JC, It is fashionable on Goanet these days specially to project those we
disagree with as fanatics, holding extremist views, while believing that
our own views are very "centralist" (as if that's not a political
position!) and unbiased.
We have also seen another doctor, Santosh, take off persistently on
persons like Nascy or earlier on Fr Ivo, in trying to prove them wrong.
Differences in views can stem from legitimate differences in
perspective, so why rub it in? Best perhaps just to state the point and
leave it at that.
I don't agree with Nascy's style of expressing his views, but he does
seem to have some point here.
How do we in a supposedly secular state decide what food is "acceptable"
in a country? Is this a decision made on the basis of majority,
"offensibility", purity or dominance?
Anthropologist Dr K.S. Singh (of the 'People of India' study fame)
stirred up a hornet's nest, if I recall right, some years back by coming
to the conclusion that a majority of Indians are actually meat-eaters!
This cuts across religious lines! In Kerala, apparently some Hindus eat
beef, and when we went to Coorg (Kodagu) recently, we were served pork
in a Hindu restaurant! (Yet, in Goa a pork-eater would perhaps nowadays
be contemptuously dismissed as a "dukkor-khavoo", with all the negative
connotations it carries).
So what level of "purity" is right to be accepted? Maneka Gandhi has
some good arguments against milk. Should we ban that too? For liquor, of
course, one has to go to Gandhi's views and Gujarat. And so on... Why
not go the whole hog?
Do we respect people's sentiments? If so, to what extent? A separate
table (or side of the floor) for vegetarians and another for
non-veggies? Or do we block non-vegatarian food altogether? And why some
types and not the others?
If we decide that it should be part-vegetarian, then whose food-habits
do we opt for? Again, on what basis? Why should a State-funded buffet in
Goa, for instance, include fish for that matter? Isn't fish, or any
flesh for that matter, offensive to a section of the population?
Let's face it, what "everybody" should eat, and the clothes that women
should wear (as we saw recently in a Goanet debate) is also part of a
power-game. We might not agree with Nascy on other issues, but he is not
wholly off-track when he raises this point. FN
PS: An interesting essay --
‘I don't eat meat’ http://cis.sagepub.com/content/41/2/203.abstract
J. Colaco < jc> wrote:
Ah Nascy!
What's all this beef about beef?
Who is depriving whom from their much 'beloved beef'?
I agree with you. Every participant has the 'fundamental right' to eat
beef; it's just that the host also has the 'fundamental right' to make
available the dishes he/she is best able to provide.
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