Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India [1 ed.] 1032334835, 9781032334837

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‘Dietary shifts away from meat are seen to align with improvements in agricultural sustainability, climate change-related emissions reductions, human health, and wellbeing of animals. In the Indian case they also represent a cultural fusion of nationalism with religion. Read Fischer’s systematic and careful study for deeper insights into what makes for diet transformations. This enduring contribution brilliantly highlights the structures and drivers that yield dietary persistence vs. change, with a direct focus on vegetarianism in India.’ Arun Agrawal, Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan

‘Written by a seasoned ethnographer of religion and markets, this is a multisited and multi-scaled dissection of cosmopolitan middle-class food culture in Hyderabad and of the production-distribution-regulation system through which it’s provisioned. Fischer offers a carefully grounded social analysis of many paradoxes and contradictions in the world’s leading vegetarian nation. Both vegetarianism and meat-eating are festooned in scientised claims about health and nutrition but both communicate enduring social meanings and dietary norms. This should be essential reading for anyone interested in human values and markets, especially for food.’ Barbara Harriss-White, FAcSS, Emeritus Professor and Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University

‘In this important book Fischer shows the political significance of controversies around vegetarianism and meat consumption in India. The Hindu nationalist myth that India is a vegetarian civilization is belied by the increasing popularity of meat, especially among middle classes. In his ethnography Fischer focuses on the contradictory realities of Hyderabad in South India. A must read for anyone interested in the politics of vegetarianism in India.’ Peter van der Veer, Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India

Never before in human history have vegetarianism and a plant-based economy been so closely associated with sustainability and the promise of tackling climate change. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in India, which is home to the largest number of vegetarians globally and where vegetarianism is intrinsic to Hinduism. India is often considered a global model for vegetarianism. However, in this book, which is the outcome of eight months of fieldwork conducted among vegetarian and non-vegetarian producers, traders, regulators and consumers, I show that the reality in India is quite different, with large sections of communities being meat-eaters. In 2011, vegetarian/veg/green and nonvegetarian/non-veg/brown labels on all packaged foods/drinks were introduced in India. Paradoxically, this grand scheme was implemented at a time when meat and non-vegetarian food production, trade and consumption were booming. The overarching argument of the book is that a systematic study of the complex and changing relationship between vegetarian and non-vegetarian understandings and practices illuminates broader transformations and challenges that relate to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in India and beyond. The book’s empirical focus is on the changing relationship between vegetarian/ non-vegetarian as understood, practised and contested in middle-class India, while remaining attentive to the vegetarian/non-vegetarian modernities that are at the forefront of global sustainability debates. Through the application of this approach, the book provides a novel theory of human values and markets in a global middle-class perspective. Johan Fischer is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University, Denmark. His work focuses on human values and markets. More specifically, he explores the interfaces between class, consumption, market relations, religion and the state in a globalized world. He is the author of numerous books, articles in journals and edited volumes. He is editor of the Routledge book series Material Religion and Spirituality and is on the editorial boards of the journals International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Contemporary Islam and Research in Globalization. Currently, he is working on a research project on vegetarianism and meat-eating in a global perspective.

Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India

Johan Fischer

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Johan Fischer The right of Johan Fischer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fischer, Johan, author. Title: Vegetarianism, meat and modernity in India/Johan Fischer. Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Never before in human history have vegetarianism and a plant-based economy been so closely associated with sustainability and the promise of tackling climate change. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in India. The book’s empirical focus is on the changing relationship between vegetarian/non-vegetarian as understood, practiced and contested in middle-class India, while remaining attentive to the vegetarian/non-vegetarian modernities that are at the forefront of global sustainability debates. Through the application of this approach, the book provides a novel theory of human values and markets in a global middleclass perspective”–Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022051658 (print) | LCCN 2022051659 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032334837 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032334844 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003319825 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Vegetarianism–India. | Meat–Health aspects–India. | India–Social life and customs. Classification: LCC TX392 .F56 2023 (print) | LCC TX392 (ebook) | DDC 613.2/620954–dc23/eng/20221214 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022051658 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022051659 ISBN: 978-1-032-33483-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-33484-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-31982-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825 Typeset in Times New Roman by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

To Sille, Anton and Oscar

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 Veg or Non-Veg?: Transformations in Retail and Consumption and the Rise of Meat Modernity in the Age of ‘the Green’ 2 Setting the Scene: The Publics and Politics of Green and Brown Labels

x xi

1 31

3 Markets: Manufacturing and Selling Veg and Non-veg Commodities 51 4 Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food

