On Tuesday (24th October), Sujata Anandan – the editor of the fraud-accused Congress mouthpiece National Herald – spread hate against Gujaratis and Jains living in Mumbai. In her article published in the Congress mouthpiece, she called the vegetarianism of Jains and Gujaratis in Mumbai “food terrorism”.
Sharing her article on X, Sujata Anandan posted, “Go back to Gujarat if you don’t like the smell of fish and rice – Maharashtrians begin to reclaim their own state.”
In her article titled ‘Dietary apartheid: Mumbai gets a taste of food terrorism’, Sujata Anandan wrote, “Fish and rice are the staple of Maharashtrians and they don’t see why they should give up their diet to please later settlers, like the Gujaratis who hate even the smell of fish.”
Villifying Gujaratis in her article, she described various incidents of what she called food terrorism and accused Gujaratis and Jains in Mumbai of targetting Marathis over food habits. She added, “In an incident in a Mumbai suburb, the Gujaratis were even more aggressive—they started dumping garbage at the doors of the Maharashtrian residents, even dog poop and cow dung. The majority of society in this case backed them up, completely ostracising the family and forcing the Maharashtrians out of the building.”
She added, “This kind of food terrorism began in the late 1980s, when former prime minister Morarji Desai forced the shutdown of a non-vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor of his building, claiming that the odours disturbed his tranquillity.”
In the guise of batting for the so-called just rights of Marathis in Mumbai, what Sujata Anandan peddled was nothing but an agenda to divide Hindus along various caste lines and regional identities. She wrote, “Social media posts by young Maharashtrians have been raging against the Shethjis and Bhatjis – Gujarati traders and priests – and calling to banish them from Mumbai and Maharashtra! Former Maharashtra minister Jitendra Awhad of the Nationalist Congress Party pointed out that the Kolis (fishermen), the Agris (who built Mumbai for the British) and the upper-crust Pathare Prabhus (who gave the city a cultural mooring) are the original inhabitants of Mumbai.”
Notably, it is the same Sujata Anandan who in her old posts on X (formerly Twitter) had attributed the glory of the courage of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to the Mughals. She had also posted that the armed forces of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj would loot and rape people. A case was filed against her in the Santa Cruz police station in Mumbai, based on the complaint filed by BJP leader Nitesh Rane.
Now, to widen the social divide among Hindu communities, she has resorted to furthering the hatred against Jains, Gujaratis and other upper-caste Hindus calling their vegetarianism food terrorism. In the guise of presenting a case for non-vegetarian sections of the Marathi community, she is creating a social divide between the people of different communities living in Mumbai, by calling out particular castes and communities consuming vegetarian food as food terrorists. Sujata Anandan is the editor of the National Herald. National Herald is a fraud-accused mouthpiece of the Congress party. To learn more about the National Herald, click here.