Hindu temple serves Ramadan meals in southern India
Temple-led Ramadan meals in Chennai offer rare interfaith solidarity as anti-Muslim narratives deepen nationwide divisions
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — At a time when Islamophobia and hate speech have intensified in parts of India, a Hindu spiritual center in the southern city of Chennai has quietly sustained a four-decade tradition of serving daily iftar meals to Muslims during Ramadan.
In the coastal neighborhood of Mylapore, the Sufidar Temple prepares and delivers meals each evening to fasting Muslims, reinforcing an interfaith practice that began in the early 1980s and has continued uninterrupted for more than 40 years.
The initiative was started by Puj Dada Ratanchand Sahib, a Hindu spiritual leader born in 1926 in Hyderabad, Sindh — now in Pakistan — who migrated to India as a refugee during the violence of the 1947 Partition.
After rebuilding his life in Chennai, Ratanchand became a follower of Sufi teachings that emphasized unity, service and compassion across religious boundaries.
Guided by those principles, he began preparing vegetarian iftar meals as an act of gratitude toward the city that had given him refuge. Over time, the initiative expanded into a structured annual effort supported by the Sufidar Trust, the spiritual organization he founded.
Today, more than 100 volunteers from Hindu, Muslim and Sindhi communities participate in the daily preparations. Each Ramadan, the temple’s kitchen begins work in the morning to cook meals for approximately 1,000 to 1,200 fasting individuals. The rotating menu includes vegetable biryani, rice dishes, sweets, dates, fruits and saffron milk.
By late afternoon, the food is transported to the Wallajah Big Mosque in Triplicane, a historic mosque built in the late 18th century by the Arcot royal family. Volunteers personally serve the meals at sunset, often wearing skull caps as a sign of respect.
The initiative has received support from Muslim community leaders, including Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali, the Prince of Arcot, who has described it as a living example of Hindu-Muslim unity.
The tradition continues under community leaders and volunteers following Ratanchand’s passing. In recent years, the initiative has gained wider visibility on social media, with many presenting it as a counter-narrative to polarizing religious rhetoric.
India is home to more than 200 million Muslims, the world’s third-largest Muslim population. While communal tensions and targeted hate campaigns have drawn international attention in recent years, local interfaith initiatives such as the one in Chennai continue to offer an alternative model rooted in shared civic life.
For organizers, the Ramadan meals are not framed as charity but as solidarity — an act of seva, or selfless service, that seeks to preserve coexistence in an increasingly divided climate.
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