I have been reading a few books about the partion of British India into Pakistan and India. I noticed in several pictures they have drinking fountains labled: “Hindu” and “Muslim” (Or Mohammedian).
I was wondering is there any relgious reason for this? I am thinking in terms of dietary laws, like Hindus don’t eat cows and Muslims don’t eat pork
Or was this an ethnic type thing, like they used to have drinking fountains for blacks and drinking fountains for whites, in parts of the United States.
And also where did the Sikhs and Christians drink from? I only saw two fountains.
Partly religious, partly cultural, and partly political. Many Hindu groups (“castes”) are fussy about which other groups they can eat or drink with. Muslims are held to be outside the Hindu caste system in general and hence technically not eligible to share most Hindus’ food or drink. A number of Muslims in South Asia adopted similar exclusionary rules for non-Muslims.
Moreover, British colonial policy, in its efforts to accomodate traditional religion-based jurisprudence in its South Asian territories and also to foster convenient classification systems for colonial administration, codified a number of these customs into rigidly standardized practice.