Caste, Class, and
Vegetarianism in India

By Elizabeth Joseph

Being a vegetarian is often considered the most sustainable way to live in the Global North. With that belief can come some condescension and moral superiority. As American culture shifts towards vegetarianism, we often look to international alternatives to common foods, like quinoa or tofu. For Indian-Americans, however, vegetarianism isn’t new or trendy. Although many Indian-Americans are vegetarian, only about 30% of people in India are.

 

Why are so many Indian-Americans vegetarian? Vegetarianism isn’t accessible for everyone. Meat is dense with nutrients and relatively cheap. When you’re living in a country like India with less vegetarian imports than the U.S., vegetarianism becomes less accessible.

 

Who has the option to turn down eating meat –  a readily available, cheap and nutrient-dense food?

 

Yet cultures and laws have reinforced vegetarianism’s dominance in India for eons. In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government called for a nation-wide ban on cattle sales, effectively banning beef as food. Those who illegally consumed it would go to prison. Modi’s proposal follows the controversies surrounding the protection of cows in India since 1948. Many non-South Asian perspectives consider India a vegetarian country, and indeed, many Indians and Indian-Americans follow some kind of dietary restriction due to faith. Hinduism considers cows sacred and therefore something Hindus should not eat, leading to the popularity behind laws protecting them. However, the extent to which people eat beef depends on class and caste. After all, not many have the option to turn down eating meat, a readily available, cheap, and nutrient-dense food.

 

Pew Research Center conducted a survey of about 30,000 Indian adults. They found that 72% of the Hindus surveyed believed that someone who ate beef could not truly be Hindu. 49% of Hindus surveyed said that someone who doesn’t believe in gods or who doesn’t pray could not be Hindu – suggesting that beef consumption affects who Hindus perceive as Hindu and not.

 

In the same survey, 77% of Muslims said a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork, whereas 60% said someone could not be Muslim if they do not believe in God. Similarly, 85% of Jains and 82% of Sikhs said that a person cannot be part of either religion if they consumed beef.

 

In India, vegetarian households have higher incomes in comparison to non-vegetarian households. Wealth dictates access.

 

Millions of Indians eat beef, including oppressed-caste people, Christians, and Muslims (“Oppressed caste” is used here to denote those who are at the bottom of the caste hierarchy). Yet many stigmatize eating beef and other meats by overvaluing vegetarianism and criminalizing eating beef. For this reason, we must question why meat-eaters are often excluded from dominant communities.

 

Caste is evident in someone’s last name, the ways they practice their religions, and their diet. In India, it is more directly tied with social class and mobility. It’s hard to explain its importance in ways that are tangible, in the same way that it is hard to explain racism to those who don’t experience it. Think about it in an intersectional way. For example, someone who is oppressed-caste could become very wealthy, and therefore experience class mobility. However, they will likely still be barred from certain forms of religious worship and likely would not be able to marry an upper-caste person. Though they may have money, they are still fundamentally perceived through the lens of their caste.

 

It’s worth mentioning that, as said earlier, oppressed caste people eat meat, along with Christians and Muslims. Dominant caste Hindus are often vegetarian, but only 2/5 of the Hindu population is vegetarian. Most Jains and Sikhs are vegetarian due to having core tenets of faith focused on nonviolence, but they are not majority faiths in India. So where does the idea of the vegetarian Indian and the stigma come from?
Researchers Balmuri Natrajan and Suraj Jacob published a systematic review of statistics from three national surveys assessing health and human development in India in Economic and Political Weekly. Each’s validity varies, but the surveys cover all of India and contain massive amounts of data. For example, the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) asks questions regarding consumption of specific meat items, separating fish and shrimp, beef and buffalo meat, and other subcategories. Natrajan and Jacob found that vegetarian households have higher income than non-vegetarian households. Wealth dictates access.

 

It’s not just about the beef. It’s about who needs it to survive, and who has the luxury to turn it down. 

 

Additionally, due to cultural and political pressures on beef-eating, many Indians would not self-report eating beef or other meat, at least in most states. For example, in states that enforce the beef ban, eating beef leads to jail time lasting up to 10 years. Yet despite bans and polarization, India remains among the largest exporters of beef. Reports from 2017, the year of Modi’s proposed ban, estimate about $4 billion worth of beef exports. Despite this, India’s political culture remains vehemently opposed to cattle slaughter.
The stigma persists within Indian culture. Natrajan and Jacob then posit that, at its highest estimate, the vegetarian population of India is 31% but may be less than 20%.

 

So why are so many Indians in America vegetarian?

 

Multiple reports throughout the 2000s suggest that the majority of Indians in the U.S. are upper caste. Most recently, the Indian American Attitudes Survey found that most Hindus who identify with their caste (eight in ten Hindus) self-identify as general or upper caste.
Caste also affects employment, educational privileges, or financial mobility. Often, Indian migrants to the U.S. can migrate due to greater access to privileges needed to do so, which is reflected in the Indian-American diet. As such, vegetarianism and Indian heritage are incorrectly conflated both by non-South Asians and South Asians alike.

 

My issue is not whether beef consumption is morally or environmentally good. Indian policing of beef consumption context is done by those in seats of cultural and social power and is inflicted on those who are not. These beliefs and stigmas travel with us as we migrate, and it is important to consider how the numbers may reflect the Global South as a whole. Indians and others have consumed beef sustainably for eons. It’s not just about the beef. It’s about who needs it to survive, and who has the luxury to turn it down.

1 Comment

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Ginareply
30 January 2024 at 7:59 PM

And now India is the greatest exporter of beef—water buffalo beef. How seemingly hypocritical. Thank you for this article.

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