From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the Times of India podcast. In response to vegetarian students claiming that they were uncomfortable sharing eating space with non vegetarian batch mates, IIT Bombay came up with a simple solution the prestigious National Institute which has students from across States and communities. Created separate eating desks that could be occupied only by vegetarian students. There's no record of this having
been done before. The latest decision didn't go down well with many students, some of whom staged a silent protest against this. And from last so many days it has been noticed that the students who was eating non vegetarian food was purposely eating the non vegetarian food on the reserved seat which is there for the for the vegetarian student. The institute responded by
finding one of the students. 100000 rupees for intentionally sitting at the table reserved for vegetarians to eat his non vegetarian meal. A committee that investigated the matter claimed that some students were forcibly trying to spoil the atmosphere at the institute. The decision to find the student attracted a lot of outrage. It prompted some of the teachers at the institute to speak up and protest against the fine and the decision to reserve tables for
vegetarians. Doctor Suryakant Vagmore is a sociologist teaching at the Institute. And was one of those who publicly voiced his opposition to the grounds over which tables were reserved for vegetarian students. In today's episode, he's in conversation with my colleague Bhavika Jain about the push by vegetarians to have their own separate spaces. He talks about why vegetarians are pushing back for separate spaces and why the link between caste and vegetarianism should
never be missed. He also talks about the politics of vegetarianism. Sudham Murthy and Rahul Gandhi cooking mutton with Lalu Prasad Yadav. Given this, push for vegetarianism comes at a time when carrying or eating the wrong kind of meat can get you arrested or make you the target of vigilante violence. Bhavika started by asking Professor Suryakant about how we have traditionally segregated spaces based on food.
Professor Suryakant says this push for segregation comes at a time when vegetarianism is actually declining. Segregation may seem as something wrong in contemporary form of urban life or modern life, but our society has been one way lived peacefully based on segregation. So segregation has been the order. So unless and until we keep the other, that doesn't constitute us away from us. We cannot associate.
We cannot socialize. So that's the nature of segregation in rural India. Even now much of the living is very segregated, right, based on cast largely. And if this is altered in any way, the ideas of segregation in terms of living, in terms of space, in terms of hierarchy? There is also violence because rural spaces are supposed to be organized in a certain form. A lot is changing of course, and that is why now we are at the place where we are rethinking
segregation. The ideology of caste definitely in various ways structures segregation and food is a major constituent of this mode of organizing society. Food based segregation, especially in cities, becomes an obsession of sorts, and this also varies based on cities. For instance, Mumbai doesn't have so much of the sentiment of extreme segregation. There's a lot of mixed leaving.
What we see is increasingly there is exclusion of Muslims from housing societies and all, but we see a lot of mixing amongst the Hindus. It's not made a matter of caste. You know, if you have resources, you know your class could help you get housing in mixed places. Also unless you're Muslim.
The incident at IIT Bombay came around the same time another incident took place in Mumbai. A Maharashtrian woman was told she couldn't rent a suburban office space because the building had a policy of not renting to Maharashtrians. One of the implied things was that she was denied the office space because many Maharashtrians are non vegetarian and the residents of the colony who were mostly
Gujarati were not. Bhavika asked Professor Suryakant about segregation in cities like Mumbai, which claimed to be more cosmopolitan. We were two incidences of segregation based on food preference. In the last few days that weve seen, worryingly, a city like Mumbai which is so-called cosmopolitan in nature, we are seeing this issue being raised again and again. Can a city like Mumbai really afford to be such a conservative side? I think city in itself means a
cosmopolitan space. City is supposed to be inclusive, equal, right. The space of freedom, right. We draw the idea of citizens from city, so no city can afford to be exclusive. Mumbai is a city which is very mixed. It's history, the way it's organized and structured. It's genuinely diverse. As opposed to say, a city like Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad is like a big city with a lot of Gujarati ethics that governs that city.
