The place of the humble egg in the street food culture of Gujarat, a state in western India where people take their snacks seriously, has become the latest flash point in the growing role of religion in everyday life. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has a Hindu nationalist base, the national government has taken steps in recent years to promote the religion and to sideline Muslims and other groups.
Emboldened local governments have followed suit, enacting rules in some places that adhere closely to Hindu doctrine. That is especially true in Gujarat, which Mr. Modi led for 13 years before becoming prime minister and which is often seen as a laboratory for pushing policies to reshape India along his Hindu nationalist vision. Those include tightening a ban on alcohol and adding protections against the slaughter of cattle, which many Hindus consider sacred.
But even devout Hindus don’t always agree among themselves what practices the faithful should follow, a conflict that also raises issues of income and class. Hence the bitter disagreement over eggs.




















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