork is widely eaten among Kodavas in Karnataka but not by other non-vegetarian Hindus. And the non-vegetarian segment of the Hindu population is also very large if not the majority. Seeking a common diet for those who live in our cities will bring out the conflicts between multiple culturally determined tastes.

These conflicts are bound to have a fundamental adverse impact on our cities. Our urban centres are already torn apart by multiple conflicts. The gender conflict is threatening to make cities uninhabitable for half the population. It may be popular to pretend that caste divisions no longer exist, but that only leaves us open to be surprised by the impact of the likes of Hardik Patel and their agitations. Creating a new battleground around culturally determined tastes will make our cities even more arduous.

Even those who like to see our cities as nothing more than engines of growth cannot ignore this reality. The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index may not include social unrest as an indicator, but it is difficult to see investors being enthusiastic about investing in cities that are periodically disrupted by social upheaval.

Investors know that unsettled cities strain the law enforcement machinery and make it difficult for the government to ensure norms are followed elsewhere, particularly in the real estate market. And any investor distrust of the social stability of our cities will negatively impact not just the growth of the cities but that of the economy as a whole. There are thus economic as well as moral consequences of preventing individuals from following the diet of their choice.

Avoiding these adverse consequences would require us to re-establish the traditional Indian practice of not interfering in the other’s meal, no matter how strong the commitment to one’s own dietary habits. As that great Indian vegetarian, MK Gandhi pointed out, in 1931, to a student who found it difficult to dine with meat-eating Muslims: “... remember that there are many more meat-eating Hindus than Mussalmans. A vegetarian may with impunity dine with meat-eaters, Hindu and others, so long as he has eatable food cleanly prepared and placed before him.”

Gandhi has long been seen an enemy of Indian cities. But now when our cities threaten to tear themselves apart on the frontiers of culturally determined diets, they would do well to listen to the Mahatma.

The writer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru

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