Don't let the sumptuous story of Goan food go sour

One often wonders what makes Goans so content. And, it’s not very difficult to guess the answer. They have the sun, sea, sand and a delectable cuisine – fish-curry-rice, prawn-curry-rice, fish-recheado, pork-vindaloo, chicken-cafreal, chicken-xacuti, beef croquette and beef roast. So, for Goans, their contentment also comes from the food and it also nourishes the soul.

Take away any one of the above, and their contentment quotient will flounder and slip. And so, when a few years back, the Centre notified the ban of sale of cattle for slaughter, Goa ferociously fought against the feckless ruling, compelling the central government to take note.

People of the coastal paradise on both sides – vegetarians and non-vegetarians – have stood united and not let their food habits divide them.

But like everything else in Goa, a transformation in its food landscape is slowly creeping in. Still imperceptible, but a culinary revolution is in motion. It’s not just changing what Goan eateries are offering but the freedom to choose what you eat is also being threatened through subtle social persuasions or sly moves.

What the metamorphosis is doing is slowly erasing the picture Goan meat staples on Goa’s food canvas and drawing pictures of vegetarian food on it – an unthinkable idea in Goa just a few years back. Also, not uncommon is the dictate by certain public canteens to serve only plant-based food during Hindu auspicious periods.

Increasingly, Goa’s vegetarians are beginning to assert themselves.  If they are not able to convert meat-eaters to vegetarianism, they are finding ways to segregate themselves at public eating places to drive home the message of their intolerance and superiority of their eating habit.  

Authorities of a leading school in Goa were pressurised by vegetarian teachers to install a separate microwave oven in the staff-room for them just because they could not bear the smell of non-vegetarian food. Such food intolerance, if not checked, could take us to a place where Gujarat, UP, Uttarakhand and other States have reached.   

Early this week, Gujarat’s pilgrimage city Palitana reportedly made killing of animals for meat that could be sold and consumed a criminal offence, punishable by law. The ruling came about following a protest by 200 Jain monks against butchers in the area.  

Notably, Palitana is not the first city in Gujarat to ban non-veg food. There’s precedence of such a move in other cities of Gujarat like Rajkot, Vadodara, Junagadh and Ahmedabad, where preparation and display of non-veg food in public areas are prohibited. Their sanguine reasoning is sight of meat in public causes distress in people, especially children.

UP, Madhya Pradesh and other such States have also been aggressively promoting vegetarianism in a way that encroaches on people’s right to choose what they eat. A few decades back, one could never have imagined the right to freedom to choose what you eat would ever be in danger in India, especially in Goa. It was taken as an unassailable right of people. That belief is slowly eroding as food racism is slowly becoming a reality.   

And, as this new reality takes shape, can the non-vegetarians defend their right to eat foods of their choice. This subject has been discussed and debated on various forums, including the courts. Constitutionally, it still falls in the grey area. So, even though the Article 21 of the Indian constitution protects the right to life and personal liberty, it doesn’t specifically cover the right to choice of food.

The flipside of this argument, which has been reportedly maintained by the Supreme Court and various high courts, is no authority can decide what a person can eat. Such a decision cannot fall in the realm of policy or law makers.

The provisions of Article 25, which offers right to freedom of religion including right of profess, practice and propagate it, have also been used in the courts to argue for the right of person to consume meat as it is part of religious practice in some communities.

Interestingly, India’s dominance in vegetarianism perpetuates the myth that majority of Indians are vegetarians. In fact, non-meat-eaters constitute less than 30 per cent of India’s population

Data published by the Registrar General of India in 2016 reveal that 28.4 per cent of men and 29.3 per cent of women were vegetarians, while 71.6 per cent of men and 70.7 per cent of women were non-vegetarians.

In Goa, the ratio of vegetarians and non-vegetarians would be more sharply skewed toward the latter. And so, to keep the spirit of democracy alive in the State, it is imperative to safeguard every citizen’s right to choice of food. If not for the food democracy, it should be done to maintain Goa’s high contentment quotient.