Hindutva’s Food Allergy: Vegetarian Notion of Their ‘Hindu Nation’

Early in April, a video showing a group of men in a fish market in India’s national capital of New Delhi sternly asking vendors to close their businesses went viral on social media. The men, some of them wearing saffron clothes, the color associated with Hindu nationalism, ordered the market’s closure, arguing that its presence next to a Hindu temple sullied the place of worship.

The decades-old market is located at CR Park, a predominantly Bengali neighborhood.  The temple is of Kali, a meat-eating goddess and the most popular deity among Bengali Hindus. What is more, the temple itself was established by the fish vendors of the market.

The video instantly triggered backlash from Bengali Hindus living not only in Delhi but also in other parts of the country, especially the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Bengali Hindu practices have had no conflict with consuming fish and meat, and in many places in West Bengal, temples often stand next to fish markets and sometimes even inside market compounds.

Following the viral video, Bengali Hindus expressed outrage that their way of Hinduism was under attack. The CR Park temple priest told journalists that Bengali Hindu practices include offering fish, meat, and alcohol to deities. Mahua Moitra, an opposition parliamentarian from West Bengal, slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “terrorizing Hindu fishmongers.”

This is only the latest among a series of culinary cultural conflicts India has witnessed since Modi’s ascent to the helm of India’s affairs in 2014. It started with an offensive against the consumption of beef, targeting mostly Muslims, India’s largest religious minority group. But gradually, all meat eating started coming under attack as the BJP government and the Hindu nationalist ecosystem pushed for vegetarianism.

Although Indians are widely believed to be vegetarians, its population, which is 80 percent Hindu, is predominantly non-vegetarian. As much as 80 percent of Indians consume meat. Vegetarianism in India is mostly associated with caste-hierarchical Hindu practices. It is popular among the upper caste and trading caste Hindus in the northern, central, and western Indian states of Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.

Except for Punjab, these states comprise the “Hindi heartland,” where people predominantly speak Hindi and where most of India’s caste-based atrocities are recorded. The region is also sometimes referred to as the “cow belt” as the cow is venerated by many Hindus in these states. “Gai hamaari mata hai” (the cow is our mother) is a slogan Hindu nationalist groups frequently use to demand a ban on cow slaughter and beef consumption. It is in these Hindi heartland states that Hindu nationalist politics first built their bases.

Over the past decade, cow vigilantism has led to many attacks on Muslims while they transport cattle or on suspicion of having beef, causing multiple deaths. Dalits, the lowest caste in the hierarchy, have borne the brunt of such vigilantism.

But the food-related offensive has not been confined to beef. In Uttar Pradesh, more than 50 percent of the population are meat eaters, as the state has a high share of Hindu low caste and Muslim population. The BJP government in the state has been pushing hard for vegetarianism since 2017 as part of a “spiritual drive.”

BJP governments in other states have made the same attempts to impose vegetarianism.

More than 95 percent of the population in the eastern states of West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, and Odisha and the southern states of Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh are non-vegetarian. In places like West Bengal, Assam, and Kashmir, the majority of Brahmins, the priestly caste at the top of the caste-hierarchy, consume meat.

Among minority groups, Jains are predominantly vegetarians (92 percent), and almost 60 percent of Sikhs identify as vegetarian. However, about 90 percent of Muslims and Christians, and 75 percent of Indian Buddhists consume meat.

While Hindu nationalists speak of Hindu unity, they find it difficult to cope with the diverse practices of Hinduism. For long, Hindu nationalism or Hindutva has been seen as a brand of north Indian Hinduism shaped by Hindi-speaking upper caste Hindus. A 2018 report that analyzed the backgrounds of 1,000 BJP leaders found that the party continues to be dominated by leaders from Brahmin and baniya (trading) castes.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological-organizational parent of the BJP, practices pure vegetarianism. The Hindu nationalist camp sees vegetarianism as integral to Hindu religious purity. No meat or fish is served at RSS programs. Modi and his closest aide, Home Minister Amit Shah, along with a majority of the BJP ministers with a background in the RSS, are vegetarians. Meat is not served at BJP events.

Prompted by RSS-linked organizations, BJP governments at the federal and state levels have sought to promote vegetarianism in government institutions, including educational campuses. Egg was taken off menus in mid-day meals served in primary schools in many BJP-run states. Many BJP-run states moved to remove meat and fish from being sold or eaten in public spaces. There are towns where selling meat and fish has been banned on specific days of every week.

In 2020, the prestigious National Museum in New Delhi barred non-vegetarian dishes from being served at Historical Gastronomica, a weeklong exhibition-cum-event on culinary history. Held on the museum lawn, it was supposed to offer “the Indus dining experience” through an “ethno-archaeological kitchen of the Harappan culture.” Even though Harappans were meat-eaters, the authorities cited “sentimental reasons” to exclude meat. Taking a cue from the government, even private schools have started banning meat on campuses.

Last year, a controversy broke out in Karnataka — where about 80 percent of people consume meat — after a major literary conference’s organizers declared meat as a “restricted item” at the venue.

Hindutva’s conflict with Bengali Hinduism has repeatedly surfaced over the celebration of Navratri and Durga Puja, which happens during the same period. During Navratri, devout Hindus in northern and western India fast. During Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Bengali Hindus, Bengalis feast. Non-vegetarian consumption increases manifold during this time. However, over the past few years, several cities and towns in BJP-ruled states have repeatedly imposed a complete ban on the sale of meat items during the nine days of Navratri, preventing Bengali Hindus from celebrating the religion their own way.

The aggressive vegetarian push is also seen as part of the RSS efforts to standardize Hinduism in the shape of Abrahamic religions. Unlike the Bible and the Quran, Hindus have no one holy book, no one supreme god, and no standard worship practices. The attempted homogenization of Hindu cultures is, therefore, seen as an attack on Hindu pluralism.

Hindutva advocates have made it clear that the Hindu rashtra (nation) they want to establish in India would be a vegetarian nation with inherent intolerance for any form of non-vegetarianism.