A spoonful of politics

 Hunger. 

Hunger is a universally understood feeling that goes leaps and bounds beyond just some basic human need. Food is cultural, food has deep historical significance, food has stories, food is emotional and in India, food is also political. 

India is not a vegetarian country, despite all the claims and preachings of politicians and Hindutva supporters on several occasions, India is not, nor has ever been, a Vegetarian country. India has been seeing a rise in aggression among Hindutva against beef eating. BJP supporters have been vocal and in many cases physical, against meat consumption. However, this phenomenon can be understood if we look deeper into the origins of this increased aggressiveness among these fanatics when it comes to one meat in particular - Beef. This will be the focus of this essay. 

Between 2010 and the middle of 2017, there were 63 cow vigilante attacks in India, many of which took place after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. According to Reuter's investigation, "28 Indians - 24 of them Muslims - were murdered and 124 injured" in these attacks between 2010 and June 2017. Ever since BJP came into power, the attacks have gone from bad to worse. 

Here rises a bunch of questions; why do Hindus resist beef eating? Who eats beef? Where did it all start? 

There are several caste hierarchies in Hinduism so it would be unwise to consider all of Hinduism or Hindus to be against animal slaughter and eating, especially cows. Here is where we see the intersection of caste, religion, and politics. It was the Brahmins who were against the idea of eating meat and strictly adhered to the practice of untouchability. And people who were deemed untouchables are who we now refer to as Dalits. But untouchability was abolished and the rights of the oppressed caste and communities have seen a steep improvement over the last few decades, though we have not reached a level of social equality that we can be proud of. And it is also important to note that the beef ban advocacy by the brahmins in the early period was to ingest the economic benefits of keeping cows alive while being owners of agricultural lands. Holy Cow: Beef in Indian dietary, a book by D N Jha explains this social behavior in a much deeper sense. 

Where did it all start? 

The history of violence in the name of cows goes back centuries, even to the 1800s and before. Cows are deemed Holy according to the Hindu scriptures and cows are worshipped in several parts of the country. Beef eating, however, goes back thousands of years. The Harappan and the Indus valley people, according to recent research, were heavy meat eaters and especially Beef. This was found through the lipid residues found on the archeological sites. Many Hindus claim that the practice of beef eating came with the invasions of Muslim empires or that Indians were vegetarians before the invasions. This, however, is not true. Evidence suggests that Hindus of the Vedic era were fond of beef. Following the spread of Buddhism and Jainism around 1500 BC, vegetarianism started becoming popular. Buddha, who is seen as an advocate for vegetarianism has been misinterpreted in the popular narrative to fit the Hindutva agenda. Buddha insisted on not stopping beef eating, rather he preached putting an end to the unnecessary sacrifice of life beyond absolute necessity. 

Why does this matter now? 

According to historian D N Jha, the BJP's assertion on Beef-ban is a stunt to prove to the world that India is a nation of Vegetarians. And the undertone that India is a Hindu nation. He also states that the Hindu right wing that has been propelling this movement, is a response to their lack of involvement in the independence movement. 

The Hindutva of the present, as D N Jha explains, 

“Loud proclamations of ancient India’s achievements in plastic surgery, stem cell, and aeronautical science, the effort to push back the Vedas’ antiquity, declarations of ancient rishis as scientists, and exhibition on ‘Continuity from the Vedas to Robotics’, are examples of their forays into ‘history’ — but their ‘history’ is a mystery because it does not lend itself to any rational analysis.”

The politics in India, for several decades, has been identity politics. The questions of birth, land, culture, community and belonging have been fought between Hindus and Muslims for several decades. The popular tool in the Hindutva arsenal is that Muslims eat beef and disrespect the sentiments of the Hindus. They claim, as mentioned above, that India has always been a Hindu and vegetarian nation, which has also been debunked by researchers, multiple times. In the book “Early Indians” by Tony Joseph, he mentions how the Out of Africa migration reached the Indian peninsula and how Steppe and Iranian pastoralists occupied the Indus and Harappa. He deconstructs the popular, pseudo-scientific claims with evidence from archeological evidence and research.

