Ugly intolerance

THE LEAST THAT is expected of an organisation which stages a protest is that it does its homework before embarking on one. The Shiv Sena's ugly demonstrations which get uglier by the day only indicate the triumph of blind intolerance over reason. As far as its recent protest against McDonald's goes, fiction has also got the better of fact. Sena hooligans who demanded that it quit India were ostensibly upset over the alleged use of beef tallow in the cooking medium to make french fries. The protest followed reports that McDonald's faces legal action in the United States for using beef fat in its french fries despite officially stating that it makes them in vegetable oil. Shiv Sena activists and their Bajrang Dal fellow-travellers should have had the common sense to determine whether the same practice was adopted in India before resorting to ransacking and throwing cowdung at McDonald's outlets and staging clamorous protests demanding that the fast food chain close shop and `go home'. As it has turned out, McDonald's has categorically denied using either beef or pork extract in any of its products in India, including french fries. To lend further credence to its claim, McDonald's has publicised statements issued by two foreign companies which supply the french fries to the Indian outlets declaring that the popular potato-based snack is free from any kind of animal fat.

Not surprisingly, the misguided protest appears to have fizzled out not long after it was launched. It does remain an issue in the United States where two persons of Indian origin have taken the company to court for using beef flavouring in the cooking medium for their popular french fries despite giving the impression that the product was wholly vegetarian. McDonald's has not denied the basic charge having admitted that ``a minuscule amount of beef flavouring is used as an ingredient'' to enhance the taste of french fries sold in that country. As for why the company failed to list beef as one of the substances in its french fries, the company has stated that as a restaurant it is not obliged (under the Code of Federal Regulations) to list or break down the ingredients used in its products. It is conceivable that the discovery that beef, in one form or another, is contained in a product which was perceived as wholly vegetarian, could offend some people in the United States. But the question is what a legal suit filed in the United States has to do with India. And the answer is apparently very little.

Now the Shiv Sena has announced that it will test the french fries served in India to determine whether they contain beef - something it should have done before staging militant protests and setting its ruffians loose. There is a cynical political purpose behind every protest Mr. Bal Thackeray's organisation has launched in recent times. From the demonstration against the film Fire to the agitation against the celebration of Valentine's Day, the Sena's attempt to project itself as a defender of Indian culture is a device to play on Hindu susceptibilities, stoke sectarian feelings and whip up chauvinist sentiments. The high- profile campaign against McDonald's was an attempt to gain popularity by exploiting religious aversion to the consumption of beef. By failing to determine whether McDonald's was really guilty of the `crime' the protests were organised around, the Shiv Sena and like-minded organisations have only succeeded in looking rather foolish in the end. There was a farcical edge to the protests but they also chillingly remind us of the dangerous menace of organisations which choose to launch wild and angry demonstrations without the faintest provocation and without the slightest trace of logic.

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Section  : Opinion
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