INDIA that is BHARAT (article 1 of the constitution) is an incredible nation and cradle of the human civilisation. This civilisation has offered countless things to the world such as spritualism, yoga, martial arts, astronomy and many more. It had tackled the barbarianism of invaders and fuse them with indigenous values such as sufism form out form turkish invasion. India is inveterate nation and will thrive to remain one.
There are many attempts made to divide the INDIA, earlier they were direct (force conversion, virulent suppression, economic drain, racially superiority) now they are indirect (employing discarded western ideologies such as socialism capitalism, communism etc, there are also evangelism, proselytizers etc). Earlier Aryan invasion theory was propounded and propagated to classify the upper class as invaders, downtrodden section were classified as SC and ST, OBC section were created. Now after these division the divide is being deepen by various western rationale to break the country apart.
Culture and traditions of India has offer world a way of living and eating of which vegetarianism is intrinsic part. This life style changes as per India faced countless invasion eventhough we remained epicenter of vegetatian culture. It is because of our value that we respect every life form and restrain ourself from killing. It is not compulsory for every one but people who follow their traditions refrain themselves from killing. Even in Quran it is mention that killing can be allowed only for the survivals.
Recently in an article in ECONOMICAL AND POLITICAL WEEKLY journal titled, DEEPENING DIVIDE-THE CASTE CLASS AND REGIONAL FACE OF VEGETARIANISM, a malicious attempt is visible to instigate the divide and tried to prove vegetarianism as authoritarian culture. Only salient thing in article was use of data from NATIONAL FAMILY HEALTH SURVEY and pedantic way to use graph to relate it ambiguously with their propaganda of traditional suppression. According to NFHS data there is little change in vegetarians from 2005-2015. change in those subsequent years in women was 30.22% to 30.99% and in men from 20.60% to 20.73%.
According to NFHS survey it was found that there is regional disparity in vegetarians and also a gender gap in different section of Hindus. Various reason given by article was that vegetarianism was prevalent in the region where Hindutva forces are dominant and there was aggressive Dalit movements. It was also mentioned that men force women to follow the tradition of vegetarianism, vegetarianism is enforced by people of upper caste as their is increase in vegans of 4.4 percent in them.
All the points made in that article are absurd in nature. According to survey there is an increase in number of meat eaters in south India, which is true but the reason could also be attributed to rise in the population of Muslims and prevalent conversions into Christianity. If we link it to history, there is no record of beef eating in India, chicken was not made at that time. Also Mughal and British are the ones who bring meat eating at such scale. Even if we try famous south Indian dishes such as Idli, Dosa, Appam, Medu Vada, etc., they are vegetarian in nature, there can be sea food in their diet due to proximity of coastal areas and tribal natures. Clearly non vegetarian culture is purely western. Now in Kerela due to communist movement and so called liberals using their western prism made beef eating a regular thing in Kerela. These pseudo left media are paid by evangelist and incorporated to carry out the narratives so that it could be easy for them to spread their business. There is surge of vegetarianism because of spiritual culture and teaching and social movements.
vegetarianism in India is way of life and it is not due to suppression. Due to change in life style of people, things have changed and there is surge in meat eating but that is also very limited. Beef eating in some part of country is advertised as modern and human rationale which is completely misleading like it is mentioned int the above article in EPW.
The article evidently tried to make this as suppression made by Brahminical society and widens the rifts. India from thousands of years is producing grains. Back in Harappan period, the staple diet was made of wheat barley and rice. In INDIA we don’t eat food we eat Prasad, food is offered first to god and then eaten. We don’t offer meat to god. The main goal of such writings by left is to stir up divide and make people of this nation as stepping stone on their path to change the demography, relegion, diversity.
