Within the caste-based Hindu society, a food hierarchy goes from vegetarianism (at the top), to meat-eating (involving no beef) to beef eating. In “Origin of Untouchability,” 1916, Ambedkar drew attention to these two taboos and the socio-cultural codes they carry with them: There is one taboo against meat-eating. It divides Hindus into vegetarians and flesh-eaters. There is another taboo against beef-eating. It divides Hindus into those who eat cow’s flesh and those who do not […]

Interestingly, this food hierarchy is not built upon brahminical notions of caste. It is constructed on a matrix comprising the superiority of non-violence, a conception of the graded hierarchy of living things, and most importantly a belief in the sacredness of the cow.  In modern India, this matrix was shaped by none other than Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu to the core […]

In this discourse cow slaughter and beef eating become unnecessary and immoral acts. However, in practice the food hierarchy is far messier, especially when it comes to what specific castes and communities actually eat and what they are supposed to eat. For instance, brahmins of all sub-castes in Bengal and saraswat brahmins in the coastal regions of Karnataka eat fish. Several communities in the middle of the caste hierarchy, such as vaishyas and lingayats, are vegetarians […]

The effects of the caste Hindu discourse on beef consumption, especially upon dalits, are appalling. In everyday social relations they are made vulnerable to humiliating treatment.  Following the rise of Hindu fundamentalist forces, on several occasions dalits have been lynched by caste Hindus, allegedly after killing a cow. Dalits are forced to consume beef stealthily, far from the gaze of the caste Hindu public. This, however, does not mean that dalits accept their subordination. They are engaged in an intellectual critique of the food hierarchy as well as symbolic acts of consump tion of beef in public so as to dispel the stigma attached to it [.…]

The Demand for a Beef-Stall

Setting up the beef stall at Hyderabad Central University’s Sukoon Festival was an attempt to tease out and highlight this stigmatizing treatment.  Towards the end of each academic year the University Student Union, which represents the whole student body, organizes a three-day cultural festival called Sukoon. A number of competitions are held for students, and there are quizzes, plays, debates, music, and sports. In the evenings they relax in an open theatre where different bands play for them.  Along with the competitions, students and others open stalls selling books, clothes and food. The food served in these stalls is mostly vegetarian. Meat is also served, but it is generally confined to chicken dishes.

At the same time, other more culturally specific foods are eaten. Festivals are special occasions, and on such occasions people enjoy food associated with their cultural background. As the name Central University suggests, students as well as teaching and non-teaching staff come from all over India and have diverse cultures and varied food habits. For instance, dalits (at least South Indian dalits) prefer beef to other varieties of food.  Similarly, Muslims enjoy mutton biriyani, and students from an adivasi background as well as from the north-eastern states favour pork. Unmindful of this diversity, an exclusive preference for a particular variety of food, identified with a specific culture, especially on the occasion of the cultural festival, is a marker of the hegemony of a specific culture over the plural cultural terrain of the campus.

A few months before the Sukoon Festival in 2006, the Dalit Student’s Union challenged this hegemony. They argued that the food in the stalls did not represent the cultural diversity of the university community, and was simply another manifestation of the hegemony of the upper castes and their culture. The university, as a public institution should not allow its public space to be colonized by a particular culture, but should ensure that the space is shared equally by every culture of the university community. In short, the cultural festival of the university should represent the many cultures of Indian society. As a step towards equality in representation, the DSU demanded that it should be allowed to set up a beef stall in the Sukoon Festival, as beef constitutes an important part of the food habits of dalits and is thus part and parcel of dalit culture and that such food culture is equally shared by Muslims and a few others from caste Hindu cultural backgrounds. The administration, the executive body of the university, was ‘irritated’ by this request and instantly denied permission for the stall on the grounds that ‘consumption of beef (on the campus) creates caste and communal tensions’.

