Hyderabad: Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) youth leaders served snacks company Haldiram’s with a legal notice alleging that the Urdu inscription on its products was a “planned, deliberate, and intentional attempt to hurt the religious sentiment of millions of Sanatanis.”
Shiwam Pandey and Sanjeev Singh, BJP youth leaders in Delhi and Varanasi, saw media coverage by Sudarshan News in which a reporter questioned why the nutritional information and ingredient description was in Urdu instead of Hindi.
A legal notice served by them via advocate Satyam Singh alleged that the product is “not absolutely but generally for the followers of Sanatani Dharma.” The notice further read that most of the consumers will be those Sanatanis, who speak primarily Hindi language and only a negligible number of consumers would be Muslims.
“Even if we accept the fact that Haldiram did this by because many Muslim consumers will be buying this product, then also, it cannot justify the preference given to Urdu over Hindi as if we look at it from the economical point of view, Hindi should have preferred as it is obvious, for any prudent person, to understand that most of the consumer of this product would be Hindi speaking Sanatanis,” the notice read.
They added that that religion plays an important role in one’s life and if the religious identity of anyone is attacked, it would amount to serious mental harassment.
They also said that it was a moral, ethical and social responsibility of Haldiram’s to print the label in English or Hindi under the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006. “My clients had doubts as to the ingredient of the product because there is a potential chance that to hurting the religious sentiment of Sanatanis, a person, whether from a particular community or not, may succeed in mixing the ingredients such as salt, flesh, etc,” alleged Singh.
Last week, a video went viral on Twitter where a TV anchor from Sudarshan News can be seen questioning the staff of a Haldiram’s shop over Urdu packaging on a packet of ‘Falhari mixture’ sold in the store. “Did the company use animal oil in the making which shouldn’t be consumed by Hindus during Navratri?” asked the reporter.
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