Three recent incidents share a common thread: the question of choice of food. Canadian police recently arrested a landlady of Indian origin for assaulting her tenants after they cooked beef steak in their rented accommodation — violating an informal understanding reached when the house was let out.

At a recent BRICS summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi served guests an all-vegetarian dinner — an unusual move, perhaps unprecedented at an international gathering. The growing controversies surrounding food preferences recently led Supreme Court judge, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, to remark: "Criminal cases are being registered for consuming food, reciting poems, raising slogans. Frivolous cases are making our justice system an object of ridicule before the world."

If the Canadian landlady’s dispute with her tenants had occurred in India, would she face prosecution? The answer is likely "no". The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that a housing society's bye-laws are binding on all members, and restrictions on property sales cannot be tested solely on the touchstone of fundamental rights under Part III of the Constitution. In Zoroastrian Cooperative Housing Society (2005), the court observed that conditions restricting allotments or transfers to those possessing qualifications for membership do not constitute an absolute restraint on alienation under Section 10 of the Transfer of Property Act, nor do they interfere with the right to property under Article 300A. The bench noted that a member who accepts the bye-laws cannot challenge them later, observing that "the stream cannot rise higher than the source."

In Mumbai, when a Jain housing society stipulated that flats could not be sold or rented without permission — effectively ensuring new occupants were vegetarian — the Shiv Sena protested fiercely. The party argued that such restrictions prevented "sons of the soil" from buying homes, threatening to organise the cooking of meat outside such complexes.
When Prime Minister Modi hosted the vegetarian-only dinner, he may have intended to respect the Jain festival of Paryushan Parva. In Gujarat, the state government routinely orders the closure of municipal slaughterhouses for eight to 18 days during Paryushan. When meat traders challenged the shutdown, Justice Markandeya Katju upheld the restriction on pragmatic grounds in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh (2008), noting:
"...for a long period slaughterhouses have been closed in Gujarat for a few days out of respect for the sentiments of the Jain community... We see nothing unreasonable in this restriction... The meat traders of Ahmedabad will not suffer much merely because their business has been closed down for 9 days in a year... In a multi-cultural country like ours with such diversity, one should not be over-sensitive and over-touchy about a short restriction..."

The issue extends far beyond temporary closures. Several states have enacted strict anti-cow slaughter laws. Suspicions over the transport of beef have emboldened cow vigilantes to inspect parcels on public transport and attack individuals on mere suspicion. In 2015, the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra banned the sale and possession of beef, a measure currently under legal challenge with a partial stay granted by the Supreme Court.

Examining the deep social linkages of dietary habits, Dr BR Ambedkar wrote:
"The correlation between untouchability and the use of the dead cow is so great and so close that the thesis that it is the root of untouchability seems to be incontrovertible. In the second place, if there is anything that separates the untouchables from the Hindus, it is beef-eating... Broken Men were exposed to scorn and contempt on the ground that they were Buddhists and the main cause of their untouchability was beef-eating."
Following the success of mid-day meal schemes in states like Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court in 2001 directed all state governments to provide cooked noon meals in primary schools. Tamil Nadu includes eggs four days a week, a model later adopted by states such as West Bengal. However, Madhya Pradesh abruptly withdrew eggs from the menu, claiming incompatibility with a majority vegetarian population — a claim factually inaccurate and contrary to the scheme's core aim of improving child nutrition.

Similarly, when Lakshadweep came under direct central administration, local dairy farms supplying milk and beef for mid-day meals were shut down. The Supreme Court declined to intervene, treating it as a policy decision. Beyond schools, state imposition of food choices is expanding through "meat-free" zones. A 15-km radius around Ayodhya has been declared meat-free, with similar demands gaining traction elsewhere.
Imposing personal dietary preferences has a long history. In the late 1970s, Tamil Nadu Governor Prabhudas Patwari banned non-vegetarian food in Raj Bhavan and refused to allow official crockery to be used for outside caterers serving meat. When President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy stayed at Raj Bhavan and was denied his choice of food, he later lamented at a public event: "Rajaji was such a great man, he never allowed his food habits to be thrust on others by telling them to eat sambar rice and curd rice."
Even religious traditions reflect this diversity. In the revered Saivite text Periya Puranam, Kannappa Nayanar (who offered cooked pork to the deity) and Siruthonda Nayanar (who offered child meat) are accorded exalted spiritual status. The text records Kannappa Nayanar’s devotion: "Lord Kailasanatha, O Lord! Juicy tender meat I’ll bring as offering delicious unto you."

Attempting to convert divine traditions or a diverse citizenry to a single dietary norm undermines pluralism. Ultimately, food choices remain a matter of individual freedom, not a subject for a coercive "One Nation, One Food" mandate.

(The writer is a former judge of the Madras High Court)