Sometime in March, during the auspicious period of Navratri (literally meaning nine nights) when pious HIndus fast or eat vegetarian food celebrating Goddess Durga's battle with demons and the triumph of good over evil, a couple of bearded men in saffron attire confronted shop owners in a popular fish market in Delhi's tony neighbourhood of Chittaranjan Park. The area is dominated largely by Bengali speaking residents whose forebears got land from the Indian government in the late sixties and seventies as recompense for the land Hindu families lost in East Pakistan after it became Bangladesh. The market abuts an expanding temple dedicated to Goddess Kali that was collectively set up and maintained till today by the shop owners, including the fish vendors.

In a tone that was initially questioning but later turned threatening, the men wanted the bustling fish market which has been around for nearly 60 years to be moved as it was against "Sanatan Dharma" to have killing of living creatures next to a temple and was not only hurting the religious sentiments of Sanatanas (an euphemism for righteous Hindus) but was against Hindu scriptures.  

A video of the interlopers speaking to shop owners and shoppers in an intimidating tone soon went viral in the neighbourbood community groups and among non-resident Bengalis across India, including Bengal. Bengalis were understandably outraged and saw this as an insidious attempt to to interfere in their culture and eating habits.  And fish was not only a staple among Bengalis - and others in eastern India like Assamese, Odiyas and even Northeasterners - but is integral to Bengali culture, religion and  way of life.  As the temple priest, in an interview to PTI news agency, said they had no problem with selling of meat and fish shops adjacent to the temple "as non-vegetarian (food) was also used during 'puja'. "

Rightwing politico-cultural agenda

Many saw this as an insidious attempt by the Hindu rightwing to impose their politico-cultural agenda. After all,  goons wearing saffron clothes that identifies with the Hindutva fraternity had dismantled shacks selling meat and fish in the poorer areas outlying Chittaranjan Park during Navratri  and had threatend the vendors from setting them up again. These shacks had been around for years and served the domestic workers who found the prices of fish expensive in the more upmarket Chittaranjan Park. 

The mainstream politicians were quick to get into the act. Mohua Moitra, the fiery MP of the Bengal-based Trinamool Congress, shot off a tweet: ""Terrorising Hindu fishmongers into shutting legal shops next to a temple they built - BJP goons caught on video but not yet arrested. Hello Delhi Police - Or are we all supposed to eat dhoklas and chant Jai Shri Ram?

Saurabh Bhardrwaj,  the leader of the Aam Admi Party in Delhi and who was three-time legislator from the area in the Delhi assembly,  too jumped in to tweet: "These fish shops were allotted by the DDA (Delhi Development Authority). This is not any illegal encroachment. If the BJP had a problem with CR Park Bengalis eating fish, they should have said so in their manifesto," he said.

He went on to add gratuitously: "Bengalis in CR Park are one of the most educated communities in Delhi. Their sentiments and eating habits must be respected. I am a vegetarian and I never had a problem with their eating habits. Why is the BJP creating problems in such a peaceful area?" 

Shikha Rai, the local BJP lawmaker who had defeated Bhardwaj in the February elections, was quick to visit the market  and condemn the act while expressing her "unwavering support to the fish market traders". She called it "deliberate and malicious campaign aimed at maligning the BJP".

The BJP, sensing alienation from an influential community on a sensitive issue, took the familiar deniability route to distance itself from what happened in Chittaranjan Park, with its spokesmen talking of "doctored videos" that had been spread with malafide intentions to disturb social harmony.     

Battle for monoculturalism

Although the immediate outrage among the community died down, lingering doubts remained about the men in saffron and their political affiliations. Many saw this as an attempt by the Hindu Right to "test the waters", with the community pushback, in the form of letters to police and administration and social media storm, not just locally but in Bengal and among the diaspora,  taking them by surprise. 

This is not the first time the Hindu Right has tried to impose their cultural norms on others, including liberal and inclusive Hindus who may not subscribe to their fundamentalist ideological line. Opposition voices have criticised the ruling BJP for its thinly disguised agenda to "homogenise India" with their rhetoric of One Country, One Language, One Culture, ignoring the country's age-old pluralism and diversity. 

And its not that the BJP has not tried. It tried to ban beef in the Northeast and in Goa but to hastily retreat in the face of a fierce pushback.  In Bengal, it is often said by locals, that the reason the BJP has not been able to make deeper electoral inroads is because of fear - often spread mischievously by BJP's opponents - that if the saffron party comes to power it would ban fish eating, impose Hindi and replace the popular Durga Puja with worship of northern deities.

At its annual executive meeting in Nagpur that heralds its future ideological agenda, the RSS, the ideological fountainhead of Hindu nationalist movement, resolved to push for "One Nation, One Culture". Curiously, this happened just days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the RSS headquarters that is seen as a political endorsement by his government of RSS's agenda. So despite public deniability in the face of a community pushback,  the Hindu rightwing, under whichever organisational nomenclature, is unlikely to give up "battle for monoculturalism", especially since it has been remarkably successful in fulfilling its major political and legislative agendas in terms of removal of Article 360,  banning triple talaq, amending the Waqf Act with only the Uniform Civil Code left to implement, although it has been made into law in a couple of BJP-ruled states. 

Most Indians are non-vegetarian

Although, across the world, and in many international airlines, all Indians are perceived as vegetarian, a Pew Research Center survey in 2021 found that the majority of Indians actually do not describe themselves as vegetarians. When asked if they are vegetarian, 61% of Indians said “no.” The survey found that only about four-in-ten Indian adults say they are vegetarian, though many non-vegetarians restrict meat in their diet, while growing number of people who are vegetarian do not stop their children from having fish and eggs citing dietary requirements. 

What was interesting in the survey was the significant regional variation among Hindus on this question, a point that is not often acknowledged or understood by north-dominated political leaders.  According to the Pew survey, the majority of Hindus in Northern (71%), Central (61%) and Western (57%) India say they are vegetarians, while this is much rarer in the East (18%), Northeast (19%) and South (30%). 

India's own NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) data on household consumption patterns show that while the overall estimate of vegetarianism in India is around 41%, there are significant variations across states, with some states like Assam and West Bengal having a low incidence of vegetarianism while others like Rajasthan and Haryana having a very high incidence, a reflection of the larger ignorance of the people in northern India to eating patterns - and by extension cultural mores - in other parts of the country as evidenced in the CR Park incident. 

Such militant Hinduism is against the very ethos of a religion that Swami Vivekananda spoke about so evocatively in his historic speech at Chicago's Parliament of World Religions on 11 September 1893, where he spoke of Hinduism

teaching the world not just tolerance for other religions and  practices but universal acceptance. 

An eclectic faith with no supreme authority, that accommodate diverse centres of belief and practice, can always be susceptible to manipulation and misinterpretation. A tendency to arrogate theological authority to a self-serving stream of thought and negation of other religio-cultural practices is alien to the spirit of Sanatan Dharma, which is inherently inclusive in character and sees no basis for excluding any belief.  

(The writer is a veteran journalist and editor. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at tarunbasu.sps@gmail.com)