One of the most condemned theories by the right wing when it comes to their argument of who the actual settlers and migrants are is the Indo-European language theory which proves the Aryan Migration into the Indian subcontinent. The sensitivity to this theory exists because the theory proves what Hindutva proclaims to be the culture, religion, and practices of India are actually imported. To be more precise, the Sanskrit, Aryan, or Vedic, which is synonymous with Indianness has its origin not in India, but in Europe. This goes against Nationalist propaganda that has been persecuting Muslims and Christians claiming that they are migrants. This theory also leads to other theories in the understanding of the Dravidian and Aryan civilizations in India when the conflict of language comes in. However, the bigger picture that the theory proves is that there is no pure genetics, which also attacks the brahminical belief of “pure race”.  We, as a nation, are a complex mix of so many migrations, genetic makeups, languages, and cultures. The battle that we fight now in India is not about the origin of culture, language, race, or religion, but it's just a weapon to achieve a much bigger goal. The bigger goal is to create a Hindu Nation that gets rid of all the diversity that makes India what it is now. And to further the process of exclusion, Hindutva, with the power of the ruling BJP, holds a pad with check boxes that have the list of things that makes a person Indian. In that list are check boxes like being Hindu, speaking Hindi, being a vegetarian, and of course, being against Beef eating. 

However, it is also interesting to note that India is a major Beef exporter. According to an article published in Money Control on June 23, 2021, Compared to $3.2 billion in 2012–2013, the value of beef exports increased to $3.17 billion in 2020–21, according to trade data released by the department of commerce. Beef exports peaked in 2014–15, when $4.78 billion worth of meat left Indian ports, making about 1.5 percent of all exports. Currently, beef makes up a little over 1% of Indian exports, a figure it has held for the previous three years. The article also explains that cow vigilantism may have affected domestic consumption more than export. 

Do we see Beef? 

It is definitely interesting to note that no advertisements can be seen for beef and movie references to beef in Bollywood is almost nonexistent. And this is where the 2 southern states differ. Kerala films often romanticized beef eating, cooking, and the aesthetics of the process of making the food. The emotional and cultural attachment the Keralites have to their food is blown all over Malayalam films. It is however slightly different in Tamil cinema, as the portrayal of Beef reached the silver screen only after the arrival of the new age director, Pa.Ranjith who is a Dalit and has used the Tamil film industry to throw the spotlight on the lives and struggles of Dalit communities in a much more nuanced and realistic way. This trend has now been picked up by more directors and references to beef can be seen in new-age web series’.   

Meet the meat eaters

Non-muslims consume meat. A lot. And as a testimonial to this claim, Swiggy has claimed that its most-sold dish of the year was biriyani. In Hyderabad, during the season of Ramzan, Haleem is widely consumed by people of all communities, whether it be beef, lamb, or chicken. And apart from this, beef has been the household staple among Dalit communities. When the ruling government bans beef, they are directly attacking the communities that ate beef solely for their survival. Now beef still holds a special place in several parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. And this is where the politics played on food becomes explicit as BJP has failed to win over the people of both of these states. Both the states have a rich Hindu population, but that did not help the BJP's cause, as food is way beyond just culture and religion here. Food has brought people to the streets into a battle of belonging. Food is political. 

References 

Beef ஏன் எப்பவும் சர்ச்சைக்குரிய விஷயமா இருக்கு? | POLITICS behind BEEF Culture | Beef Documentary. (2021, December 18). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1V530DSKY

Online, E. T. (2021, December 22). What India ate in 2021: Chicken biryani, samosa - and this dish was ordered 115 times per minute, reveals. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/this-dish-was-ordered-115-times-per-minute-samosa-crowned-as-most-binged-snack-of-the-year-reveals-swiggys-2021-data/articleshow/88432318.cms

P. (2022, August 1). India exported military hardware worth Rs 42,499 crore since 2018–19: Government. Moneycontrol. https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/india-exported-military-hardware-worth-rs-42499-crore-since-2018-19-government-8932831.html

Patnaik, B. (2020, December 17). Study shows ancient Hindus ate meat-heavy food. The Pioneer. https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/state-editions/study-shows-ancient-hindus-ate-meat-heavy-food.html#:%7E:text=But%20scholars%20have%20known%20for,cow%20meat%20was%20popularly%20consumed.

Q&Amp;A, T. (2015, October 9). Hindu right wrongly says Muslims brought beef-eating — Hindutva history is a mystery: D N Jha. Times of India Blog. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-interviews-blog/hindu-right-wrongly-says-muslims-brought-beef-eating-hindutva-history-is-a-mystery-d-n-jha/

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, July 1). Cow vigilante violence in India. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_vigilante_violence_in_India#:%7E:text=According%20to%20a%20Reuters%20report,%22%2C%20states%20the%20Reuter’s%20report.

Joseph, T. (2021). Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From (Updated Edition). Juggernaut.

Tharoor, S. (2020). Battle of Belonging,The:On Nationalism, Patriotism, and What it Means. Aleph Book company.