Even the history of capital there organizes the city in such a way that all these factors of caste, food, religion are deeply into play, which are not in Mumbai. So what we see is there are pockets like Ahmedabad in Mumbai. So these two incidents that you're talking about, they also reflect in what I say the anxiety of. Vegetarians. So because vegetarianism in India you like it or not, it's linked to the idea of hierarchy and this hierarchy of food.
It's very graded. So if you are eating non beef meats, you are not untouchable, but if you're eating beef, you become an untouchable. We have managed to bring in several forms of hierarchies there, while vegetarians over a period of time have learned in this urban spaces to live with. Meat eaters, for instance, even in Ahmedabad, you see that a lot of McDonald's have come in where they see they serve both chicken
and vegetarian food. So in one sense people are learning to live with each other. What does the story does not tell us is that vegetarianism in India is a forced sentiment. You know, we force our children to be vegetarian. There are multiple forms. What you see is. That amongst the cars that are impure just to mimic the pure casts and kind of gain upward mobility, they tend to become vegetarians.
That's another form. But there is also this idea of being born as a vegetarian in various forms. It's also a violent process because then you have to ensure that your child is not exposed to someone who eats meat to senses to smells which may be attractive. And not that this is majority of vegetarians, it it is definitely a minority. But this minority tends to govern the ideas of how to be a vegetarian, right? This is this and it's a double game.
They could play the game of their vegetarianism being very good for environment. They could use it also in terms of Hindu nationalist sentiments and they could also use it as victims or we are a minority. But I think it's not such a
simple thing. So it's very important, especially from, you know, looking at a city as a space of future which is inclusive and equal, to look at the ideas of vegetarian, which are militant, which are about absolute closure, which we need to talk about and which should not in any form be encouraged because it's largely linked to
sentiments of caste punity. So another side of this entire debate is that people who support food segregation often argue for the freedom of choice and the right to practice one's faith. So they definitely have freedom of choice, right? No one is stopping them from eating. But to say that you don't use the same utensil to cook vegetarian food, I mean, these days people have dishwashers. I mean, these are washed through hot water, hot steam, right? Chemicals.
Now, it won't make sense to say that you don't use the same dishwasher. So see, this is these are the elements of caste. Don't sit with me and eat. We are not organizing an intercaste marriage. You eat your food, I eat mine, right? So these are in various sense primordial ideas of caste and which we need to debate. We should not just institutionalize these things. Can you speak about anxieties
that you know vegetarians? Have around themselves and which is why this manifesting the entire segregation. Do you think it leads to, you know, creation of more ghettos where there will be limited social, cultural limit, even economic interactions between people from one part of the city in another? And how does this go with the development of the city? Actually it's very interesting question. So Bombay and Ahmedabad are like
2 contrasting examples. Ahmedabad is a beautiful city with all its you know, inherent biases, exclusions and people are living with you know. So vegetarians will not give housing to non vegetarians. There is a lot of gas based discrimination. This you will not see in Mumbai. See India has had these phases generally with modernity and
economic development. What we see in Western countries or other countries too, that the meat consumption increases because when you have money, you buy more meat. In India, modernization was also playing with Sanskritization. So as the masters that were not pure got money, they also mimicked these pure castes because that helped them fit in with with the pure castes by claiming when you did in the
man. What we also see is, you know beef consumption has got drastically gone down amongst caste that were used to having with modernization because stigma attached to beef and so on. I think now are we. Now we are at a phase where you, because of a lot of travel and general ideas also moving around, people are questioning this whole sense of purity
attached to which things. And I'm thinking that in say next 2-3 decades, meat consumption is going to increase not only amongst pure cast, but also cast that word to seek purity becoming. Below vegetarians now this is going to cause a lot of anxiety amongst the vegetarians who have had this hegemony power and within this law trajectory. I think whether we become more divided or not, the city's
become divided or not. There is definitely going to be a lot of discourse and debate around this. Because it's not so easy for youngsters to be said, oh, you know, vegetarianism is bad and vegetarianism is very different from veganism, right? Because that is like the genuine form of concern where you don't want pushed milk out of animals, you don't want to have a lot of cattle just for the sake of your
own good. I think these debates are already coming in. It's not that you'll be going backwards, but we are definitely in a phase of thinking more and that has to be encouraged. For instance, in a city like Bombay, you have housing societies which come up with a temple and then of course only a certain people from a certain community are sort of given space in those housing. Also, largely this is also linked to real estate prices,
right? The houses in those societies maybe 4,00,00,000, five crores worth and obviously no other community may be able to afford that kind of housing. So how does this sort of play out in economics? You are pushing out people without saying that they don't belong there because the prices are only so, so very high. These are like enclaves people choose right to kind of organize
their communities around. This is also a matter of you can say choice and when you are from a class or a group with capital you can do it well. Because if your houses are so expensive, 3-4 crores, right? And if you organize it in such a way that only a certain community wants to get in, it definitely works to segregate right? To kind of reproduce this whole idea of purity and kind of give a sense of protection to these communities.
