Vegetarianism has become a prominent (and stylish) dietary lifestyle in the Western world and is often associated with environmentalism, tenets of non-violence and moral superiority. However, vegetarianism in the global north departs from vegetarianism in India in one very significant way- the philosophy of purity and impurity entrenched in the uniquely Indian caste system.
Sudha Murty’s comment revealing her peculiar habit of carrying a spoon with her everywhere she goes to maintain her ‘pure’ vegetarian diet is a textbook example of the Brahmanical undertones that permeate vegetarianism in India.
Exclude to include: IIT-B’s weird take on inclusivity on campus
The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the most coveted and prestigious educational institute of India, seems to have no cognizance of the historical understanding of how caste operates in India.
A few months ago, posters were put up in the canteen of IIT Bombay marking certain seating areas as “vegetarian only”.
This notice received censure from several anti-caste groups like the Ambedkar Phule Periyar Study Circle of IIT Bombay, labelling it as regressive and casteist. APPSC IITB retaliated by putting up a poster which read, “Enabling inter-dining practices has been a major force of the anti-caste movement to foster communal harmony. Self-seclusion and ostracization of others on dietary preferences is a way to maintain caste supremacy.” The administration termed ‘vegetarian only’ posters as ‘unauthorized’ after students expressed their disagreements through protests.
Earlier this week, the administration confirmed its stance on the issue by officially segregating the mess area. Six tables are deemed as reserved through this new ‘vegetarians only’ policy, and compliance was demanded from all students for seamless implementation of the same.
The email reads like a confessional essay, affirming discomfort raised by anti-caste voices around the country. One line of the email reads, “There is no doubt that some people can’t resist the view and smell of non-veg food during their dining”. Commenting on the covert bigotry of the administration, APPSC IITB tweeted, “Dehumanizing fellow students by labelling their food habits with contamination and disgust and viewing an unease as “dis-ease” is sickening.”
The email also says that the segregation is affected in order to create a more ‘inclusive’ and ‘pleasant’ dining experience for all students. However, the zeal for inclusivity of the IIT Bombay administration seems to stop while addressing issues of caste discrimination on campus. The administration refuses to view this situation through the lens of non-vegetarians, who are excluded from the common mess area on the pretext that their food is unbearable and repulsive.
IIT Bombay’s students have launched an anti-caste civil disobedience protest to counter the casteist segregation policy. As a way to defy this policy, students ate their non-veg meals at the ‘vegetarian only’ tables.
‘Institutes of Intentional Trauma’
Podcaster and academic, who goes by the name of Buffalo Intellectual on the internet, aptly referred to the IITs as ‘Institutions of Intentional Trauma’ in one of his podcast episodes. Brutal but accurate if one takes a brief look at the appalling statistics pointing to the traumatic experiences of Bahujan individuals studying at IITs.
The boldness of IIT Bombay to gloat about widening inclusivity through exclusionary practices such as ‘vegetarian only’ tables is shocking. IIT Bombay is the same institute where Darshan Solanki, a first-year B.tech student, died by suicide due to alleged caste discrimination. 33 students have died by suicide in IITs since 2018, and nearly half of them have been from SC and ST communities.
The Hindu had reported that internal surveys conducted by IIT Bombay’s SC/ST Cell had also revealed widespread caste discrimination faced by students. A PhD student from IIT Bombay, wishing anonymity, explained to The Wire that SC/ST students have faced harassment on these campuses where most faculty belong to the oppressor castes. The PhD student, a part of the Ambedkar Phule Periyar Student Circle (APPSC), said that reservation policies were not being followed during recruitment at IIT Bombay. APPSC students have filed RTIs, from which it can be gleaned that around 90% of faculty are oppressor castes. Empowering the already empowered by further excluding those who are already excluded, such is the logic of this highly elite institution.
This is not the first time that such exclusion has been institutionally sanctioned in an IIT. In 2018, IIT Madras designated separate entrances and even wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students. “Upper caste households in India would usually have two entrances, one for the upper castes, the other one in the back for the ‘impure’ lower castes,” APPSC had written at the time in a Facebook post.
The process of this full-fledged segregation had started as a demand for a separate food counter for ‘pure’ vegetarian food and had turned into something that uncannily resembles untouchability. More recently, the director of IIT Mandi was heard blaming all non-vegetarians for climate change and natural calamities in one of his unhinged pseudo-scientific rants.
The ‘politically correct’ Brahmanism of IITs
IITs being the ‘institutes of national importance’ reflect an ideology that is nationally important as a part of the current regime’s Hindutva agenda.
In the state of Maharashtra, slaughter and consumption of meat of cow, bull, and bullock have been banned since March 2015 after revision of existing law. The ban on beef eating is a way of maintaining caste superiority by oppressor castes. Apart from Muslims, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/ST) comprise the majority of the beef-eating population. Among Hindus, over 70% of the beef-eating population is SC/ST, 21% is other backward castes, and only 7% is oppressor caste (others category).
Food, in the context of a caste society like India’s, has been weaponized to perpetuate casteist dogma for centuries. From being denied eating food with the ‘upper castes’, being refused to consume certain kinds of food to being given leftovers to eat, food has been used to inflict violence on Dalits and Bahujans.
In Dhananjay Keer’s biography of Dr Ambedkar, a harrowing instance depicts the humiliation that Dr Ambedkar faced as a Dalit student studying in Mumbai. Once, when he was a student at Elphinstone High School in Bombay, the teacher called the young Ambedkar to solve a problem on the blackboard: “Instantaneously there was an uproar in class. The caste Hindu students used to keep their tiffin boxes behind the blackboard. Since they feared that their food would be polluted by Bhim’s presence near the blackboard, they dashed to the blackboard and hurled their tiffin boxes aside…”
This happened in the late 1800s when Dr Ambedkar was the only Dalit student admitted to Elphinstone High. Today, more than 100 years later, Dalit students in Mumbai are still fighting for dignity and respect.
In a nation that desperately wishes to be perceived as modern and intellectually superior, one would imagine that such anecdotes are shameful but are history, nonetheless. But what is currently happening at IIT Bombay is a slightly ‘civilized’, brand-friendly, politically correct and cowardly attempt to re-establish the same old Brahmanical laws. It is a way to reassert the dominance of oppressor castes in elite educational institutes, like IIT Bombay, and do what they do best- exclude.
This story has been written as part of the My City Writers’ Training Program.