Editorial: Veggie vagaries

NEW DELHI: In what appears to be a rapid about turn to a corporate faux pax of alarming proportions, a food delivery aggregator recently rolled back the move to introduce green uniform for its new fleet, clarifying that all its riders will continue to wear red. The reversal happened in the aftermath of intense flak being directed at the company which launched a Pure Veg Mode service, intended for strictly vegetarian customers in India, to be delivered by a Pure Veg Fleet. Part of the plan involved introducing green uniforms for its vegetarian fleet, as well as green delivery boxes instead of the standard red ones.

The pure veg vertical was created to fulfil orders from restaurants that serve only pure vegetarian food, and excluded eateries serving non-veg food items. The reasoning was that sometimes the non-veg food spills into the delivery boxes, leading to an ‘olfactory contamination’ of other boxes, which might upset the vegetarian customers. Denizens on social media had a field day schooling the aggregator on just how regressive this move was, likening it to an action that was borderline casteist. Some people expressed apprehensions that a few societies and RWAs might bar Zomato’s regular fleet from entering their premises, purely on the basis of the red-green colour segregation.

The proceedings don’t seem surprising in a milieu where various states are adopting increasingly restrictive legislations with an aim to regulate even the dietary choices of the people. Three years ago in Ahmedabad, roadside stalls were instructed by the municipality to desist from selling non-vegetarian food, citing the ‘negative impact on young minds’. And last December, the newly formed government of Madhya Pradesh, in its inaugural cabinet meeting, banned the sale of meat, fish and eggs in the open. Recall that in the backdrop of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, as well as Madhya Pradesh had imposed blanket bans on the sale of meat and fish on the auspicious occasion.

The administration in Ayodhya went so far as to instruct meat vendors to relocate their shops several hundred kilometres away oblivious to the inconvenience caused to the thousands of military personnel posted in these regions who depend on these meat vendors for their dietary needs. What serves as a whack on the side of the head for all this high-handedness is the fact that as per the National Family Health Survey 5 (2019-21), almost 57.3% of men and 45.1% of women relish chicken, fish, or other varieties of meat at least once a week. While Christians occupied the top spot in meat consumption in India (80%), they were closely followed by Muslims and Buddhists, and finally by Hindus at 50%.

For those who are still crying hoarse about our vegetarian credentials, India has now emerged as the second largest beef exporter in the world, which might sound ironic considering our glorious track record pertaining to episodes of cow vigilantism that has claimed numerous victims. One might have heaved a sigh of relief presuming that states in south India were immune to such developments, something that was proven otherwise in Karnataka. Thankfully, Tamil Nadu and its sister state Kerala have managed to keep a good head on the shoulders — there are even temples here where the divine offering tends to be mutton biryani, or in some cases, dry fish. It’s a good enough reason to not raise a stink.