Hyderabad: The debate over refusal of Zomato food delivery by a “non-Hindu” boy has turned into a rage with another big name in supply chain Uber Eats joining it competitor to reiterate, “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion.”
Delivery persons from across the competition line tweeting in full support “@ZomatoIN, we stand by you”.
Taking the incident of refusal to accept food sent by Zomato by a Muslim boy to a Hindu customer and demonstrating pride in it the debate among food chain groups has been growing hotter.
By this evening Uber Eats has garnered praise online for supporting Zomato with over 6,000 retweets and almost 31,000 likes for the particular post.
Noticing the growing intolerance factor in the country, siasat.com spoke to a cross-section of delivery persons and their superiors.
Do customers often question about your religion?siasat.com asked the boys.
The common answer was “no, never.”
“Till now not even a single customer has asked me about my religion or caste. We keep delivering food 24 X 7. Most of the Muslim customers receive non-veg food by a non-Muslim delivery boy without asking religious identity of the delivery person…It is also the same with the Hindu customers. Zomato has taken the right decision. We are with Zomato,” said a delivery boy M. Prabhakar.
“No one should think the way the Jabalpur man thought. He did not accept the food from a Muslim boy. One should not bring religion into food matters. Earlier, it was caste that made people happy or cringe, now it has expanded to religion. Sad, very sad,” stated another delivery person, Gautham Kumar.
Satish Reddy who works with Swiggy had to say this: “Religion and caste name shouldn’t be raised. We are glad Hindu and Muslims are working together without any prejudice. Same should be the case with our patrons.”
According to Panda delivery boy, Mohammed Riyaz, the customers are of various kinds. “Some are nice. Some are nasty. We need to deal with them all,” he said.
Prabhakar said when faced with a tricky situation he usually calls his office for guidance.
Authored by Mohammed Hussain
mohammedhussain.reporter@gmail.com