This is an absurd justification. How does beef consumption create caste and communal tensions? Beef is consumed outside the university campus as well, and does not appear to create caste and communal tensions, or even tensions between the consumers and non-consumers of beef.  In any case, the administration’s refusal was taken as a rejection of dalit culture by the DSU.  It organized protests against the decision and led an indefatigable campaign among the students. Its efforts divided students into two diametrically opposed groups, one supporting the stall and the other opposing it. Many student organizations supported the DSU.  The only organization that opposed it was the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyardhi Parishad (ABVP), the student organization attached to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As it happened, in 2006 the University Student Union was under the leadership of the Marxist Student Federation of India (SFI), a key supporter of the promotion of dalit culture.  Disregarding the decision of the University, the President of the Student Union allowed the DSU to set up a beef stall in the festival. The opening of the stall generated great euphoria as well as despair in the campus. Dalits and other supporters of the stall celebrated the occasion by shouting slogans in praise of Babasaheb Ambedkar, clapping, dancing to the energizing rhythms of the madiga dappu, congratulating each other on their triumph and relishing the taste of beef. The ABVP however, bemoaned the installation as ‘the tragedy of the campus’ and ‘a calamity for Indian culture’. Further, it organized noisy protests against the stall and demanded that the administration should remove the stall, since ‘beef eating is against Indian culture and against the sentiments of [the] majority students’.

The administration, as if waiting for this response, hurried to the stall and demanded that the DSU close it down at once, alleging damage to ‘order’ on the campus. The DSU and other supporting organizations, especially the SFI and the Ambedkar Students Union (ASU), stood firm and argued that the food habits of the dalits are different from those of the (caste) Hindus and this difference should be represented in the food served in the Sukoon Festival.  The administration, both on account of the logic of the reasoning and the support rendered to the stall by a majority of the students, appeared to come to its senses. Taking cognizance of the prevailing local as well as national laws on the issue of beef consumption, it officially issued a letter of permission to the DSU for the beef stall.

Claiming Human Agency

The Dalit Students Union, by setting up a beef stall in the public space of the university, was not merely challenging the domination of Hindu culture, but also opening up the public space for other marginalized communities and cultures to enter that space. The Dalit Students Union was not only realizing citizenship rights accorded by the Constitution, but also protecting the law itself from the exclusionary claims of caste Hindu culture.

The rejection faced by the Dalit students is not only humiliating but also injures their humanity…According to Sanjay Palshikar (2005: 5428): “To be humiliated is to be rendered inferior or deficient in some respect by others in a deliberate and destructive way. It is therefore a deeply distressing experience. It is something one cannot get over easily, and those who have to face it everyday sense a constant threat to their sense of self-worth”.  Margalit (1996: 109) writes that to humiliate is to treat a human being as nonhuman. This treatment is an injury to their very humanity. One of the ways of doing so is to consider some of their physical characteristics as a sign of a deficiency in their humanity. For instance, caste Hindus may regard the dalit drum (dappu) as inferior or stigmatizing as also their food, particularly beef, depicting them as deviant and as severely flawed human beings or as subhuman.

The key question is how do the humiliated retrieve their humanity? To the three possible responses suggested by Palshikar (2005: 5431) revenge, retribution and forgiveness, let me add two more – restricting or avoiding those practices, and the converse, asserting them as positive and taking pride in the practices.

To begin with, if taking revenge against the humiliator implies reciprocating humiliation, how can this be achieved? Since dalits are humiliated on account of their beef consumption, reciprocating this would require humiliating caste Hindus on account of their food habits as well as their ways of life.  Some remarks made by dalits and other lower castes against brahmins and other upper caste Hindus suggest that this has happened.  For instance, one finds Telugu expressions such as pappugaallu (lentil fellows), jandhyamgallu or threaddugallu (thread fellows, a reference to the sacred thread) and sinthapandugallu (tamarind fellows—referring to Vaishya castes as well as their complexion). These terms are used not only by dalits but also by other upper castes. However these ‘insults’ are relatively ineffective, for two reasons: Firstly, lentils or the sacred thread, unlike beef, carry a positive social value on account of their consumption by the upper castes. Secondly, caste-Hindus have enough social confidence to ignore these jibes.

