Amidst the controversy over meat consumption that appears to have broken out in West Bengal, a friend's daughter just alerted me to a social post about a commercial joint not far from Kolkata's New Market which apparently is the only place in the city which sells both beef and pork. Top commercial establishments buy their meat from the shop in a commercial display of inter-communal culinary solidarity.

I remember New Market fondly because it houses Nahoum and Sons, a bakery famed for its cakes, puffs and tarts. Founded in 1902, it is a Kolkata landmark, and not just because of its excellent food. It is because the owner is Jewish, its bakers are mostly Muslim, and its customers are largely Hindu. Christians are not excluded. Why, it is said that a former Archbishop of Canterbury who visited Kolkata ate its fruit cake and praised it. Nahoum is emblematic of the demographic inclusiveness of Kolkata, once the capital of the British Raj.

Nahoum is strictly pork-and-beef free, to cater to the dietary requirements of observant Jews and Muslims on the one hand and of observant Hindus on the other. In July 2024, Nahoum stopped selling chicken and mutton. No, it was not turning vegetarian. It continued to sell fish and egg dishes. But meat went off the menu because Kolkata's dwindling Jewish community had led to a drop in the number of kosher butchers. Nahoum is closed on Saturdays in accordance with the demands of the Jewish Sabbath.

So, here is a quintessentially Jewish institution in a largely-Muslim area of Kolkata, which is a part of Hindu-majority India. Nahoum attests to the secular underpinnings of at least cosmopolitan India, a term by which I mean Indians who define their political identities not in religious but in civic terms. (Their culinary preferences follow.)

What is civic identity? Civic identity is "an individual's sense of belonging to a broader community or nation, defined by their active participation, rights, and responsibilities in public life. It encompasses the values, beliefs, and emotional connections that drive people to contribute to the common good and engage in democratic processes". The concept has several pillars. One is a sense of belonging, or the ability to view oneself as "an active member of a community, city, or country rather than just a passive resident". Then there is civic knowledge, or the ability to understand "societal laws, political systems, and how local or national governments function". Knowledge leads to active participation, that is, engagement in civic responsibilities such as voting, volunteering, community organisation and participation in public debates. Participation rests on shared values that align the individual with the core principles of society, values such as justice, equality, and civic duty.

Food habits are a very small part of that political menu. Yes, food matters existentially, but not to the extent that someone wants beef to be banned throughout the civic sphere because he does not eat it, the same being true of pork or mutton or chicken or fish. The argument extends logically to the consumption of alcohol and other items that are forbidden in certain religions but not in others. After all, it cannot be a condition of civic allegiance that one must give up the individual personality in order to satisfy the civic requirements of the majority. In a word: Live and let live. Eat and let eat.

How about going vegetarian or even vegan in order to get out of all meaty or fishy debates? That is a worthwhile health option but one that is complicated if it is justified in religious or moral terms (the need to not kill life in order to sustain one's own life because all lives are equally important). After all, even vegans drink boiled water. "Boiling water kills or inactivates viruses, bacteria, protozoa and other pathogens by using heat to damage structural components and disrupt essential life processes (e.g. denature proteins)." Life processes: That is the key term. Bacteria are living organisms, as are humans. What gives us the right to kill them?

All right. Then how about drinking untreated water containing bacteria? "Certain bacteria in water cause death by triggering severe dehydration (diarrheal diseases like cholera), systemic infections (bloodstream sepsis via open wounds), or organ failure (like kidney damage from leptospirosis). Fatalities happen rapidly without immediate medical intervention." How interesting. So, given that I have no right to take a bacterium's life (by boiling it in water), what gives the bacterium the right to take my life when I drink untreated water? If all lives are equal, I cannot in good conscience take a bacterium's life in order to quench my thirst. But why, equally, should a bacterium in all conscience take my life? All lives are equal. Bacteria are not morally allowed to privilege themselves over me.

The final verdict in the veg-non veg debate was delivered in the form of a joke by a group of cannibals whom a sage once visited. He advised them sternly against devouring the flesh of humans and indeed of any other animals. They should all become vegetarians. That was the only way to get to Heaven. The cannibals asked him: "Great teacher, are you vegetarian?" The sage replied: "Of course. I am vegetarian. Every part of me is." The cannibals were delighted at the news that they would be going to Heaven after all. They began to boil the water in the large communal cauldron. As they lifted the sage into it, he screamed: "Help! What are you doing?" "Great teacher," they replied, "You said we should be vegetarian. What better way of doing so than by eating you, a full vegetarian?" The cannibals relished their first guilt-free vegetarian dish. I do not know the sage's name.

Moral of the story: Do not push your logic too far. Recognise your finitude. Let the greater world exist.

Eat, and let eat.

The writer is Principal Research Fellow of the Cosmos Foundation. He may be reached at epaaropaar@gmail.com