To eat or nor to eat ? That is the question

Can a religious preacher from outside Bengal tell Bengalis what they should eat during Durga Puja?

That is the question now at the centre of a political controversy after Bageshwar Dham chief Dhirendra Krishna Shastri appealed to Bengalis to avoid fish and meat during the festival and questioned the consumption of non-vegetarian food around Durga Puja.

The remarks came after the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) had advised Puja organisers to keep non-vegetarian food away from pandals, although it clarified that it was not seeking a blanket ban on non-vegetarian food.

But the controversy took an unexpected turn when West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya pushed back against Shastri's intervention.

Bhattacharya said no religious figure or political party could dictate what Bengalis should eat or wear. He pointed to established Bengali customs, saying that people would continue to follow their traditional food practices during Durga Puja.

But was Bengali Hinduism ever uniformly vegetarian?

The historical record makes the question considerably more complicated.

Bengal's food culture developed within a riverine ecology where fish became an important source of food and protein. Historical accounts of Bengali gastronomy describe fish not merely as everyday food but as something embedded in ceremonial and ritual life. Even Bengali Brahmins historically developed dietary practices that differed from the strict vegetarianism associated with some Brahmin communities elsewhere in India.

Was the religious history as complex?

Bengal's Shakta traditions cannot simply be reduced to a vegetarian template. Ethnographic research on food offerings in Bengal records fish being offered to deities in particular traditions, while animal sacrifice and non-vegetarian ritual practices have existed in specific Shakta contexts. Ranging from eastern wetlands to drier fields of the western red soil, the gastronomic choices largely represent an uneven non-vegetarian practice within the ritualistic ecosystem.

That does not mean every Bengali Hindu eats meat during Puja, or that every Durga Puja tradition permits it. It means there has never been one uncontested Bengali Hindu dietary rule.

And then there is Swami Vivekananda

Perhaps the most striking historical complication is Swami Vivekananda.

His writings on food discuss the place of fish and meat within Indian society and religious practice rather than presenting vegetarianism as a universal Hindu requirement. His own life and writings have consequently become part of recurring debates over whether meat consumption is compatible with Hindu tradition.

That history matters because Vivekananda has become an important reference point in the present political argument as well.

The dispute is therefore not simply about whether someone prefers vegetarian food.

It is about which interpretation of Hindu tradition gets presented as the authentic one.

When food becomes a political identity

Food has long carried meanings beyond nutrition in India: religion, caste, region, community and social identity.

In Bengal, that becomes particularly complicated because Durga Puja itself evolved through multiple social and cultural influences. Historians note that Bengali Durga Puja developed as a community festival with food, music, art and public celebration alongside its religious rituals.

The current controversy therefore brings two different impulses into collision.

One seeks a more uniform understanding of Hindu religious practice under a self asserted rule book.

The other insists that Bengali Hindu traditions have their own historical and cultural vocabulary.

Why is the BJP caught in the middle?

This is where the controversy becomes political.

The criticism of Shastri is not coming only from opposition parties or secular commentators. The Bengal BJP itself has publicly distanced itself from the dietary prescription.

That is significant because the party has simultaneously sought to build a broader Hindu political identity while operating within Bengal's distinctive cultural landscape.

Bhattacharya's response effectively draws a boundary: religious figures may express their personal views, but Bengali customs cannot simply be prescribed from outside.

The debate, therefore, is no longer really about fish versus vegetables.

It is about whether a standardised idea of Hindu cultural practice can accommodate the regional traditions that have historically shaped Hinduism in Bengal.

So, who gets to decide?

There is no single Bengali food tradition, just as there is no single Hindu dietary practice.

But that is precisely why the current controversy matters.

A religious prescription has collided with a culture in which fish, meat, ritual, devotion and festivity have historically occupied overlapping — and sometimes contested — spaces.

The question now is not simply what is on the Bengali plate.

It is who gets to decide what that plate is supposed to represent.