In a city like Mumbai, the prices will go very high if you really want to have this very close kind of societies and it will be very expensive. It's not really affordable. And even if you have your own kind of space, the surroundings around you would give you those side, the smells, the senses which you don't want. You may have to engage with this. And that's the nature of city, especially Mumbai, you see that. So that's what I say. You know Mumbai has pockets of Ahmedabad.
When you see this, I live in a place like this. There's a Jain temple and around this, this idea has worked out that within the space. You don't sell meat, so all of us have to go get our meat. You know, black Polythenes and all that stuff. We work around that. But there is definitely coexistence. Also, you know that Gujarati is in the society that Bengalis and so on. Yes, capital could play a role, but at least in a city like Mumbai, it's not decisive.
If you have money, have money you can really have your way around. What does these enclaves sort of do to the younger generation really? Does that keep them away from, you know, having a social interaction? What does that do to maybe kids belonging to minority families in a in a society which which eat meat and majority don't? There are more meat eaters than vegetatives, but that's why this whole rush, you know.
Now to. Have this space kind of continuously say that I want my space in the train, I want my space in housing societies or want a certain sense of smell, smell, how it should look and so on. So there is more anxiety on the part of this militant vegetarians actually. Now, what it means for non vegetarians If they are a minority, of course they have to, really. We do their modes of living. So for instance, you would not cook fish that is smelly.
You would, you know, eat out. But if such freedoms are really affected, you know, one would also then think of moving to a place which is more open for the younger generation that cannot come out with its meat eating. It's a kind of psychological violence when you're dealing with this kind, when you cannot be what you are. But it may also lead to conversation. You know, people may not. Take this kind of you know, misplaced, unscientific kind of reasoning as a good way to live, right?
I think the violence of such form of living is worse on the vegetarian ghettos. See, because what you are cultivating is you are cultivating a sense of caste pride. You are cultivating a sense of false ideology into something that is good for environment. The basis of it is wrong. And it is. All of this is linked to our notions of purity and punishing. We cannot just, you know, say, oh, I'm not eating meat and and we cannot not look at the violence of it.
And there are so many children who hide from their parents and eat meat. Parents know this, but they want to do this whole spectacle of them even now sticking on to it. We did a study of this Descious Tamrahman Car Association.
So every caste decision has some people who are like this cutter caste feeling people we interviewed some and if you eat meat you become violent, If you eat meat you are bound to be sexually transgressive or something of that kind, you're not going to follow the culture and so on. Interestingly in this association they also moved on to say you know even if you are a non vegetarian, a meat eating person, but if you are a decious star.
People are welcome to the organization because they are realizing that people are not coming to these organizations. So if you're going to be very strict about all those things in Mumbai, it does not work like that. Maybe there they can try and socialize. You try to teach you. So there is always this back and forth. People are increasingly also attracted going towards me. So there is this cutter kind of cast feeling. The Who own the sentiment of CAST want to protect the CAST right?
