Vegetarianism, Meat, and Modernity in India

Never before in human history has vegetarianism (a diet that does not include meat of any kind) and a plant-based economy been so closely associated with sustainability and the promise of tackling climate change. And nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in India, home to the largest number of vegetarians globally and where vegetarianism is increasingly framed as intrinsic to Hinduism in Hindu nationalist discourses.

India is often considered a global model for vegetarianism. However, my book Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India, the outcome of eight months of fieldwork conducted among producers, traders, regulators and consumers, politicians, food manufacturing companies and shops selling meat shows that the reality is quite different: large sections of Indian communities are actually meat-eaters.

A World of Meat

Why and how do Hindu middle-classes eat meat? It is often assumed that the concept of ahimsa (non-violence to living creatures), cow veneration, and the consequent ban of cow slaughter prevent many Hindu groups from eating meat as part of a ‘collectivistic’ Hindu culture. But not only has ahimsa nothing to do with vegetarianism originally, in the past two decades alone, the country has witnessed a meat revolution.

India is one of the largest and fastest-growing producers of meat in the world, especially of water buffalo beef and chicken. From 2006 to 2020, the volume of meat produced in India increased from 2.3 to 8.8 metric million tons, while from 2012 to 2021, the sales value of packaged meat and seafood increased from 104.9 to 281 million US dollars. Especially since the 2000s, India’s export of water buffalo beef has expanded rapidly, with the country becoming the world’s largest beef exporter in 2014. Chicken production and consumption have also been increasing since the 1980s. In addition, the geographies of "meatification" of human diets reveal South-South connections, such as from India to Southeast Asia. The largest exports are from India to Vietnam, valued at 1.9 billion USD annually and ranked as the fifth largest bilateral meat trade flow worldwide. Even though meat consumption in India is still very low compared to other countries, meat/non-veg is being mainstreamed and legitimised in new ways. Meat is sold and consumed throughout India, especially among the rapidly expanding urban middle class.  

Green Ideology

At the same time, there is a larger issue or paradox in promoting vegetarianism in India. In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, secured a second landslide victory in the general elections for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Modi is a strict vegetarian and advocates for vegetarianism as a national project or a green ideology. Upper-caste groups have traditionally encouraged vegetarianism, and the Hindu nationalist movement, spearheaded by Modi, has deliberately and strategically supported this idea, accepting at face value that most Hindus are, or desire to be, vegetarians, while Muslims and lower castes are not, and do not wish to be, vegetarians.

Vegetarianism and ahimsa have thus come to constitute an important part of Hindu nationalism. Cow protection, the ban on animal sacrifice, and ‘vegetarian politics’ promoted by the BJP and Hindu groups effectively mobilise constituencies in India. This has resulted in Hindu nationalistic violence against Muslims, such as in the state of Gujarat in 2002, where the concept of ahimsa was deployed in the media, demonstrating how ethnic and religious differences between Hindus and Muslims were constructed through diet, animal slaughter, and religious sacrifice in an everyday context.

This ideological promotion of vegetarianism parallels efforts to identify green or sustainable foods in India. In 2011, under the Congress-led government, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) introduced green (vegetarian) and brown (non-vegetarian) labels on all packaged foods/beverages in India by law. These labels are ubiquitous in public life and can even be seen in multinational chain restaurants. Some have made strident calls for labelling to be mandatory. In response to a plea by Ram Gau Raksha Dal, a trust for the welfare of cows, the Delhi High Court mandated the FSSAI to enforce ‘a complete disclosure’ if a food item is veg or non-veg.

These developments have informed my understanding of a Second Green Revolution in India, defined as a preoccupation with all that is ’green’, including green labels, veganism (no consumption or use of animal products), organics, environmentalism, tree planting, and an Indianised form of green ideology. This differs from the conventional understanding of the Green Revolution as industrialising the agricultural sector to increase crop yield as well as nutrition. But even if this vegetarianism is promoted in the name of sustainability, it is the ideological promotion which is especially integral to Hindu nationalism: the dominance of Hindu culture, the notion that India is a 'Hindu' place, and the belief that ‘Hindu’ primarily means vegetarian, especially with reference to the practices of high and dominant castes, is how vegetarianism has come to be framed. 

Hyderabad

To address this paradox of a green ideology or a Second Green Revolution, on the one hand, and what has been called a ‘meatification’ on the other, I chose Hyderabad as my primary fieldwork site to study how trade, regulation and consumption of both vegetarian/veg/green and non-vegetarian/non-veg/brown food is understood, practiced and contested in middle-class India.

Not only is there a visible boom in meat and non-vegetarian food production, trade and consumption, Hyderabad is also often seen as a most developed/modern state/city in India that has experienced a massive retail revolution and a changing consumer culture. As the state capital, it  is a vibrant and business-friendly metropolis that attracts migrants and investments, including investments in abattoirs sometimes accused of illegal slaughter. The vast majority of people are meat eaters here, and there are several abattoirs and many butcher shops, hidden away from sight or targeted by the green ideology. Furthermore, the economic boom and high growth rates have led to an influx of well-educated migrants which has encouraged social mobility among Hindu groups in the city. The large and growing Hindu middle class does not just comprise of shoppers/consumers, but also includes those actively involved in re-signifying the relationship between veg/non-veg as producers, managers and bureaucrats.

