Written by: Praskanva Sinharay5 min readOct 14, 2026 04:15 PM IST First published on: Oct 14, 2026 at 04:15 PM ISTThe politics of food has emerged as a key strand of contention in West Bengal in the last decade. What to eat or not eat, who cooks and who sells, and from where to eat are questions of intense public debate and action.In 2025, a Muslim street vendor was thrashed by people for selling chicken puff at a public Gita recital event at the Brigade Parade Ground in Calcutta. In the run-up to the last state assembly election, a social media influencer alleged that beef was served to him instead of the mutton steak at the popular restaurant in Park Street, and the post generated a public uproar. Soon after coming to power, the BJP government faced public criticism and had to clarify its stance on whether eggs would be served to schoolchildren as part of the mid-day meals. Another major debate developed when Bageshwar Baba, a Hindu preacher, called Bengalis who eat non-vegetarian food during Durga Pujo “pakhandis” (hypocrites). Now, a few days before the annual festival of Durga Pujo, the Hindu Jagaran Manch put up posters in Siliguri which read: “No one is stopping you from having biryani; have it from a Hindu’s shop.” Similar incidents of disciplining food choices, buying habits, and advertising of non-vegetarian food outlets took place in other areas like Konnagar.AdvertisementFood has always been a contentious issue – a weapon of political mobilisation, government policies and market decisions in Indian politics. One can recall a plethora of instances from recent memory only: The promotion of vegetarianism by religious/wellness preachers, attempts by political leaders to create social antagonisms along caste and communal lines between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, the finance minister saying that she does not eat onion when asked about price rise in Parliament, closure of meat shops during the Hindu festivities in north Indian states, the launching of a “pure-veg fleet” by a food delivery company, government orders to display names of street vendors for public identification, and calls to boycott Muslim food vendors. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the intensification of the food politics in Bengal’s public sphere coincides with the rise of the BJP and Hindutva forces.Also Read | Until democracy is restored, peaceful struggle for rights will continueHowever, the Bengal story is different, and not aligned with the classic Hindu majoritarian logic of connecting vegetarianism with religiosity and purity. The dietary preferences of Bengal are well-known. An article by Nileena Suresh (Data For India, 2025) shows that 99 per cent of West Bengal’s population eat non-vegetarian items such as eggs, fish, chicken, and meat. Fish and meat are also offered to deities as part of Hindu rituals. To promote vegetarianism in this region to mobilise Hindus and create social fissures is difficult.The RSS and its affiliates have taken up this difficult agenda of transforming the societal norms and habits, which is evident from social media memes connecting Matsya avatar and the habit of fish-eating to similar on-the-ground campaigns promoting vegetarianism as mentioned above. This social engineering project around food, however, has repeatedly made the BJP politically uncomfortable. One can clearly remember that many BJP candidates campaigned with fish in their hands during the assembly polls to assure the voters that there will be no interference with their non-vegetarian food if the party comes to power. The BJP state president publicly stated that “Bangali patha khabe” (Bengalis will always eat mutton). After the Bageshwar Baba incident, the chief minister visited the Kalighat temple to eat the prasada, the traditional fish meal offered to the deity.AdvertisementThe recent campaign by the Hindu Jagaran Manch is a new move in the state’s, what anthropologist Arjun Appadurai calls, “gastro-politics” – “conflict or competition over specific cultural or economic resources as it emerges in social transactions around food.” Unlike before, the Hindutva forces are not calling for a ban on non-vegetarian food, as such a call would likely create fresh discomfort for the BJP and the government amidst festivities. It is a campaign for Hindu consolidation through social and economic boycott of Muslims, an experiment imported from states such as Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Gastro-politics, as Appadurai argued, can create “equality, intimacy, or solidarity” among people, and it can also sustain and produce social hierarchies and antagonisms marked by “rank, distance, or segmentation.” While the first function of gastro-politics is more in tune with the spirit of the annual Bengali carnival, the poster campaign to eat biriyani only from a Hindu shop aims at fulfilling its second function. It remains to be seen how the campaign unfolds in the coming days.The writer is Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O. P. Jindal Global University