It’s one thing when a fully vegetarian family does not feed eggs to their children. They do try to make up for it with other healthy food. But even they relent if eggs are what the doctor orders for their kids. That’s why it’s appalling when the head of a state decides to take this decision for all the school children for the mid-day meal scheme.
A staggering 52 per cent of children in Madhya Pradesh are malnourished but Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has flatly refused to provide them with a key source of protein they could use in their mid-day meal – eggs.
Activists say the decision has been made with an eye to religious sentiments of people. Vegetarians comprise 35 per cent of the people of the state and the Chief Minister himself is one among them.
This decision is wrong on so many levels. For starters, how can the Chief Minister impose his religious and dietary beliefs on everybody? While 35 per cent of the state may be vegetarian, there is still the 65 per cent majority who is non-vegetarian. Are so many children to be denied basic nutrition just to please one small cross section of the population, possibly a cross-section which does not need the mid-day meal scheme?
Besides, although ovo-lactarianism as a term is not used in India, the fact is that many vegetarians in India today eat eggs, even if they don’t eat meat. And this is a situation that hardly warrants such a drastic step. In states where the mid-day meal scheme is running successfully, children who don’t eat eggs have the option of getting extra bananas. Surely, Chief Minister Chouhan can do the same!
Instead of eggs, the minister has opted to supply milk. But milk, as experts and economists point out, is harder to supply and manage in terms of quantity and quality. And eggs still top milk in terms of nutrition.
What is worse is that a quick check has confirmed that this is the case amongst most BJP-led states, with the exception of Jharkhand. Recent maps released by the Right to Food Campaign reveal that provision of eggs for state government-run nutrition schemes is prevalent across large swathes of only eastern and southern India.
It’s appalling that the head of a state would inflict his beliefs upon everybody at the cost of children’s nutrition. No one can dictate what other people should or shouldn’t eat. Vegetarianism is by choice, not by force.
Image Courtesy: Shutterstock
More on>> Balancing Act
