The Many Red Flags of the Green Dot
“Aren’t all Indians vegetarians?” Writer and artist Big Fat Bao examines the violent caste roots of vegetarianism in India, and how the imposed identity of a vegetarian nation can lead to the widespread erasure of food cultures across a majority of populations in the country, and worsening health among Dalit and Adivasi communities.
As an intercaste person with ‘two kitchens’ in my household, being shamed and humiliated for eating meat has very much been a part of my childhood experience. From casteist slurs, to threats of being kicked out of the house — my mum and I have experienced first-hand how a Brahmin man can abuse you for years through the channel of food. Fortunately, my maternal (Dalit) side is strongly rooted in our seafood and meat-eating practices, and have influenced my food choices tremendously. From bombil chutney to meat cooked in green masala, they have a strong disregard for vegetarianism, since we see all too well, its ugly roots in casteism. In a world of privilege, where oppression is invisible, Oppressor Castes can blissfully claim their diet is rooted in choice — for causes such as climate change, environmental impact, and (against) the cruelty to animals.
However, in reality, vegetarianism in India is born in the fire of violence; of caste hierarchies and socially sanctioned brutality, and served under the pretext of love, good health, and purity.
Two years ago, as a young student in Germany, I was chatting with my landlord’s daughter about the city’s local restaurants and cafes, when she remarked, “Germans eat a lot of meat, so it will be difficult for you to find a vegetarian place here. Berlin perhaps, but definitely not in Dessau.” Surprised, I asked her why would I need a vegetarian place to eat — to which she responded, “Aren’t all Indians vegetarians? Almost all of the students from India insist on eating vegetarian food on campus.”
She was taken aback to learn that I ate meat (including beef). It was the first time I saw the extent to which Oppressor Caste lies had come to represent India as a country of vegetarians.
The claim that Indians, and specifically Brahmins and Baniyas, have historically been vegetarian, is categorically debunked by Babasaheb in his book, The Untouchables: Who were they and why they Became Untouchables. Citing Hindu religious texts like the Rig Veda and the Vajasaneyi Samhita, he provides evidence that Hindus were not only meat eaters, but consumed beef (while also simultaneously considering cows sacred). In the post-Vedic period, Buddhism emerged as a counter-culture promoting non-violence and peace; this particularly challenged the Hindu practice of animal sacrifice. In the face of Buddhism’s rising popularity with the masses, Hinduism, specifically the upper castes, absorbed the principles of non-violence and peace, appropriating it to mask the exploitative and socially divisive concept of ‘purity’. Ambedkar contends that Hindus nonetheless continued beef consumption until later misinterpretations of texts (such as the Satapatha Brahmana and the Apastamba Dharma Sutra) emerged: these texts discouraged excessive cow-killing and beef-eating, but never explicitly prohibited it. This is supported by Yajnavalkya, a prominent Hindu Rishi.
Not only is the imposition of vegetarianism as a moral imperative both exclusionary and biased, but it deliberately erases factors of cultural, economic and environmental context that influence dietary choices. In systemically impoverished communities, access to affordable and nutritious vegetarian foods is nearly impossible, making meat consumption a practical necessity rather than a choice.
From Brahmins to Shudras, the norm of non-Brahmin castes also strictly adhering to vegetarianism can be put down to two reasons. One is an imposition of the aforementioned moral code, and the other is because of cultural dissemination. Within Indian society, popular cultural practices are spread through the emulation of customs, traditions, and behaviours of Brahmins (the highest caste, and therefore aspirational) by other Hindu castes. This emulation has a predictable pattern and follows the law of imitation, which state that individuals from lower strata invariably imitate those from higher strata. This principle is widely acknowledged and accepted, yet never questioned; it remains deeply ingrained within the casteist social behaviour of most Indians. Vegetarianism continues to be used as a marker of purity and therefore superiority, reinforcing caste divisions and violence against those who did not adhere to it, particularly Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and Christians.
You may also like to read: The Ugly Underbelly of Veganism in India
Weaponizing Vegetarianism
I can think of four broad ways in which vegetarianism is weaponized by Oppressor Caste Hindus in order to crack down on India’s meat-eating communities. These are 1. moral superiority 2. political and social propaganda 3. cultural and religious conflicts, and 4. big corporates.
In the name of culture, religion, and healthcare, the Brahmin-Baniya nexus has historically oppressed other communities by controlling the consumption and social acceptability of food. Due to their imposed vegetarianism, India is now perceived (or as I believe, tainted) as a vegetarian nation. Just as Babasaheb predicted, the Hindu will carry caste with him across oceans, and as a result India is viewed as a country of ‘cow-worshipping vegetarians.’ In the present age of exploitation, the monopoly of casteism ensures that the Brahmin-Baniya hegemony helps sustain Manu’s dream of running a ‘pure’ Brahmanized nation.
