A pattern to Gujarat's 'ban' on meat display

Isolated incidents look obscure. But strung together, every sequence has a consequence.

On November 12, newspapers in Gujarat front-paged news of the "verbal" directives issued by two key municipal corporations of the state, Vadodara and Rajkot, to ensure that non-vegetarian street food carts remain invisible to the human eye. The stated reason: it hurts religious sensibilities; an unstated fact: a fair share of these in urban agglomerations are minority-owned.

Soon, Junagadh and Bhavnagar municipal corporations chimed in with their version of the verbal orders, and Ahmedabad also sought to raise the pitch. The revenue minister Rajendra Trivedi, a legislator from Vadodara, waded into the turbulence equating these food carts on footpaths with land grabbing and creating health issues.

The timing of the concerted "drive" seemed to have gone woefully wrong as the ante was upped at a time when the enrolment drive under the PM Street Vendor's Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), which covers vendors of food items, was underway. The whiplash from the top was quick and sharp.

As the heat from the street sizzled, the ruling party dithered. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson termed it a decision by individual civic bodies with the party having no role to play. Realising the damage potential, Gujarat BJP chief CR Patil moved in to negate the minister's statement. "He has been told not to make such statements again. The civic bodies too shall not touch carts which are not an obstruction," he said. Chimed in Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, "People are free to eat vegetarian or non-vegetarian food. The state government has nothing to say in the matter."

All municipal corporations are BJP controlled, and Vidhan Sabha elections are due in Gujarat next year. Besides, Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, where no move can evade their hawk-eyed gaze.

Also Read | Ban on non-veg food stalls: When Hindutva seeps into governance

"If the issue is merely hygiene, why differentiate," questions Arvind Sindha, state president of the National Association of Street vendors in India, adding that it should apply across the board. Lost in the welter of disguised zealotry deputising for civic responsibility is the fact that the converging clientele which keeps these non-vegetarian handcarts humming late into the night is predominantly Hindu.

Ahmedabad alone consumes an estimated 150 tonnes of meat and fish and 15 lakh eggs every day. There is disquiet within the ruling party, and enlightened opinion believes such half-wit measures will hurt rather than help. "Jains and upper castes for long remained the face of the Gujarati society, but nearly half of the population does not subscribe to vegetarianism, and these include OBCs, Kshatriyas, tribals, Dalits and Kolis, to name a few", points out noted social scientist Gaurang Jani.

Seen singly, such burst of coordinated civic activism may seem an exception, but when viewed in sequence, over time, the whiff of an agenda emerges.

The whiff of an agenda

Take the case of the Disturbed Areas Act, which was first enacted in 1986 for a temporary period and replaced with a new Act in 1991, which has been substantially amended by the BJP government in July 2019, turning the original objective on its head. The presidential assent came in 2020.

In the aftermath of the 1985 communal riots in Ahmedabad, people in a numerical minority in a particular area were coerced to sell their properties at throwaway prices to move to the security of their communities. The law was brought in to prevent such segregation through distress sale. It empowered the government to declare riot-prone areas as "disturbed", thus requiring additional permission of free consent from the district collector. The aim was to prevent distress sale of properties between communities to change the mixed character of societal co-existence. With a compliant bureaucracy playing footsie with the political leadership, the objective stood turned around on its head, leading to minority residents being driven away from areas that had a mixed population.

It was no wonder that the Gujarat High Court moved on a PIL in January this year and stopped the state government from declaring any locality a "disturbed area" under that law on the ground that it could lead to "improper clustering" of persons from "one community".

Authorities can function in insidious ways, preaching one thing, practising quite the opposite. We have a strange analogy in Gujarat that even foreigners can buy properties in neighbourhoods that Muslims cannot; such is the fact of this Act. Interestingly, every BJP leader, from the PM to the lowly municipal corporator of the ruling pyramid, all take pride that Gujarat has largely been free of communal violence. Yet, the area under the disturbed areas Act goes on increasing. According to published reports, as of August 2019, 770 parts of Ahmedabad alone were declared disturbed areas. Many other areas of the state with minority agglomerations also figure similarly.

Also Read | No one can be stopped from eating veg or non-veg food: Gujarat BJP

Next step: inter-faith marriages

Sequencing further, shift the scene to August this year when the Gujarat High Court stayed key provisions of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act 2021 pertaining to marriages involving religious conversion. Though a larger constitutional challenge is pending, the interim stay provides relief to inter-faith couples.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003 was first enacted during chief minister Narendra Modi's tenure in the aftermath of the 2002 communal riots. It was on the same lines as some other states, except under section 5 of this Act, where a person wanting to convert must seek prior permission from the district magistrate. In 2006, an amendment was passed by the ruling BJP government, which sought to redefine conversions not to include inter-denomination conversion of the same religion. "The amendment said that Jains and Buddhists would be construed as denominations of Hindu religion; Shias and Sunnis shall be construed as denominations of the Muslim religion; and Catholics and Protestants of Christianity. However, the amendment was withdrawn after Buddhists and Jains objected to being bunched as part of the Hindu religion.

Nevertheless, the Vijay Rupani-led BJP government amended the Act, overriding Congress opposition, on April 1 this year, making it operational after the Governor's assent, from June 15. The law ostensibly seeks to end conversions through unlawful means, specifically prohibiting any conversion for marriage, even with the individual's consent except when a prior sanction is obtained from the state. Many BJP ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, have enacted such laws, making the pattern clear.

The amended law shifts the burden of proof of a lawful religious conversion from the converted to their partner and legitimates the intrusion of family and society to oppose inter-faith marriages. The state government then sought rectification of Section 5 of the amended Act, which penalises forcible or fraudulent conversion through marriage, which the High Court had stayed.

The section mandates that priests take prior permission from the district magistrate to convert any person from one religion to another. The one who got converted also needs to intimate the district magistrate in a prescribed form. "We do not find any reason to make any changes in our order," a division bench of chief justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav ruled. The state government has made known its intention to challenge the order in the Supreme Court.

Another sequence with another consequence

In April 2019, the Gujarat High Court quashed three notifications of the Gujarat government that sought to stop the export of livestock from Tuna port in Kutch, terming it a "colourable exercise of powers" to do something which cannot be done directly. A division bench of Justices Harsha Devani and Bhargav Karia termed the decision "grossly illegal, unconstitutional and violative of the petitioners' fundamental rights." Several livestock exporters had sought judicial redressal after the state government issued orders up to December 2018 which banned the export of livestock, principally sheep and goat, from Tuna.

The sequence of events makes for interesting reading. On December 14, 2018, CM Vijay Rupani announced that the government would not allow livestock exports from the port. On the same day, the agriculture department issued a notification under the Gujarat Essential Commodities and Cattle (Control) Act, prohibiting the movement of cattle from outside into any drought-affected area. Kutch had already been declared drought-affected.

Soon after, the director of the animal husbandry informed the collector of customs that the state government had decided to withdraw the services provided for health check-ups of animals to be exported and would not allow the export of live animals until the specified(check-up) facility was established. On the same day, the home department directed the Kutch police to set up check-posts to watch animals' transportation, the High Court noted. It added that" the intention was to prohibit export which is otherwise not a state subject." The state government requested a stay of the order to move the Supreme Court, but no stay was granted.

Note that livestock exports from Tuna in 2016-2017 and 2017-18 had crossed seven lakh heads. Therefore, the state government must have been well aware of the heavy economic loss that the ban around Eid would cause the exporters besides the loss of face, yet it nonchalantly went ahead. Why?

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.