KOLKATA: A primary school in West Bengal’s East Burdwan district on Wednesday ended an old practice to separately cook and serve mid-day meals to the school’s Hindu and Muslim students, officials said..
Tapas Ghosh, headmaster of the Kishoriganj Manmohanpur Primary School, said he learnt about the practice when he joined the school in 2024. “I tried to stop this, but as it was a sensitive issue, I didn’t want to do it forcefully or rush through. But it was always on my mind that this practice has to end,” Ghosh said.
The school in East Burdwan district’s Kalna region has about 70 students in classes one to five. Over the years, a one-foot-high wall had been built in the kitchen to mark the area to be used by the Hindu and Muslim cooks. The school also had to hire two cooks – one from each community – instead of one.
It is not clear when the practice started. Or the circumstances that led to the practice of engaging separate cooks and utensils for the children of the two communities.
Dhanu Bibi, one of the cooks who was assigned for Muslim students, said she cooked in one section of the kitchen while the other cook used the adjacent portion.
Sonali Majumdar, the second cook, told reporters that Tapas Ghosh had tried once earlier to stop the practice but hadn’t succeeded. “But today it has become possible. It feels nice to see that children are having their food together,” Majumdar said.
On Wednesday, the school authorities held a meeting with parents of the students, which was attended by officials from the local police station, block administration and the panchayat. Everyone agreed to implement the change. And for the first time in many years, the meal was cooked using the same utensils. The students sat and had their meal together.
Ghosh said he was happy that he could stop it. “I never wanted the children to sit and eat separately just because they come from different communities. I wanted the school to develop and do better,” he said.
Kalna sub-divisional officer (SDO) Shubham Aggarwal said they had conducted an inspection on Tuesday after learning about the practice. “A meeting was held on Wednesday. The local administration and the police were also present. All the students sat together and had their meal,” he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said there was a standard operating procedure for cooking mid-day meals in schools. “But I have heard that in some schools, particularly in some minority-dominated areas, parents of kids have demanded that halal meat be served. In a bid to avoid any controversy, some schools have stopped serving chicken,” Suvendu Adhikari told reporters.
TMC spokesperson Jay Prakash Majumdar said, “The BJP has started poisoning the minds of every citizen, including kids, and creating a communal divide. Local BJP leaders are doing this. They are pressuring schools to introduce such divisions”.
