The word beef is no longer just a dietary usage. It has entered the religio-political lexicon in a toxic form evoking violence, anger, grief and fear with polarising effect. In Kerala, in the last week, Beef Fests in college campuses organised largely by the Students Federation of India (CPM student wing) activists have become a form of resistance to the dietary control that is being imposed in some of the north Indian states.
In protest to the mob lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri, UP, on rumours of beef being consumed by him, student unions of SFI and Kerala Students Union (Congress) organised beef festivals in colleges in almost all the districts in Kerala. And this was not without incident. 14 students belonging to the SFI have been suspended in different parts of Kerala: six students of Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur and eight students from CMS College, Kottayam.
The tussle between Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (BJP) and SFI took a violent turn on October 1 when the SFI kick-started their current beef festival in the state (there have been earlier ones) in Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur, which comes under the aegis of the Cochin Devaswom Board. SFI brought in bread and beef and was offering it to students in front of the union office. ABVP activists objected and there was a scuffle. An ABVP member is reportedly said to have got hurt in the fight.
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The SFI Thrissur district secretary Senthil Kumar K S says, "Sree Kerala Varma college is a vibrant campus where issues are discussed. We oppose the agenda of the RSS and BJP to control our food habits so we decided to have a beef festival. We did not coerce anyone to eat the food. It was by large a peaceful event till a group of ABVP students tried to disrupt the festival. We then retaliated. There was no major incident or injury or it would have been a police case. Six students were suspended because they brought beef into the campus and conducted a beef festival. Though the canteen is vegetarian students do bring non vegetarian food and also non-veg is served during farewell and other functions."
While B Gopalakrishnan, BJP state cell coordinator, says, "The ABVP students objected because Sree Kerala Varma College managed by the Cochin Devaswom Board has a rule that only vegetarian food is allowed on the campus. Both in the canteen and the women's hostel serve only vegetarian food. Nobody can check what students bring in their tiffin boxes but for all functions only vegetarian food is served. The college was started because a Hindu boy was denied admission by St Thomas College, Thrissur. So they went to the Kochi Raja and he gave 25 acres of land to start a college for Hindus. And the Raja laid down two conditions and one was to serve vegetarian food only and the other was to light a lamp at the shrine. We are not against beef fests but there is a rule that you cannot serve beef in the college so we opposed that."
Says George Pulikuthiyil, director of Janeneethi, Thrissur, "A Hindu student being denied admission on his caste and religion into St Thomas College, Thrissur has not been heard about before. There is a possibility that a child did not get admission because he did not have the requisite marks. St Thomas College has children from all communities and Kerala chief ministers like EMS Namboodiripad to C Achutha Menon studied in the college and for that matter there are many teachers from the Hindu community there too. The kings of Kerala were benevolent to all communities. And the same king had given land to the Christian community to build churches. Sree Kerala Varma College which is a government aided college is not only for Hindus. This is a divisive talk by the BJP who seek to polarise the community in order to gain politically. They desperately want a few seats in Kerala."
M Vijin, SFI state secretary says that they will not allow college campuses to be divided on religion and castes. "Indian college campuses have not been divided on these lines before and we will not allow this in Kerala." An assistant professor of Sree Kerala Varma College Deepa Nisanth who shared a post on the Facebook page came in for criticism. Her post which she deleted said something to this effect: Today they say no to beef equating colleges to temples, tomorrow they will ban entry of menstruating women and even the backward classes, stating the same reason." She told the media that she had only shared a post and she had deleted the same after there was a protest. The BJP now wants her to be dismissed from the college for supporting the beef fest but that seems unlikely to happen because of the wide support from the students and political support from the likes of Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala and CPM leader Pinarayi Vijayan.
Interestingly ABVP at a press conference soon after the incident said they were not against beef fests. It seems like a politically astute move because with Kerala gearing up for local body elections and anti-beef rhetoric may alienate voters. So at the moment the Kerala BJP unit is taking the Goa example and let beef be on the Kerala cuisine. "We are not discussing a ban on beef at the moment." Says Gopalakrsihnan.