Who will pressurize push this ideas right? So there is this kind of process of exchange between these moments. We're back in conversation with Professor Surayakanth about the push and pull behind spaces for vegetarians. Bhavika asked him about his tweet in response to the controversy at IIT Bombay over the tables in the eating halls being reserved for vegetarians. In your own words, you said that the Bharatiya vegetarianism of purity and segregation is a social illness.
It needs to be cured and not institutionalized. Can you please elaborate on where this comes from and what what is essentially are you trying to say? Food cannot be used in in a hierarchical form. You know to govern distances with others. You know, to kind of segregate to. To continually reproduce hierarchies. That's the broad point I was making because, and what I was suggesting is we really need to sit back and distinguish our vegetarianism, which stems out of cast.
I don't and have a conversation on it. If there are meat eaters who give up meat and become vegetarians, that's a sentiment which is genuine where? You have thought of giving up meat because its not good for you, not good for environment and so on. If you have worked out an idea now, but if youre forced to be a vegetarian from your birth and then youre also taught to get this false pride and notions about your vegetarianism in grade because caste because that gives you intellect on and
several other things. And you choose this in daily life, you know, also in terms of hierarchies within your house, gender hierarchies, and so on and so forth. This is something I'm referring to. It's not merely a social illness, but I think it's not good for our mental health also. The case of attempting to enforce restrictions over eating spaces in IIT Bombay is particularly interesting given the stature of the Institute in
the World of Indian education. Professor Suryakant couldn't comment directly on the issue given his teaching at the institute. However, he did point out that in most public academic institutions, there is a middle path that has already been worked out by students and has been in place for years. If the leadership turns regressive and is trying to put in place ideas and and norms, which is about segregation, which is about hierarchy, it's
not good. The younger folks need to need to experience equality and practice equality. That's the genuine idea of public. It should not be around saying that I don't want to see meat, I don't sit with meat eaters, right? And so on. See, food is important because around food there should be solidarity and it should construct an inclusive nationalism, not an hierarchical social form. Academic spaces need to be that space of cosmopolitan values, of scientific temper.
And we see this in South India. We there is no conversation around of course beef in and pork kind of not part of the menu, but I think that is being sensitive to the sentiments of caste, Hindus and Muslims, which is a good practice. There is a middle part that we have already worked out. Let us not go backwards. Among those who inadvertently we did into the debate of food and caste is author Sudha Murthy.
In an interview, she spoke of her fears and why she always carries extra food like poha and chapatis when she travels abroad. My pure vegetarian. Not unique. OK? Not even lesson. Hmm. I don't eat lesson. Not even lesson. Hmm. She spoke of how one of her biggest worries was that a spoon in vegetarian food might have been in non vegetarian food. Bhavika asked Professor Suriyakan about the statement and how he viewed it.
Sir, recently we were all outraging over a statement that Sudha Murthy made about, you know, how she manages her vegetarianism when she travels abroad. Does what she said really fall in her quote UN quote, private space? Because then we all have our food preferences, right? Yeah, it does for Sudha Murthy. It does for a lot of people like Sudha Murthy. Because, see, this is what their way of coping with the rice of
meat around them. A Sudha Murthy 100 years ago would not have this problem because she would be meeting with her own kind. She would not be traveling much. Even traveling across 7 seas, you become untouchable, you know. So you could not have done that as part of our caste idea. So Sudha Murthy and several others like Sudha Murthy are coping with, in their terms the rage of modernity. It's very violent for them. So she and several others would carry that cutlery, right?
Would not want to see me being served to others, but they also have to moderate their sentiments. I think this is also a generation that is withering away. I don't think the Amurthy's daughter married to the Prime Minister of UK would waste her energies doing this in United Kingdom. So I guess you know cosmopolitan values. That way, I hope, overwhelm us instead of this regressive ideas of Taj pollution and, you know, purity. Also, what does this say? About us as a society, is this
also a form of intolerance? Because having somebody just sitting next to you eating their own food? I mean, you don't need to share that food, but you can at least let them eat their own food now. Intolerance is an underestimated term. You know, in a society where sex issue is bad because of our religious values. In a society where we are moved from sati to now, we are even now trying to ban child marriages, right.
