A vegetarian Durga Puja? Fortune Foods’ apology for ad showing Bengalis eating fish sparks anger
Monday, October 15, 2018 IST
After a Hindutva group called the ad an ‘insult to Hindu faith’, Bengalis pointed out they don’t observe food taboos during the festival, unlike in North India.
Durga Puja is a special time for the Bengali people. The autumn festival involves meeting family and friends, pandal hopping, and gorging on food. It was over the last of these that a cooking oil company landed in hot water this week. For depicting a couple eating fish and meat during the festival in a Puja-themed advertisement, Fortune Foods invited outrage from a Hindutva group. The company quickly put out an apology, which in turn triggered complaints from Bengalis who pointed out that eating meat during the Puja is not a taboo in West Bengal.
Culinary controversy
The Bengali language ad – titled Pet Pujo, or worshiping the stomach, and subtitled in English
here – for Fortune mustard oil shows a woman cooking meals for her husband during Durga Puja, including traditional Bengali dishes made from goat meat and fish. The accompanying text reads, “For the food-loving Bengali, the Puja is a time to worship the stomach.”
This culinary levity found few takers at the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, a Hindutva group
affiliated to the Sanatan Sanstha. Members of both these organisations have been
linked with the murders of rationalists and leftist thinkers Gauri Lankesh, Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and MM Kalburgi.
Boycott campaign
In a
post on its website on Wednesday, the Samiti summarised the contents of the ad in Hindi. It then laid out its objections:
“Along with this, non-vegetarian food is prohibited during Navrati [the worship of the goddess Durga in North India]. In this advertisement, the husband fasts for Navratri but on Navami, the wife feeds the husband mutton kosha and fish made using Fortune Oil. Since this food is so tasty, the husband is forced to break his fast. This is an egregious insult to our Hindu faith.”
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