Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Credit: PTI Photo
Does the identity of the cook or the waiter have anything to do with the food served in an eatery? If you live in Uttar Pradesh, the answer is ‘Yes’.
Two ordinances soon to be introduced in the state, ostensibly for ‘food safety’, make it mandatory for employees of eateries to display their names on badges. They also make spitting, or mixing any other human waste in food, an offence.
It cannot be that the state law and judiciary department is unaware that under the Food Safety and Standards Act India, 2006, anyone who manufactures, stores, or sells unsafe food can be punished for terms ranging from six months to life, and a fine ranging from Rs one to 10 lakh.
Why then this new law?
The rationale given is a spate of recent incidents in UP wherein people have allegedly been found contaminating food with spit and urine. However, the videos circulated do not show these acts being committed.
In four of the incidents, the accused are Muslims. Sections of the electronic media assumed that the fifth offender had to be Muslim, and even used the phrase ‘urine jihad’ for the incident. Ironically, Reena Kumar is the only offender caught on video in the act of mixing urine with dough.
However, the way these ordinances have been framed, makes one question the official claim that it is these recent incidents that prompted them. One is titled the ‘Prevention of Pseudo and Anti-Harmony Activities and Prohibition of Spitting Ordinance’. How does the act of spitting on food become an ‘anti-harmony’ act? The answer can be traced to the calumny spread through social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, that Muslims as a rule spit on food while preparing it and further, that they were doing this to spread the virus to their Hindu customers (‘thook jihad’). These allegations were time and again busted; one cook even had to spend four months in jail before the Centre revoked the National Security Act under which he was charged. Yet, this false narrative has stuck, thanks to the persistence with which it was pushed by some TV channels and WhatsApp groups.
This fake theory also helped validate the unconstitutional call to Hindus to boycott Muslim businesses. Till 2014, this call was made after every communal riot, but since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took power at the Centre, the boycott call has become a full-fledged campaign.
The strange word ‘pseudo’ in the title of the same ordinance is also not hard to decipher, given that ‘concealing one’s identity’ has been made an offence in these ordinances. The common phenomenon of Muslims using neutral or Hindu names for their establishments, makes the BJP see red; some Muslims have even been attacked for this.
The second ordinance evokes the consumers’ right to know: Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Contamination in Food (Consumer Right to Know) Ordinance. But know what? Not the contaminants used in the food being consumed, but in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s words “the necessary information about the food and beverage service providers and vendors.’’
In September, the Adityanath government directed all owners of eateries to display their names on their establishments, disregarding the fact that the Supreme Court stayed a similar directive issued during the just-concluded Kanwar Yatra. At that time, the government justified this directive by saying that the kanwariyas’ sentiments must be respected. But many kanwariyas told the media that it made no difference to them who owned the food stalls.
When the Ram temple in Ayodhya was consecrated in January, Adityanath gushed that this marked the beginning of ‘Ram Rajya’. That wasn’t the first time the saffron-clad chief minister invoked the concept of Ram Rajya to describe his regime. One of the most popular stories about Ram is his eating the fruit which had already been tasted by the tribal Shabri, despite Lakshman warning him not to do so. Rather than worry about its ‘purity’, Ram understood the devotion that had made Shabri taste the fruit before serving it to him. Nor did he care about her lowly status. On the other hand, here is a government that constantly invokes Ram, but does just the opposite. By these ordinances, it sows mistrust among its citizens, telling one section not to trust the food offered by their fellow citizens, only because the latter's touch has rendered it ‘impure’.
Can a State which forces those involved in offering food to display their identity, in the name of guaranteeing the ‘purity’ of the food, be described as Ram Rajya?
Another favourite term of this regime, and especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is ‘Vishwaguru’ to describe India. Modi’s followers boast that under him, India has become a power to reckon with.
The shameful reality, however, is that our country is the only democracy in the world to force its citizens to display their identities. The last time such identification was forced on citizens was under Hitler in Nazi Germany.
(Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.