5 min readSep 9, 2026 06:04 PM IST First published on: Sep 9, 2026 at 06:04 PM ISTWhen I think of Durga Puja, I invariably think of my mother’s table. My late mother, Chitra Ghose, an extraordinary cook, was known for her magnificent Ashtami feasts: Khichuri, fish fry and the omnipresent kosha mangsho (slow cooked spicy mutton). At my mother’s table, orthodox puritanism of any form was anathema — food was abundant, so was acceptance of many culinary traditions.My mother’s family friend was another legendary chef, the late Minakshie ‘Kewpie’ Dasgupta, whose family started the unique Kolkata home eatery “Kewpie’s Kitchen”. Nobody inspected my mother’s or Kewpie’s dishes to decide whether the food was sufficiently “Hindu”, or not. No food police dictated what should or should not be served.AdvertisementAlso Read | Bengali Hindus know how to worship. They don’t need lessonsEvery Bengal household has its own customs. Some observe a vegetarian Ashtami. Others choose to eat differently. In plural, varied Bengal, food traditions do not wait for clerics to approve the menu.Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, popularly known as Bageshwar Baba, has obviously never heard of Kewpie Dasgupta or Chitra Ghose. The Baba recently appealed for non-vegetarian food to be kept away from Durga Puja pandals, as did the VHP in an advisory. Bengal is now being instructed on the “correct” way to celebrate its own beloved festival.Bageshwar Baba is not simply a freelance divine — he enjoys government patronage. Bengal’s BJP Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and the chief secretary have felicitated the Baba. So when Bageshwar Baba speaks, he is airing the mentality of a section of the Sangh Parivar, which is weaponising food choices to expand political power.AdvertisementVegetarianism, when freely chosen, deserves complete respect. Compulsory vegetarianism — or vegetarianism by official signaling turns personal choice into a hierarchy and state diktat. Some food is declared “pure”, other food “impure”; some citizens become custodians of “sanatan dharma”, others must explain and apologise.Food hierarchy bears a caste dimension. The elevation of upper-caste dietary codes as the national standard is highly exclusivist. Such a mentality arranges food traditions of communities on a social ladder. Communities across India that eat meat are told it’s somehow not a sanskari choice. Yet there is no such thing as a single “Hindu diet”. What is being sold as so-called “tradition” is the imposition of one community’s custom as the norm for all.The Bengal BJP has scrambled to distance itself from Shastri’s prescription but the BJP’s hypocrisy is evident. During Bengal polls this year, BJP leaders disseminated photo-ops of themselves enjoying fish curry. But that was only election signaling. In Delhi, the BJP has repeatedly pushed for closure of meat shops during Navratri. In BJP-ruled Goa, cow vigilante groups have attempted to control the beef trade. In UP, the Yogi government has tried to clamp down on mainly Muslim-owned butcher shops. In a sharp irony, India’s buffalo meat exports have continued to grow during the BJP’s tenure, crossing $5 billion in 2025-26.In June, there were reports of eggs being dropped from Bengal’s school midday meals. Although eggs have now been reportedly reinstated, a cunningly informal, unstated yet official signal hangs in the air. In Varanasi in 2025, the municipal corporation prohibited the sale of meat, poultry and fish during Navratri.The Sangh Parivar’s fantasy of a uniformly vegetarian India is just that — a fantasy. Pew Research Center’s 2021 survey found that only 39 per cent of Indian adults described themselves as vegetarian. A 2006 CSDS survey on food found that not only are a whopping 60 per cent Indians non-vegetarian but 45 per cent Brahmins are also non-vegetarian. Historian DN Jha has documented meat consumption in ancient India. Vegetarianism as the pursuit of political power — by calling it so-called “protection of tradition” — is deeply fraudulent.There’s a constitutional issue here. In the landmark 2017 Puttaswamy judgment, the Supreme Court recognised privacy as intrinsic to life and personal liberty. The apex court protected personal choices — what to eat or what to wear. Godmen are entitled to advocate vegetarianism. But citizens are equally entitled to pursue their own choices. Political patronage cannot convert a religious preference into a civic obligation enforced by tacit state sanction.Food policing belongs in the wider argument about personal freedom: Who we marry, how we worship, what we wear, and what we eat are all constitutionally guaranteed liberties. The BJP-RSS ideological project repeatedly seeks to wield state authority over personal freedoms. The BJP-RSS are control freaks: Imposing a rigid conformity as a precondition for belonging to the nation.you may likeDurga Puja is the shrine of the Sacred Feminine — female divinity as public assertion. Pujo is about public piety, public celebration, the public sphere as a shared sacred space of memory, family and self-expression. Pujo’s uniquely free and democratic spirit includes all — those eating vegetarian bhog or fish or mutton, or the artist exploring new depictions of the Goddess. State power or political ideologies cannot attempt to restrict, dictate or nationalise the joy of Durga Puja.My mother did not need a godman’s permission to celebrate Durga Puja. Neither does any citizen. The BJP-RSS has no constitutional right to invade our kitchens and police our plates. Our food, our faith and our festivals belong to us, the citizens of free India.The writer is MP, Rajya Sabha, All India Trinamool Congress