But, isn’t the idea of revenge silly, as Chakrabarti (2005) described? One, the avenger cannot ‘get even’ with the original attacker. Second, revenge always escalates violence, never puts it to rest and third it also connotes moral and strategic defeat, not a display of victory or power. If revenge is not the way out, what are the victims supposed to do with the haunting memories of past sufferings inflicted by others and the toxic resentment that this generates? His advice to ‘remember’ and ‘resist’, although morally sound, seems unviable for two reasons. First, asking a victim to remember an act of violence or humiliation is a way of leaving the victim in permanent mental agony. The victim is doubly victimized, first on account of the humiliating treatment itself, secondly on account of retaining such treatment in memory. Second, the idea of ‘resistance’ implies continuation of the problem. The solution to a problem is annihilation rather than temporary solace. By resisting one is at best pushing the problem aside rather than eliminating it on a permanent basis.

Retribution as a response to humiliation is problematic too. Firstly, violence, causing destruction either human or material, is a regression of civilisation. Secondly, though the population size of each individual caste is no greater than any other individual caste within the social hierarchy of India, there is a massive gap when castes join into larger social categories. The combined population strength of the caste Hindus is between 65 to 70 per cent of the total population of India, while the combined strength of the Dalit population is between 22 and 24 per cent.  But it is not just a question of numbers.  Caste Hindus are better equipped in other ways too and in the event of violent retaliation, dalits would obviously suffer more than others. Thirdly, resorting to violence suggests that parties involved in violence have lost trust and faith in each other.

Palshikar notes that forgiveness commonly requires a change of heart and requires that the victimizer repent his wrongdoing.  I remain sceptical about forgiving as a response in a caste-based society. One of the pillars of Hindu caste society is the theory of karma, which suggests that the birth of individuals into various castes in the hierarchy occurs on account of their deeds in their previous life. This means that the present positions of upper caste and lower caste are a consequence of their earlier good deeds or bad deeds. It is possible that, shaped by karma theory, caste Hindus believe that their attitude and behaviour, including violence and humiliation against dalits, is not only a way of reaping the benefits of their good deeds in previous lives, but also a way of punishing dalits for their bad deeds in the past. Shaped in such an ideological environment, the question arises whether caste Hindus can ever repent the violence or humiliation they inflict on dalits […]

Since none of the above responses to humiliation seem suitable, let me discuss the two other possibilities that I proposed earlier: one, to avoid those practices at the root of the humiliating treatment, or to affirm those practices as positive and take pride in them. The first option would require dalits to give up beef, assuming that people are willing to sacrifice anything to avoid humiliation. While it is true that dalits are humiliated on account of beef consumption, relinquishing this practice will not, by itself, guarantee them human treatment.  We have several instances on record where dalits have continued to be humiliated by caste Hindus despite strict adherence to vegetarian food. Giving up beef to avoid humiliation can itself constitute an act of humiliation, not inflicted by others, but self-inflicted. Taking an action that goes against one’s interest and strengthens the power of others over one is damaging to one’s self-respect and is a self-inflicted humiliation.

The second course of action, positively affirming the practices denigrated by others and taking pride in them, appears to be the best course of action. It shows that the practitioners value this practice. Although dalits are not ashamed of beef eating and in fact relish its taste, they are made to feel ashamed of their food when they encounter caste Hindus, whose social norms prohibit beef consumption. The installation of the beef stall in the public space by the Dalit Students Union can be interpreted not only as an assertion of positivity and pride in their food practice, but also an invitation to caste Hindus to taste this food and re-evaluate their perception of it. In this case, the victims are not acting on the wishes of the humiliator, but on their own terms, and thus claim agency for themselves, inviting others to accept, or at least re-assess, the value of the denigrated action.