Mumbai's Four-Day Meat Ban: Whose Ban Is It Anyway?

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has banned sale of meat for four days in Mumbai during the Jain festival of Paryushan. On #IndiaHangOut, our panel of experts debate if the ban is in the people's interest or a political statement.

The panel included Sanjay Jha, Spokesperson of Congress, Dr. Aijaz Ilmi, Leader, BJP and Ira Trivedi, columnist and novelist, along with Govindraj Ethiraj.

"Regular occurrences like these bans are very alarming and disturbing developments. We are seeing an emergence of larger Hindutva ecosystem in India," said Jha.

"Shutting down such a huge industry and people's businesses for four days is a very big deal. There is a larger issue at hand here. There are health and nutritional issues which get affected due to the meat ban," argued Trivedi.

The temporary ban has been in force since 1964, when the BMC passed a resolution directing a two-day prohibition on sale of meat in deference to the demands by Jains. In 2004, the Congress-NCP government passed another resolution endorsing the two-day ban. Since then, the ban has been extended to four days across Mumbai every September.