Beef has yet again become a hot potato in Kerala. Well-marinated with political masala, of course.
The beef debate raged some years ago following diktats against cow slaughter, considered sacrilegious among certain sects of the Hindu fold. The backlash in Kerala was loud, even bloody at times — the frames of Youth Congress workers slaughtering a calf in public are still vivid in popular memory.
Now, the debate is back because of the ‘unpalatable’ trailer of ‘Kerala Story 2: Going Beyond’, in which a young woman is shown being force-fed beef. This led to a counter wave on social media on how beef need not be force-fed to anyone in Kerala because “beef and parotta is an emotion for Malayalis”.
A beef festival was quickly organised by the SFI. Some suggested that such fests should be organised at theatres screening the film.
While the film has a theme that is undeniably debatable, the context of its beef force-feeding is not clear, as the movie is yet to be released, says Bineesh Sadasivan, a social observer and foodie who relishes “all kinds of good food”.
“What if the character shown as being force-fed in the film is from a non-beef-eating background? Kerala has many who do not eat beef. While those who relish it can do so, it is not right to make a sweeping assumption that everyone in Kerala loves beef,” he says.
‘Standing up for secularism’
Countering this narrative is Akhil P, a PhD scholar who has participated in beef festivals in Kerala, says the campaign is to debunk the image of ‘beef being force-fed to a Hindu woman’. “One can see many social media videos, where women with sandal paste on their foreheads savour beef,” he adds. “The beef festival is a way of standing up for Kerala’s secular credentials.”
Point taken. But for many, the problem is not with the meat per se. It lies in equating secularism and progressiveness with eating beef. This, critics say, is akin to Leftist socio-cultural imposition, especially by performative keyboard activists.
Achuthshankar S Nair, former HoD of bioinformatics at the University of Kerala and author of a book on campus politics, feels the beef brouhaha is misplaced.
“The film certainly has to be denounced if it is divisive because no work of art should be so. But that said, the counter to this — the beef festival or the online propagation of certain dishes as the flagship food of Kerala — is equally divisive,” he says.
History researcher and writer Jayaraj Thekkethil highlights that there are records “like those of Persian envoy Abdul Razak, Chinese traveller Ma Huan, and Portuguese chronicler Duarte Barbosa — that speak of how foreign traders had to sign an agreement that they would not slaughter cattle for permission to access land on lease in Kerala”.
“In several regions, like in erstwhile Travancore and Cochin kingdoms, cow slaughter was a punishable offence,” he adds. “Meat was consumed even then, and if one goes by folklore, only the meat of mature male goats and cocks were considered good… ‘mutti thelinja muttanum, koovi thenlinja chaathanum’ (muttan means male goat, chaathan means cock) went some old sayings on meat.”
Some point out that the parotta-beef love bloomed only after the ‘thattukada’–fast food culture boomed in the 1990s. “Before that, popular delicacies were combinations like fried chicken with chapathi or stew with appam, etc. Beef, too, was popular among some communities, but it was not the food of the majority of the populace as is being projected now,” says political observer Sreejith Panickar.
“While it is absolutely fine for anyone to eat anything they want, to call the parotta-beef combo Kerala’s chosen cuisine is culturally far-fetched. And organising beef festivals, in reality, is a disservice to the multicultural fabric of the state.”
‘Example of hyper-communalism’
Atheist freethinker and writer C Ravichandran, who penned the book Beefum Beliefum,
calls the beef activism “a perfect example of hyper-communalism”.
“The cow was a political theme in India ever since the time of Gandhi, whose followers wanted protection laws in the Constitution, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who was ‘ready to die for the cow’,” he says.
“Later, it became a Congress plank — Indira Gandhi’s Congress initial flag featured a cow and calf. Subsequently, in the late 80s, cow politics was taken over by the BJP.”
He believes tying cow politics to art surpasses all political narratives. “Art in itself is not real and can be used as a propaganda tool, the way the Left used it through theatre movements like the KPAC,” he says.
“Now, if the right-wingers are doing it, counter it the same way rather than organise something that will impact the cultural psyche of the people who do not eat beef.”
Journalist Manju Subhash Chandran believes this new-found “obsession” with beef is more from a sense of false defiance. “Even if you watch recent Malayalam films, there seems to be a conscious effort to squeeze in beef-eating scenes, making it look cool. It’s a new trend,” she says.
“In-your-face beef activism will only lead to more polarisation, driving neutral Hindus towards the Right. Perhaps that’s why even the IUML slammed the beef festival. Elections are round the corner, right?”
‘Cultural indoctrination’
Jayaraj believes ‘beef festival’ protests are a kind of subtle cultural indoctrination. “Invasive forces of yore did that. Even now, it is said to be a technique used in places like China, where Muslims are force-fed pork to ‘de-radicalise them’. Remember, even India’s First War Of Independence was triggered by beef and pork grease on rifle cartridges,” he says.
“Propagation of the meat as a symbol of liberation could lead people, especially the younger generation, into a subconscious insecurity that if they do not eat beef, they are not subscribing to a progressive Malayali identity.”
Technocrat Hari Narayanan echoes the view. “It is like the way alcohol consumption was once glorified in Malayalam cinema. Many youngsters were drawn to drinking as a sign of machismo,” he smiles.
Nutritionist expert Dr Sheeja Chandran says this is a crucial point no one is talking about. “When you promote something as part of the state’s culinary culture, it needs to be healthy enough,” says the Ayurveda doctor.
“Kerala has always adopted cross-cultural cuisine. Our appam and puttu are gifts from the Portuguese and Dutch presence here. We adopted them as they were healthy. But beef is not, which is a reason why many beef-eaters (who account for 28.2 per cent of meat eaters in Kerala, as per a study) are slowly switching over to leaner versions of meat.”
All debates apart, the social observers raise one question in common: if the idea is to counter a divisive film with food, is not organising a festival with just one dish equally divisive?
“Instead, they should have gone for an all-menu festival where everything available in Kerala is offered — beef, chicken, turkey, pork, fish… everything inclusive,” Achuthshankar laughs.
‘Why no pork?’
Hurting the sentiments of one cross-section while protecting the other is not secularism, Bineesh adds.
He points to Education Minister V Sivankutty’s Facebook retort to the ‘Kerala Story 2’ teaser. “The minister’s troll post talks of people in Kerala eating chicken, mutton, beef and fish, but he was careful enough to avoid mentioning pork. Why?” he wonders.
“I am from Angamaly where pork is relished most. But there are places where there is an unofficial ban on the sale of pork. That will be justified as respecting certain religious beliefs. Why not extend that decency to others as well? Just because the non-beef-eating population is not vociferous, one can’t take them for granted.”
Not all Malayalis, Bineesh asserts, are beef fans. “And no, parotta and beef is not the ‘national food of Keralam’.”