When the IIT’s were asked to segregate the meat eaters

The Ministry of Human Resource Development of India has recently been jeered at for the many ludicrous statements that have emerged both from the incumbent minister, Smriti Irani and other members of the ruling party, BJP. Recently, a Member of the Indian Parliament treaded the line a bit too far by calling science ‘a pygmy compared to astrology’. For a country with a constitution that lists development of ‘the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform’ as a fundamental duty of every citizen, it is a rather sad state of affairs. 

It isn’t surprising that they make headlines virtually every day. It varies from taking German off the school curriculum, mid-semester, and replacing it with Sanskrit to the rather amusing quip from the minister to her detractors, calling herself a Yale graduate after attending a week long leadership course. The frivolities make for good early morning amusement but this gradual regression towards what the BJP generalises as their ‘asserting Indian values’ is cause for alarm.

A few weeks ago a report from the HRD ministry suggested that the IIT’s, bastions of rationality, and scientific thought in the country, explore the possibility of having a separate canteen for the vegetation students as non-vegetarian food was ‘deviating from the Indian value system’. The case of the letter is a telling tale of the agenda this government has set out on. Part by part the letter aims to distinguish and then segregate good and bad cultures and establishes a puritanical Hindu-Brahmin superiority. Slowly the distinction between religion and state is getting blurred and examining the letter in light of recent event narrates an interesting tale.  

Separate eating spaces are traditionally a figment of the divisive caste system that India has been trying to fight for decades now. Breaking bread with the other is the first step towards overcoming petty boundaries based on caste and class. A classic example is politicians exploiting this in their campaign for secularism a.k.a. Rahul Gandhi living and eating in Dalit households.

Higher castes in India often don’t eat food prepared by the lower ones. The question of sharing food or even eating space is thus unquestionable. An ‘untouchable’ entering the house of a Brahmin calls for a cleansing and washing of the whole household. It is thus not surprising that mingling with meat-eating Muslims and Christians or Mlechas as they are usually referred to (mlecha is a derogatory term used for these people of foreign origin). 

The letter demands segregation of eating spaces because “Many vegetarian students follow them (meat eaters) and bring sorrow to their parents.” The justification for this step is explicitly divisive, exclusionary and a hand-me-down of the much debated caste system. Traditionally, Brahmins who formed the priestly and thus the highest caste were forbidden from eating meat on grounds of non-violence and also to help them focus on studying the scriptures without distraction.

The writer seems to ignore this reasoning and declares that “Non-vegetarian food leaves an adverse impact on the person consuming it. It leads to development of ‘tamas’ (dark and unrighteous) nature.” Tamas is a Sanskrit term used to define dullness and inertia often induced by foods like meat, alcohol, garlic etc.  It also accuses the IIT’s of spreading the ‘bad culture of the West’ through food and that brings us to questioning vegetarianism in India. 
    
In India, as an inherited cultural practice, the choice of being vegetarian is more habitual than an informed individual decision. Like most developing countries, the correlation between income and meat consumption is positive in India. In India, the richer you get the more likely you are to be a meat eater; a factor of both financial ability to afford meat and meat products as well as education and independence in choice. A rise in nuclear families, over joint families makes the switch easier, socially. A steady rise in conversion from pure vegetarian to non-vegetarian in both rural and urban India, is thus sending signals out to organizations like the RSS. For them, the increase in the number of people harmlessly switching to products like egg and then slowly increasing their animal consumption is a scary tale of simple youngsters being lured into a ‘western’ lifestyle. Who decides what is western and what is Indian still remains to be seen.

For now, in reinforcing the collectivist culture value orientation of the Indian society through vegetarianism, the letter is trying to restrict individual choice in colleges by practicing social exclusion and restricting mingling of the many celebrated diverse Indian cultures. The letter generalizes the population as Hindu-Brahmin and addresses the problems using this lens but that is not what is surprising; what is surprising is the government’s promptness and willing to take action upon it.

Something worth noting here would be that the newly appointed head of the Indian Council of Historical Research, someone with little academic credibility and the power to change narratives, has been an advocate of the caste system in ancient times. Something else worth noting is the recent proposal by the External Affairs minister to make the Gita, a Hindu sacred text, a national scripture of this constitutionally secular nation.

Though this does raise concerns, we can go citing multiple other examples but I come back to the letter that, I must confess, does get humorous towards the end.  The writer eventually comments saying that the mixing of food is the reason of other social problems like the reason why our "children get married to Muslims”. Of course, in this sad scenario of mixing palates, do we have an alternative but to serve this non-vegetarian khichdi spiced with some honor killings.

The author is the coordinator of the The Asian Lenses Forum  and Young India Fellow, Class of 2014