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India’s war on meat could be critical for PM Modi’s BJP in the 2024 election
- Anti-meat advocates are expanding their fight beyond beef, to meat of all animal sources, in a campaign led by the ruling BJP’s parent organisation
- This could set the stage for India’s general election in 2024 as the BJP, under repeated backlash for politicising food, seeks to retain power
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Ahead of the general election in 2024, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is extending its war on meat by going beyond beef – despite the constant backlash Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has faced for politicising food.
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The most recent effort reiterates on the idea of a pure Hindu State (Hindu Rashtra), as declared by the first chief and founder of Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS), Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who believed that “Hindu culture needs to be fostered first”.
The RSS organisation is the ideological parent of the BJP.
Food policing in India, typically targeted at Muslims, Christians and Dalits who consume beef, is now rapidly expanding to include anyone who is not a vegetarian, even non-vegetarian Hindus, observers say.
Since the BJP government came into power in 2014 with a sweeping majority, it has been on a campaign against slaughtering cows, which are sacred to Hindus. Critics have blamed the campaign for heightened vigilante violence against those who consume beef, such as Muslims.
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Before beef sales became illegal in 2017, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said: “We want cow slaughter to be banned across the entire country. It is the duty of the government to make this law effective.”
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