Vegetarian Logic: Humans don’t become violent by eating meat

 That the Bihar deputy chief minister wants to ban meat near educational and religious institutions is not a surprise. It is par for the course in Indian politics. The departure this time is one of the reasons Vijay Kumar Sinha gave on February 22—he said it is being done to temper violent tendencies that meat arouses. Stat­ing himself open to all food preferences, he however added that a “spirit of purity” must also be kept in mind. None of these associations with meat have any basis in science.

It is easy enough to see the logic behind such a mind­set. Animals feed on other animals and violence is a self-evident necessity when it comes to their meat. Ergo, non-vegetarianism causes violence. Human beings, at least now, don’t go out hunting for meat and the minister has neatly inverted cause and effect. Meanwhile, meat and purity have a long his­tory in India because it is directly tied to the caste system. Caste might not be in trend nowadays, but purity continues as a remnant, an undercur­rent not spelt out except for the odd occasions when it inadvertently comes out. It takes discriminatory forms, as when housing societies refuse to let non-vegetar­ians rent or buy flats.

The present instance demonstrates the time­less conviction of powerful minorities that they are in fact the majority. Or that their ideas are so self-evidently true, everyone, except those with ill intent, must think the same. The proven benefits of non-vegetarian food, like being the best source of protein that a carbohydrate-addicted nation desperately needs, are something far away from consider­ation because the only thing that matters is articles of faith affirmed by tradition.

It is usually a matter of disbelief to any hardcore veg­etarian when told that India is a majority non-vegetarian nation. The reason for that is the lower you go down the caste ladder the more meat is eaten, and they make up the majority of the population. But vegetarians have had a hold on the levers of knowledge since ancient times and those who write the lessons get to slip in what is good and bad.