Gut Ecology: Meat Science, Modernity, and Carrion Aversion in Gandhi’s India

Cole, Lucinda

doi:10.1353/con.2017.0013

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Hence, the slaughter ban which imposes the dietary norm of a minority social group on all its citizens, varyingly termed as food fascism (Biswas, 2017) or culinary apartheid (Masoodi, 2016), has triggered counter-movements in the country. 8 At the forefront of these struggles are students’ groups in universities, political parties, and ordinary citizens (Avenshi Centre for Women’s Studies, 2012; Ehsan, 2015; Express News Service, 2015; Mathew, 2015). 9 Their attempts to organize beef-eating festivals in public spaces have been disrupted by vigilantes, police or are disallowed by the Court citing law and order problems (Press Trust of India, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Meat-eating in India: Whose food, whose politics, and whose rights?

Sathyamala

2018

Policy Futures in Education

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Transitioning towards a plant-based diet is considered both ethical and environmentally friendly from a Western perspective of high per capita consumption of flesh foods. However, in contemporary India, beef-eating has emerged as a political act of subversion in the context of its current ban by the Indian state which is transforming unapologetically into a theocracy under the aegis of Hindu fundamentalist groups. To understand the contemporary discourse on beef-eating, it is important to locate it in the discourse prevalent during the Independence movement, when there was an attempt to unify the Hindus to forge a nationalist identity, and to bring the 'outcaste' 'untouchables' -who were a sub-group acknowledged to consume beef -within the Hindu fold of 'caste purity'. Data from an ethnographic study of over fifteen months in a village in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, demonstrate the place of flesh foods, including beef, in the everyday lives of people, and question the concept of a 'normative' Indian diet. The paper argues that contrary to the notion that vegetarianism is morally superior, in the context of Hinduism, where vegetarianism is a marker of upper caste identity, the food hierarchy is a function of the caste structure. Hence, the protests, particularly from the former 'untouchable' caste groups, reclaiming the right to eat transgressive foods as a marker of their identity, poses a serious challenge to upper caste hegemony. The violence which 'vegetarian' India has unleashed on such transgressions has laid open the structural violence embodied in the caste system and questions its claim to moral superiority.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, as Cole (2017) argues, scientific studies have shown that 'no hard and fast rule exists between fallen flesh and slaughtered meat'. In any case with refrigeration and processing, the distinction between carrion and fresh kill makes little sense.…”

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confidence: 99%