'Vegetarian-only' housing ad in Mumbai sparks ‘food apartheid’ debate

A viral video of a real estate agent saying that only vegetarians are eligible to buy flats in a luxury high-rise coming up in south Mumbai’s Tardeo has triggered a fresh debate over food-based discrimination in housing, with social media users questioning whether Mumbai’s famed cosmopolitan character is giving way to what some described as "food apartheid".

The agent, Bhavesh Kaware, who goes by the Instagram handle @propertytransactionguru, posted a video promoting a 2BHK flat in the building for Rs 6.5 crore, while making it clear that only vegetarians would be welcome.

The restriction has drawn attention because vegetarianism is hardly representative of the food habits of a large section of Indians. The government’s National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21) found that 83.4 per cent of men and 70.6 per cent of women aged 15-49 consumed fish, chicken or meat either daily, weekly or occasionally.

Food-delivery data offers a more contemporary snapshot. Biryani has topped Swiggy’s annual rankings for years and remained its most-ordered dish in 2025, when users ordered 93 million portions. Chicken biryani alone accounted for 57.7 million orders. Zomato’s annual figures have similarly placed biryani at the top: more than 10 crore orders were recorded in 2023 and 9.13 crore in 2024, keeping it the platform’s most-ordered dish.

The figures do not, by themselves, establish how many Indians are non-vegetarian. But together with the NFHS data, they illustrate how deeply meat and fish are embedded in everyday Indian food culture — making the use of dietary preference as a criterion for access to housing a particularly contentious proposition.

"This is Mumbai of the Marathi people. It belongs to the Agari-Koli community and to the toiling, common people of Maharashtra," said Shubham, a social media user. "Who are you to decide what someone eats or doesn't eat in Mumbai? Denying someone a home just because they eat fish, mutton, or chicken isn't merely an arbitrary act of granting or withholding housing but shows overt social discrimination."

"Will it now be decided whether someone who has eaten fish for generations in Mumbai gets a home or not based on what's on their plate? Those who discriminate must be taught a lesson," he added.

There have been several high-profile instances of such discrimination in Mumbai in recent years. In 2012, actor Saif Ali Khan said he had been turned away by several housing societies when he was looking for a home after his marriage to Kareena Kapoor. In 2014, actor Emraan Hashmi said a posh housing society had rejected his application.

The issue has particular resonance in Mumbai, a city shaped by successive waves of migration and communities with markedly different food traditions. Marathi, Gujarati, Muslim, Christian, South Indian, Bengali, Goan and other communities have contributed to a food culture in which fish, meat and eggs coexist with vegetarian traditions.

The Tardeo controversy therefore goes beyond whether a flat owner is entitled to impose a personal preference. It raises questions about whether dietary habits — something deeply tied to family, community and culture — should become a condition for access to housing.

The distinction is especially stark in a country where the government’s own data and the consumption patterns visible on the country’s largest food-delivery platforms point to a far more diverse dietary reality than the idea of a predominantly vegetarian India suggests.

With PTI inputs