The recent launch of a ‘pure veg fleet’ by Deepinder Goyal’s app Zomato barely comes as a surprise, since it is not the first time that food delivery apps have imposed vegetarianism through design — design that creates a culture of fear, enables discrimination, moral policing and mob violence. Beyond the communal nature of the green colour of Zomato’s new uniforms for delivery personnel — the idea received heavy backlash on social media, and has since been disbanded — but the imposed vegetarianism on a nation where more than 80% of citizens consume meat on a regular basis*. From Sudha Murthy carrying her own spoon to showcase her ‘simple lifestyle,’ to institutional vegetarianism imposed on students or employees, the casteist idea of ‘purity’ is the root cause of India’s vegetarian food problem.
Have you noticed? — The clearer plastic bag is always used for ‘pure’ foods, associated with a higher caste. This plastic bag full of groceries can be carried around openly and is a symbol of pure, Sattvik, healthy living. The darker the plastic bag, the ‘dirtier’ the food it carries. Ostracized and lynched is the black bag, just like the beef inside it and the person carrying it. Credit: Big Fat Bao
A Notion of ‘Purity’ Rife with Contradiction
Digging deeper into the aspect of purity in vegetarianism, we must acknowledge the fact that casteism cannot exist without the idea of purity. According to Hinduism, only a Brahmin is ‘pure’ by birth and must maintain his purity by eating ‘pure/Sattvik’ foods. Everyone else in the caste pyramid is impure by varying degrees (graded inequality), thus making the Dalit an ‘untouchable’.
Across cultures, food is classified on the basis of medicinal properties, flavour, aromas, even heating or cooling properties. However, none of these categories is based on ‘purity of essence.’ It is only in Brahmanical medicine (or Ayurveda), that foods are categorized into three groups — Sattvik, Rajasik, and Tamasik, purity levels in order of descent. So if we consider ‘vegetarian’ food, does it include garlic, onions, curd, fruit or vegetable pickles? Because according to Ayurveda, these specific foods are ‘unclean, impure, unhealthy’.
Additionally, if we are to consider ‘pure vegetarian’ as a category, does that imply only Sattvik food? Since the larger vegetarian category includes Rajasik and Tamasik foods as well? So far as the discussion around vegetarianism is concerned, there is no clear or logical explanation as to why certain foods are permitted and others not. For example, potatoes and garlic are a strict No in the Jain diet system, but groundnuts are allowed; savoury foods are not permitted when Hindus fast but somehow sabudana khichdi and potato bhaaji get a pass.
Neither the Sushrut Samhita nor the Charaka Samhita provide a clear list of foods that fall under these three rigid categories, other than the fact that all meats are considered Tamasik, while pungent or fermented foods like garlic, curd, onions, and ginger are either Rajasik or Tamasik. If the term vegetarian means excluding animal fat/protein, then by that logic, it should also exclude all dairy. However, milk, ghee, and curd are the Sattvik ingredients for making Panchamrit which are offered in both Hindu and Jain temples!
Logically speaking, if ‘purity’ is maintained by consuming ‘pure vegetarian’ food, then only ‘Sattvik’ foods are kosher — and not other plant-based or fermented foods such as vada pav, pav bhaaji, dosas, dhoklas, idlis, or samosas.
You may also like to read: Blood Fry & Other Dalit Recipes from my Childhood
The Ugly Side of Vegetarianism
The systemic imposition of vegetarianism manifests most prominently as violent mob lynchings across the nation, and in the form of open discrimination within communal eating spaces within academic institutions, work organizations, and government offices. Dalits or Muslims seen transporting or carrying meat are lynched (oftentimes to death) because Hindus assume that they are carrying beef.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) refuses to publish data on mob-lynchings based on cow-related violence; but a New Delhi-based centre has collated data on atrocities against minorities since 2014 and has a category specific to cow-related violence. The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) database** (data available till August 2022) found 206 instances of mob lynching involving attacks on more than 850 people, including Dalits, Christians and Muslims. In 2019, the Human Rights Watch found that between May 2015 and December 2018, more than 100 beef-related lynchings took place in India, in which 280 people were injured and 44 killed — an overwhelming majority of them being Muslim. In 2017, IndiaSpend released a report that analyzed cow-related lynchings since 2010. It found that 86% of the people killed in such lynchings were Muslims, and 97% of attacks transpired after 2014. Since then, the website has taken down its tracker.
When it comes to food, I always think of the phrase, namak swad anusaar aur akad jaat anusaar (salt as per taste, and ego as per caste). I firmly believe that the imposition of a vegetarian diet and identity will not only result in the massive erasure of food cultures across a majority of our population, but it will indeed lead to worsening health, especially among children from Dalit and Adivasi communities. India is currently situated at the bottom of the Global Hunger Index while simultaneously a nation with the largest population of people suffering from diabetes. Can you now see the red flags of the green dot? If yes, are you going to tame yourselves to the sound of this dog whistle, or open your ears to its deafening alarm bells?
Bao is an illustrator and design researcher whose work focuses on the intersections of caste, design, food, and gender.
*Deepening Divides-The Caste, Class and Regional Face of Vegetarianism by Dr Suraj Jacob and Dr Balamurali Natarajan.
**As per the website, the numbers are, at best, representative of the scale of the problem. The database is a fair accounting of all reported incidents of hate crimes against religious minorities in India, but it is by no means a complete accounting of all such hate crimes happening in the country.
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