No beef, not even a beep: Hate calls kill food festival in Kolkata

KOLKATA: The change of a letter to beep out any reference to beef has proved inadequate in fighting the onslaught of hate and saving the “Beef Festival” from a premature death.
The organisers of the festival, scheduled for later this month, have finally decided to scrap it after being inundated with hundreds of threat calls and hate messages that had their chefs scared and venue managers on the edge.

“It got too dirty. We had set out to organise a food festival that would be fun. We had certainly not bargained for the kind of vicious reaction it generated. The calls and messages were vicious. The only sentiments they expressed were hate and anger. Many among the callers (would have been)... ordinary people with no political links. I did not have the stomach to continue the fight and succumbed to the pressure building up over the week,” Arjun Kar, who had conceived the event and even changed its name from “Beef Festival” to “Beep Festival” as a last-ditch effort to salvage it, told TOI on Friday.
A beef festival organised by Left-backed NGOs in Kolkata was similarly cancelled four years ago after political parties put pressure on Muslim Institute, the event venue. That beef festival was announced by Left unions as a protest against the ban on consumption and sale of beef in some states.

The event cancelled now, however, had no political connection. It was meant for food aficionados and over 1,000 people had evinced interest in attending it. The organisers had also received 300 pre-bookings that will now need to be refunded following the cancellation.
Festival called off after 300 calls on single night
The organisers were planning to go to police on Friday to file a complaint. But, on Thursday night, one of them got nearly 300 calls, “a lot of them to show support but a lot of them were direct threats”, they said in a Facebook post. After a torrid night, Arjun Kar and his team felt they had trodden into too unsafe a territory and it was best to call off the event.
“Kolkata Beep Festival started off as as a Facebook status asking friends if they would want a beef festival. Kolkata has always loved its food, especially beef and pork. The response was positive and everyone wanted this to happen and so it started. We forgot that our friend circle was a very limited group of people who, like us, were looking forward to good food and a good time. Food has never been political to us. We wanted to avoid all complications and controversies and make an event for people to have fun in and remember. Even though we planned it after the elections to avoid political tension, we couldn’t avoid it,” the Facebook post read.
Kar’s team was prepared to endure the political tension.
“If we were sure that we can still provide a safe, conflict-free food festival that allowed everyone to enjoy, we would have gone ahead. We did live in this delusion for a while. But there were too many threat calls and keyboard warriors kept abusing us and sending us hate-filled messages. Some seemed genuinely hurt by the idea of the festival,” Kar said.
What ultimately led to the cancellation, he added, was the uncertainty over guest safety.
But another Facebook page popped up on Thursday, announcing another Kolkata Beef and Pork Festival. And, perhaps wisened by what happened with the Kolkata Beef Festival, it did not announce a venue or share a phone number.
“I hope they do not face the heat we have (faced),” Kar said.