Law, Labels, Consequences

During my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to discuss with high-ranking civil servants who were involved in different ways in drafting and/or enforcing the FSSAI labelling law and its consequences on consumers and food producers. First, the law that requires green/brown labels to be mandatory has had significant consequences for producers. I met the CEO of a South Indian company that strictly produces vegetarian foods, with all products from the company bearing the FSSAI green label issued in Delhi. Before the company can use the label, it has to be audited by the FSSAI, who test the ‘veg’ quality of its products before receiving from the company specified fee. The CEO explains that the FSSAI conducted “regular inspections and sudden inspections once or twice a month. They check for everything: hygiene, cleanliness, the way we treat plants.” The CEO considers the green FSSAI label to be a specific type of ‘standard or certification’. Yet, the impact on companies is not so much dependent on the modest fees for licences but that companies must be auditable, that is, subject to control and self-control.

A civil servant argued otherwise: that the green/brown labels were introduced so that consumers would “know what is veg and [what is] non-veg; this is not a type of certification, but rather a standard in the form of [a] regulation, and the license is given by the FSSAI.” Even though, my data shows that about 90 per cent of consumers are non-veg, most were aware of the green/brown labels. For vegetarians in particular, this proved to be an invaluable guide to everyday food consumption. For most of my informants, who are non-vegetarians, green/brown labels essentially signify a kind of standardisation that allows individuals, as consumers, to make informed choices based on strict state regulations.

Furthermore, other civil servants recognise that in contemporary India, the consumption of eggs, fish and meat is increasing. One admitted that with increasing incomes, consumers are opting for non-veg, and this includes upper-caste groups. Exposure to Western and non-veg foodways is leading to an increased consumption of non-veg food. For example, in hypermarkets with outlets across India, including in middle-class suburbs and central Hyderabad, there is a wide range of fresh meat items and (live) fish readily available for consumers to buy. These items are very popular. During my fieldwork in Hyderabad (and shopping in a Delhi outlet of a SPAR Hypermarket), I often encounter long queues in front of meat sections in these hypermarkets. The hypermarket managers told me that meat sales were booming, even among Hindu consumers considered vegetarians in the green ideology. 

When discussing ‘beef’ with my informants, I was surprised to learn that the issue of cows versus water buffalos is not as essential as the green ideology suggests. Instead, there is a flexibility with foodways, not least because meat/non-veg is ubiquitous in super/hypermarkets and butcher shops. Almost all of my informants believe that there is a disconnect between ‘green’ India and India in practice–real or imagined.  

Finally, I discovered from my own survey that many of my informants come from or live in families that are mixed in adherence to vegetarian or non-vegetarian diets. For reasons of health and spirituality, meat is regarded as having therapeutic or medicinal value among many of my non-vegetarian informants. Some of my vegetarian informants were sometimes even advised to eat meat by their doctors. In consuming meat, health-related beliefs were usually associated with western scientific ideas about nutrition and were often more important than concepts of spiritual or ritual pollution and purity.

The Big Picture

These findings, as shown in my book, reveal that the relationship between veg and non-veg is being redefined in contemporary Hyderabad, which challenges the food hierarchy that associates vegetarianism with high social status and lends nuance to the prevalent stereotypical image of social groups defined by veg or non-veg preferences. The long-held idea that a higher social status is associated with greater adherence of individuals and social groups to a vegetarian lifestyle is not always the case. Moreover, being vegetarian or non-vegetarian is increasingly an individual choice within middle-class groups determined by concerns about health, spirituality, sustainability, and availability rather than religious orthodoxy or vegetarian ideology. Changes in liberalised and pluralised Indian food markets have influenced everyday food consumption patterns. Shopping choices have been pluralised so that many could buy fresh meat at local butcher shops as well as in hypermarkets. What is ironic is that all of these shifts are occurring in a context of strict state regulation of veg (green) and non-veg (brown) products in liberalised markets.

More importantly, veg/non-veg distinctions and choices are important identity markers but not in a judgmental or dogmatic way. Many of my vegetarian informants differ from advocates of vegetarian ideology not only in terms of food practices but also in a rhetorical sense. Notably, none of my vegetarian informants among the Hindu middle class in Telangana referred to ahimsa as the sole reason for their vegetarianism. Instead, for those who are fastidious about living a vegetarian life, green/brown labels are merely a tangible form of standardisation that guides their shopping, allowing individuals, as consumers, to make informed choices based on strict state regulations. In looking at labelling and consumption in Hyderabad, India, I contend that the Second Green Revolution and meat modernity together evoke an Indianised moral/human economy in its own right.

This book marks a continuation of my research on the relationship between religion, human values and markets, with a specific focus on kosher (a Hebrew term meaning “fit” or “proper”), and halal (“lawful” or “permitted”) products. I have previously explored these ideas and markets in books such as The Halal Frontier, Islam, Standards and Technoscience and Religion, Regulation and Consumption, with reference to production, trade, regulation and consumption as understood and practised by the middle-class. The edited volume, Muslim Piety as Economy, for example, looks at Muslim piety as a form of economy in Southeast Asia. Through these studies, it can be seen that global human/moral economies and markets are inseparable from the regulation of religions by state institutions. Indeed, in comparing Hindu vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism to my previous studies in Malaysia and Singapore (the Global South) and the United Kingdom, the United States, and Denmark (the Global North), it is striking to see similar reasonings, arguments and contestations among middle-class groups, which draw upon and enmesh experiences that are local, regional, national, and global in nature.

The views expressed in this forum are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, or the institutions to which the authors are attached.