Gujarat's Palitana: The World's First City To Ban Non-Vegetarian Food (Photo @arunpudur)

After protests by over 200 Jain monks demanding the closure of approximately 250 butcher shops, a city in Gujarat’s Palitana has been declared non-vegetarian-free, becoming the world’s first city where non-vegetarian food is illegal. 

One of the holiest pilgrimage sites of Jains, the city located in Bhavnagar district, is also known as the Jain Temple town. There are around 800 temples in the city, including the noted Adinath Temple.

The decision involved banning the killing of animals for meat and the sale and consumption of meat in the city. The orders also ask to stop the display of non-vegetarian food in public spaces in the city, in the belief that seeing non-vegetarian food in the open will hurt people’s sensitivities. Committing these acts will be punishable by law.

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The state has a long history of favouring vegetarian food, and the legacy also includes Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy for vegan food habits. However, the popularity of vegetarianism is Gujarat is limited to the chosen people, especially the dominant Vaishnav Hindu community, according to many people. Though the Hindus constitute 88.5 per cent and the Jains are about one per cent, meat consumption is common in the state, with Muslims and Christians making up approximately ten percent of the population.

An opinion piece published by noted author Rita Kothari in Scroll.in, points out that vegetarianism is Gujarat’s commonsense or mythicised face and not its lived reality, noting that figures of meat-eating population vary from 40% to 60 %. The author argues that the state is  not a fully vegetarian state except in the mind of its “self-chosen custodians.”

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By implementing restrictions in several cities of the state, the government has forcefully kept away from the sight and the sensory world of the upper castes, the author opined.

However, the policies in favour of the promotion of vegetarianism also highlight the state’s rich religious and cultural heritage.