Meat in mid-day meal: Lakshadweep fights its battle in Supreme Court

The meaty question that is being hotly debated in Lakshadweep today is whether children should be allowed to eat meat in school or not. This battle over the inclusion of meat in school mid-day meals has now reached the courts, which will probably provide the final word on the issue.

The Lakshadweep administration seems to be in no mood to back down on its decision not to include meat in the mid-day meal menu at schools and is fighting hard in the Supreme Court to win this battle. Meat, chicken, mutton or beef have been a part of the food culture of Lakshadweep and meat has been a routine part of the mid-day meal cuisine since the programme was flagged off.

A decades-old practice 

The decades-old practice of offering meat in the menu of mid-day meals at schools, however, was changed all of a sudden by an executive order by the Lakshadweep administration last year. This decision was taken in a meeting of the concerned officials held on January 27, 2021. Subsequently, the question of the right to continue serving meat now reached the courts through a public interest litigation filed by a lawyer.

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Ajmal Ahmad, a lawyer at the Kerala High Court, and a native of Kavaratti Island, filed a PIL in the high court against the government’s decision to exclude meat from the school meal menu. The HC division bench issued an interim order on June 22, 2021, stating that there is no reason to change the menu that includes meat. However, after three months, the HC reversed the order and delivered a judgment in favour of the Lakshadweep administration, upholding its decision to exclude meat.

An appeal was filed in the Supreme Court, which issued an interim order imposing a stay on the final order of the HC. In this interim order, the SC upheld the previous order issued by the Kerala HC allowing the inclusion of meat.

The Lakshadweep administration, however, was in no mood to give in, and filed a counter affidavit. This is now scheduled for hearing by the SC.

The administration’s stand 

Why is the Union Territory’s administration keen to exclude meat from the noon-meal menu? “The only reason is that the guidelines of the mid-day meal scheme does not specify that meat should be included in the mid-day meal. Is it a justification to stop a practice that had been followed for decades?” asked advocate Ajmal Ahmad.

Talking to The Federal, he pointed out that this is nothing but a ‘violation of natural justice’. 

According to the National Food Security Act of 2013, the mid-day meal for lower primary classes should have 450 calories and 12 gms of protein. The administration has reasoned in its counter affidavit that ‘neither in the rules nor in any direction issued by the Central government is there any stipulation that meat and chicken shall be necessarily provided in the mid-day meals’. 

According to the administration, dry fruits are included instead of meat, which provides sufficient nutrition, along with fish, egg and vegetables.

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The earlier move to hand over the mid-day meal project to Bengaluru-based NGO Akshaya Patra seems to have been withdrawn, according to a statement filed by the  Lakshadweep administration in courts. (The counter affidavit states that no such final decision was taken by them, but that it was only a suggestion).

Fish and eggs served

However, so far, the mid-day meal is not completely vegetarian, and the government will continue providing fish and eggs, which have been part of the menu for decades.

The Lakshadweep administration further argued that no other state government nor UT provides meat in mid-day meals. The menus of mid-day meal schemes in Goa, Puducherry, West Bengal and Andaman Nicobar Islands have been annexed with the affidavit to prove this argument.

“What the children in other states eat has no connection to the children in Lakshadweep,” said Ahmad Ajmal, reacting to this argument. “Food culture differs from place to place. Besides, there are economic reasons too that come into play when states fix their mid-day meals. Big states cannot afford to provide meat on an everyday basis. Lakshadweep can do it and we were running the mid-day programme successfully for decades,” he pointed out. 

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The population of Lakshadweep is only 70,000, according to official figures. “The number of school children is not more than 20,000 and providing meat for such a small number is no big deal as far as the people of Lakshadweep are concerned,” said an activist of the Save Lakshadweep Forum, a people’s platform organised against the reforms imposed by the new administrator of the island.

In the counter affidavit filed in the SC, the Lakshadweep administration further argued that meat being very much a part of the regular diet in all the families in the island, it is not necessary to provide it in schools as well. 

Storage facilities

‘The non-availability of sufficient storage facilities’ is another reason trotted out by the administration for excluding meat from the menu. However, the islanders do not agree with this argument.

“All the schools in the island have freezers which have been used for storing meat. The argument of non-availability of storage facilities is not factual,” said Ajmal Ahmad, the petitioner in the case.