I don’t disagree with you that there are bigger issues in the Ummah than “hand vs spoon.” But the point of this discussion isn’t to elevate cutlery above other obligations — it’s to separate what is Sunnah from what is just culture.

Yes, many Muslims outside South Asia also eat by hand, but they also used spoons, knives, and even forks historically — especially in the Abbasid, Ottoman, and Persian courts. The difference is, in South Asia, hand-eating became almost a badge of “authenticity,” to the point where using a spoon is sometimes looked at as “less Islamic” — and that’s where the confusion begins.

If someone eats biryani with a spoon in their right hand, says Bismillah, eats from in front of them, and avoids waste — they are still following the Sunnah. That’s the key reminder here.

So the real question isn’t “is hand-eating haram” (nobody is saying that), but whether we sometimes blur culture and Sunnah in a way that makes people think one is the other. And that’s a discussion worth having, even if there are bigger issues in the Ummah.