One Man's Meat...

From the Sunday Times (UK):

Rich vegetarians in Bombay are turning sections of their city into meat-free zones — to the indignation of meat eaters barred from living there. Housing complexes and whole neighbourhoods in India’s most cosmopolitan city are going vegetarian. Even on Malabar Hill, where foreigners and Indian millionaires live in mansions, some shops owners refuse to stock meat products.

Leading the stealthy enforcement of the meat fatwa are businessmen — diamond merchants, traders, industrialists and clothing exporters. Many are from Gujarat, where vegetarianism is common, or are Jains, vegans who do not even eat root vegetables such as onions, garlic and potatoes.

My initial reaction to this news (which is not really new, anyway; this sort of thing has been going on for some time now) was somewhat ambiguous. The classically liberal part of me says that landlords should have the right to lease their properties to whomever they choose. If they prefer, for example, not to have pot smokers or bond traders living next door to them, that's their business, and I (as an external observer) do not have the right to impose my moral preferences on them. It doesn't matter that I personally consider smoking pot or trading bonds to be venial sins at worst; my preferences do not count. If a landlord considers the eating of meat to be a heinous act, then that's that.

But isn't this just discrimination in disguise? In India, eating meat is widely considered to be a predominantly lower-caste or non-Hindu practice, so banning non-vegetarians could be construed as discriminating against these groups. And while a case could be made for forbidding actions that a landlord finds objectionable, there is no excuse for banning people of a particular type. If a landlord in the US banned "niggers" or "towelheads" there'd be all sorts of outrage, and I'd join the chorus of protest.

(And yes, the said non-Hindus and lower-castes could in theory build apartment complexes where "vegetarians need not apply", but (a) that would hardly be in keeping with my inclusive / non-discriminatory ideal of India and (b) the truth is that even today, the Hindu upper castes dominate India's economy, so this sort of reverse discrimination wouldn't get very far before being defeated by the sheer power of money. This latter point leads to a fundamental critique of libertarianism -- it all too often boils down to "might (ie, money) is right" and the tyranny of the majority. It's no coincidence that many of the staunchest supporters of libertarianism tend to be those already in possession of power, money, influence; I wonder how long Ayn Rand would remain libertarian if she were reincarnated as a lower-caste villager in Rajasthan. But I digress.).

Returning to my main argument, after further reflection I think it is mere sophistry to claim that "one man's meat is another man's poison", and hence landlords should be given free rein to discriminate against anyone they want, regardless of what other people think. I really do think a line can be drawn separating minor peccadilloes from high crimes and misdemeanours. And despite Jain protestations to the contrary, I don't think non-vegetarianism is comparable to child-molestation or rape. One guideline for distinguishing the two kinds of actions that seems to work reasonably well is simple legality -- very few acts are morally reprehensible yet legal. If a tenant's actions are legal, then a landlord should not be allowed to discriminate against him or her; it's as simple as that.

Coda: The crowning irony -- from the same Times article:

The only support for meat eaters comes from the regional Hindu nationalist party, the Shiv Sena. Hostile to Indians moving from other regions, it is indignant that "Bombay wallahs" who eat meat are being excluded from buildings by the Gujarati vegetarians.

It makes sense, of course -- the Shiv Sena's core supporters are Marathas, who are decidedly non-vegetarian. Still, I love it when the fundies start beating up on each other.