More than five lakh litres of alcohol is consumed per day in Assam, one of the northeastern states of India. Men and women equally consume both foreign and local liquor. Apart from these, there is a huge increase in the number of alcoholics among teenagers including school students. In addition to the fact that there are no restrictions in the state on serving or consuming alcohol in liquor shops or public places, the government had even reduced the price of liquor to cheer and encourage people to drink more during the last festival season. However, serving and eating beef in restaurants and public places has become a crime here as of last week. Beef will have to be removed not only from the menu of restaurants but also from weddings and food distribution in places of worship. The ban was extended to all public places across the state by amending the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 2021, which banned the sale and use of beef in areas where Hindu, Jain and Sikh communities are in majority and within a five-km radius of temples and monasteries.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that this step is an assertion of the government's stand to protect the values of Assam's traditions in the cultural and historical context. State minister Pijush Hazarika has given a choice to the opposition Congress to either support the beef ban or go to Pakistan. Calling it a historic decision, BJP spokesperson Subhash Dutta said that Assam is setting an example for other states. One need not go to the Brahmaputra to understand the motivation behind the new action of former Congress leader Himanta, who is trying to prove that he is the most efficient Hindutva propagandist in the country by banning and destroying anything related to Muslims like madrasahs, hijabs and alleging jihad in everything from floods to destruction of crops. In a recent Assembly by-election, the Congress had accused the BJP of watering down its Hindutva nationalist agenda by promising beef to voters in Muslim areas. The announcement of a state-wide ban comes immediately after this. This is a pre-emptive move to prevent the opposition from pushing the soft Hindutva agenda and stalling the jealousy of the party's rivals against him, and to remain the unquestioned chief ministerial candidate in the next assembly elections which is to be held in April 2026.
But there is a big mistake in counting the beef ban as part of the values of the state. As in Kerala, beef is a common food in northeastern states including Assam. Not only Muslims but also Dalits, Hindus, Christians and tribals like to eat this food that provides protein at the lowest cost. With this 'historic decision', the Assam government is challenging individual freedom for food and the food culture of different places to keep a minority community as an enemy. The atrocities and human rights violations that will take place in the country under the guise of the beef ban will be unimaginable. Even the BJP leaders of the neighbouring state of Meghalaya have raised their voices against the action of the Assam government. Sanbor Shullai, a BJP MLA from Meghalaya, has said that the beef diet is an inescapable part of the cultural identity of Meghalaya and the Northeast region and that he will not accept a beef ban in Meghalaya as long as he is alive. The BJP-RSS regimes have not imposed any ban on the serving of beef in foreign markets even as their gangs have been wreaking havoc across the country by banning beef and punishing its possession. India's beef exports in 2021-22 were worth $3,303.34 million, but in 2023-24 it increased to $3,740.53 million, according to the government's reply to a question raised by MP Suneer from Kerala. And the top exporter of beef is Adityanath's UP, which is the state where most people are targeted in the name of beef. Last month, 153 tonnes of beef was recovered from the cold storage of Puran Joshi in Dadri, where an elderly man named Mohammed Akhlaq had been beaten to death by Hindutva goons for allegedly keeping beef in his fridge. While Hindutva exponents are conducting manhunts in the name of beef by breaking into houses and beating them out of vehicles in UP, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, there is no ban on selling beef in BJP-ruled Goa and Arunachal Pradesh. It is dangerous for the opposition parties, including the Congress, to be hesitant to raise their voice against a serious challenge to food freedom by one state government, which many other states may follow. Let us not forget that beef is just the first item in a long list that these gangs determined to subvert the Constitution and pluralism.