In a society where honor killing just two days back there was a case of a ready father be adding her daughter for you know, being in love with someone even after marriage, the collective conscience moves through the spaces of you know, being progressive and regressive and and we are in that churn even now. So what we need is definitely a debate. We need to talk even now.
We are almost a developed country, you know, if you are to follow the popular narrative, but we run schemes like Beti Bachao. So that's the paradox, right? So I think see a tolerance is underestimating the problem, and a collective zeal to look at most of these problems through the lens of reason and collective good, something that we need to think of together, would be productive. We've spoken about anxieties that possibly vegetarians have to sort of. Protect their culture or
so-called idea of culture. So are these anxieties around non vegetarianism in India a fallout of the dominant political narrative with BJP coming to power since 2014? What we also see is there's a conversation within BJP and RSS also. So what has happened is socially the militant vegetarians have got a kind of assertive take on these things. So, so you see it on social media, you see it on social life.
In Mumbai, no one would have ever said don't serve meat or don't it. It doesn't go with the Marathi selfhood. Meat is very much part and and even vegetarianism is very much part of the culture. But they don't clash. Now look at for instance, RSS has slowly that kind of almost out of this radical vegetarianism narrative. So this has been kind of delegated to independent individuals. So it is not a collective narrative, if you will get recent moan about some of the comments, right?
For instance, he said cast is bad made by the priest and we have to kind of undo it. One recently he said some of our workers, RSS workers, went to eat at one of the impure cast homes. And what happened there was they told them that you know, this school is cooking meat and you're going to go to hell for next 1516 generations now. So it seems the workers said, you know, it's OK if that happens to us because we have discriminated against you a lot. See, now there is some reason working.
You cannot get away with all of falsities and notions that have no scientific backup. So there is this tension even within BJP, of course. What do you say? I understand and I agree that the sentiment is voiced more. I'm sure the government also in its layered form encourages it, right. And we see so much of passionate funding to gaushalas. You cannot have a full scale pure vegetarian assault on non vegetarians. This whole sentiment of vegetarianism is a very pure
caste sentiment. It's not no something that is part of the masses. Therefore you see this back end board even within RSS they don't have an absolute position, right. Which is going to say that you know all the RSS workers do not eat meat. They have to close down Rs there. Was this recent video with Rahul Gandhi cooking? Champar and mutton? Is that sort of a messaging required to have political leaders normalize meat eating? See Rahul Gandhi is a very astute, you know politician.
I think hes really sat back and looked at the trajectory of the rise of Hindutva and now hes at a place where he realizes it is only the subaltern anti caste politics that can serve as a powerful antidote to Hindu consistently caste senses. This whole discourse of this is very Bahujan is discourse, this is Gandhi discourse, this is BSPS discourse right. It becomes fashionable with Rahul Gandhi which is OK right
So so he's eating meat. He's talking of past senses now he's almost seems like yesterday he gave this thing, you know is there any OBC here is there any that this was almost like an amid right activist speaking which is good see this is the exchange we need now because our society, the problem is there is no sympathy for the other and we need more of this.
The spectacle of Rahul Gandhi eating meat, it's also a way of especially performing for the Obcs, you know, who are so attracted to this whole vegetarian Hindu party scores right to saying that, oh, look here, here's the mandal leader who loves meat. And I, as you know, some Brahman lineage, also love meat. So there's nothing to be disgusted about, right? It's also a way of, you know, democratizing sensory ideas, kind of living with what you see and not producing disgust towards me.
Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj Singh and Anuja Singh. For a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us. We are available on TOI, Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and all other platforms of your choice. For any news tips, e-mail us at TOI Podcast at Timesinternet in.