Bihar this week took the unprecedented step of forbidding any cooking over open fires between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., after fires swept through shantytowns and thatched-roof houses in villages and killed dozens. People were instead told to cook to night.

While India remains in the midst of a heatwave that has killed more than 300 people, another 80 people have died in accidental fires made worse by the extreme drought that is also gripping the country.

“We call this the fire season in Bihar,” Vyasji, a state disaster management official who goes by one name, said Friday. “Strong, westerly winds stoke fires which spread easily and cause great damage.”

“We have launched an awareness campaign using audio-visual clips and distributing pamphlets,” Gopalganj District Magistrate Rahul Kumar told Can-India.com “We have urged people not to burn anything during the daytime, when westerly winds blow.”

Hoping to prevent more fires, officialshave also barred burning spent crops or holding religious fire rituals. Anyone defying the ban risks up to a year in jail.

“It sounds fine but I wonder how many people will follow it,” Satender Bind, a resident of Jehanabad district who lost his hut in a recent fire, told the media.  “There are practical difficulties.”

Local opposition parties and a few others have also protested. Some mischievous elements have tried to put a spin on the prohibition of ‘ritual fire  or religious fire’ calling the move ‘anti-Hindu’.

The point is, does the government expect the poor to change their cooking and eating habits, all in the name of ‘safety’? First it banned liquor, supposedly protecting ‘women’; and now it bans daytime cooking for those who cannot afford cooking ranges, how much more will this nanny state interfere in private citizen’s lives, asks an observer.

  Bihar, development, heat wave