In Kerala, a Beef Fry Dilemma For the BJP

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In Kerala, a Beef Fry Dilemma For the BJP

by Guest Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:48 pm

Malappuram: On April 2, during a parliamentary by-election here, BJP candidate N. Sreepraksh announced to the press that if he won he would guarantee good, clean beef from air-conditioned slaughterhouses.

The statement triggered a brief controversy within the BJP, for deviating from its national agenda, but it soon blew over, because everyone knew that people in Kerala like their beef. Beef and porota are on the everyday menu at Kerala hotels; that too served from early in the morning.

In March of 2015, while politicians and intellectuals debated the beef ban in Maharashtra, I was at a RSS-BJP dominated village or ‘Sanga Gramam’ in north Kerala, conducting an anthropological study of village politics...

When I began my fieldwork, I often saw people eating porata and beef, and I often had opportunities to eat beef with RSS activists – upper-caste Nairs, as well as Thiyyas – in and around the village. It was apparent to me that most residents preferred beef when eating outside the house. Beef was even listed on the menu of a few hotels in town run by RSS members. As the news spread of the beef ban in Maharashtra, the area CPI(M) and its youth organisation seized it as an issue, organising state-wide beef festivals to campaign against the BJP and RSS. In Vinayauram, it was awkward: everybody wanted to avoid reading or hearing any news about beef. They all had eaten a lot in their past.

I remember going with Bijesh (name changed), an active worker of RSS and my key informant, to a hotel to have brunch. We had eaten beef a few times together. This time when we sat, I sensed a little discomfort. He looked around the hotel and gave an order for of fish and porota for both of us; he didn’t even ask what I would prefer. The hotel was run by an active BJP worker, too: I had met him at a Gurupooja function in the village, one of the prominent ritualistic events of RSS holds every year, in which workers and loyalists pay their annual donation to the organisation alongside the puja.

Bijesh looked disappointed as we ate our porata and fish curry in the hotel. But he kept his cool. While paying the bill, he spoke to the man who runs the hotel. ‘Why you still preparing beef here?’ he asked. ‘We all are talking against it, and you are supplying it, that too in our village. What other people will think if they saw it.’
The man smiled and replied, ‘Why should I stop serving because it is banned in Maharashtra? People come here only for beef. Rather than stop serving it, it would be better to close the hotel.’
We had just left when we both heard a person sitting inside ordering in a loud voice: Chetta, randu poratta oru beef fry – Chetta, two porata and one plate beef fry!

https://thewire.in/124119/kerala-beef-fry-bjp/

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