West Bengal Egg Row Highlights India's Societal Divisions

A significant controversy has erupted in India's West Bengal, where a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, whose support base includes traditionalist Hindus, recently moved to drop eggs from the midday meal program in the state capital, Kolkata. The midday meal program is a crucial policy that has helped reduce malnutrition among India's large population of poor and hungry children. Eggs are considered a vital and cost-effective source of protein for growing children. However, the government proposed to award the contract for meal preparation to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a group that promotes a vegetarian diet. While ISKCON is known for its quality products, its catering services do not offer options for eggs or meat. Many traditional schools of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist thought, including Vaishnavism, advocate for a sattvic diet, which promotes mental clarity and peace by avoiding pungent foods, meat, and eggs. Many such groups believe eating eggs is akin to consuming embryos. Furthermore, different jatis, or caste groups, have their own dietary traditions, with more prestigious jatis tending to follow sattvic diets that exclude eggs. Notably, 96 percent of Kolkatans are non-vegetarian. While schools in other Indian states like Karnataka or Bihar offer midday meals with both egg and eggless options, West Bengal is considering a model similar to neighboring Odisha, where schools could procure eggs separately with additional funding. At the root of this controversy lie politics and religious beliefs, but the issue extends beyond them. The West Bengal egg controversy sheds light on the broader structure of Indian society: how can a modern polity be created in a society with thousands of communities holding diverse cultural practices, including dietary expectations? For many families, it is not enough that their children are not forced to eat eggs or meat; choice itself becomes the problem. If students have the option of eating eggs or meat at school, they might drift away from their families' and communities' dietary customs. The distinction between an individual choosing to eat an egg privately and that choice being openly available to all is significant, explaining why proponents of egg exclusion frame their position as preventing children from being corrupted. The idea is for society to opt out of egg consumption by default, establishing a baseline vegetarian diet in public spaces to avoid tempting vegetarians. For traditional communities seeking to preserve their customs, public spheres like schools, malls, and restaurants pose a potential threat as they enable interaction and mixing between different jatis and communities. Issues like the egg controversy arise from the tension between the demands of traditional social units and the reality of a developing public sphere in contemporary India. No country, especially one as large, diverse, and globally connected as India, can restrict life solely to the familial sphere. The recent alleged murder in Maharashtra, linked to an arranged marriage dispute, also highlights the tension between parental choices and individual choices made in the public sphere. The premise of a democratic society with a market economy is that individuals can exercise their rights freely within the law. They can choose their food, purchase items, or marry whomever they meet, regardless of ancestral traditions. The foundations of traditional Indian social life starkly conflict with modernity and its offerings. Indians cannot have it both ways; in modernity, choices and options, including eggs, cannot be avoided if one wishes to consume them. Information Source: The Diplomat Indonesia