Agencies
New Delhi
India’s Supreme Court has put on hold a controversial order that directed restaurants along the route of an annual Hindu pilgrimage to display names of their owners and operators.
The order was issued by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand - states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power federally - ahead of the Kanwar Yatra, which began on Monday.
Opposition parties and even BJP allies criticised it, saying it targeted Muslim-owned establishments and could affect livelihoods. State authorities claimed the order was meant to maintain law and order.
But on Monday, India’s Supreme Court temporarily halted the order while hearing a batch of petitions challenging it. The judges said the eatery-owners only needed to display names of items they served.
The petitions, filed by civil society activists and opposition MP Mahua Moitra, argued that the orders were “discriminatory on grounds of religion and would further the cause of untouchability [outlawed in India]”.
The row began last week when authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur districts asked eateries along the pilgrimage route to display their owners’ names to prevent “confusion” among devotees - who avoid meat and alcohol during the pilgrimage.
The annual pilgrimage takes place during the Hindu holy month of Sawan. Devotees of the Hindu god Shiva travel on foot, sometimes for days or weeks, to religious sites along the holy Ganges river to collect water and offer it at Shiva temples.
The pilgrims are mostly young men, who pass through states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan on their way to and from temple towns.
Traffic restrictions are usually in place and police are deployed to maintain order. But incidents of violence and vandalism have been reported in recent years as large numbers of young men pass through busy cities - sometimes walking in the middle of the road - with little crowd control.