86

5 Good Life Clubs: Of Students, Dalits and Vegans between Meat Modernity and the Second Green Revolution

119

6 Conclusions and Broader Perspectives

143

References Index

151 166

Figures

1.1 Vegetarian (left) and non-vegetarian (right) instant noodles 1.2 A popular restaurant in central Hyderabad serving both vegetarian (veg) as well as non-vegetarian (non-veg) South Indian food 1.3 Rao’s portrayal of Telangana 1.4 SPAR Hypermarket in central Hyderabad 1.5 Greening India 2.1 A poster depicting the holy cow in central Hyderabad 2.2 A veg and non-veg food stall 2.3 A multi-cuisine restaurant displaying red/brown labels 2.4 A global food chain outlet 2.5 A 100% pure veg restaurant 3.1 A Hindu temple in Nampally 3.2 A Nampally veg shop 3.3 A beef shop in Nampally 3.4 HI-TECH Pork Shop 3.5 A chicken and seafood shop 3.6 A veg shop next to a non-veg restaurant 3.7 The farmers’ market 3.8 A food cart and a convenience store in central Hyderabad 3.9 Green drinks 3.10 The brown Mars Bar 3.11 Green toothpaste 3.12 The meat/fish/egg section in a hypermarket 3.13 The non-veg section in a Hyderabad mall 3.14 Green and brown dishes on a menu

2 3 4 6 20 36 37 37 38 38 63 64 65 65 66 67 68 69 71 72 74 75 77 81

Acknowledgements

Most of all, I would like to thank my informants for their willingness to participate in and patience with my exploration of meat-eating and veg(etari)anism in a variety of contexts. My research assistant, Raj Kattula, provided invaluable support, without which this project would not have been possible. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Indian organizations and institutions that were most helpful during my fieldwork. An Erasmus Mundus outgoing mobility grant secured affiliation with Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Danish Council for Independent Research in Social Science who funded this project: I am most grateful for the help and support. A special thanks goes to Neil Jordan and Gemma Rogers at Routledge. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Sille, and sons, Anton and Oscar, for enduring my absences during extended periods of fieldwork.

1

Veg or Non-Veg? Transformations in Retail and Consumption and the Rise of Meat Modernity in the Age of ‘the Green’

In November 2017, while conducting fieldwork in India over a period of eight months, I was in the audience when Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his speech at World Food India, a major food fair held in central Delhi, which attracted more than 2,000 participants and 400 exhibitors from 20 countries. Modi, who in 2019 secured a second landslide victory in the general elections for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is a strict vegetarian and promotes vegetarianism as a national project. In his speech, he explained that India was the world’s largest producer of milk and the second largest producer of rice, wheat, fish, fruits and vegetables. Adopting a broader perspective, he then stated: ‘India is today one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. (…) Increasing urbanization and a growing middle class are resulting in an ever-growing demand for wholesome, processed food.’ What Modi failed to mention was that India is also one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing producers of meat and water buffalo beef, in particular, and that the country had witnessed a meat revolution over the last two decades. Meat is being sold and consumed throughout India, especially among the rapidly expanding urban middle class. Modi’s omission points to a much larger issue or paradox in light of the prevailing vegetarian or green ideology, claiming that India was, is and should be a vegetarian nation. Upper-caste groups that have traditionally promoted vegetarianism, and the Hindu nationalist movement spearheaded by Modi, deliberately and strategically support this idea, accepting at face value the notion that most Hindus are, or desire to be, vegetarians, while Muslims and lower castes are not, and do not wish to be, vegetarians. These issues remain as salient as ever. The association drawn between COVID19 and non-vegetarianism was apparent in the title of an article ‘No Meat, No Coronavirus: Indians on Twitter Blame Non-Vegetarians for the Outbreak’ (News 18 2020). The hashtag #NoMeatNoCoronavirus was an attack directed against India’s non-vegetarians, who have been blamed for bringing the disease to the country. The belief underlying this claim was that the virus spreads through eating meat; consequently, only meat-eaters would be affected by the disease. To a great extent, these claims have been propagated by the Hindu Mahasabha, a prominent Hindu nationalist organization, and revolve around the central notion that God did not intend for humans to be meat-eaters and that meat-eaters were sinners. The organization’s president at the national level has stated that ‘Corona is not a virus, DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-1

2  Veg or Non-Veg?

Figure 1.1  Vegetarian (left) and non-vegetarian (right) instant noodles.

but [an] avatar for the protection of poor creatures. They have come to give the message of death and punishment to the one who eats them.’ Moreover, the threat to sustainability posed by the production and consumption of meat, and especially beef, in the context of global climate change has made meat and meat-eating more contentious than ever. In 2011, under the Congress-led government headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare introduced green/vegetarian/veg and brown/non-vegetarian/ non-veg labels on all packaged foods and drinks in India, with major consequences for producers, retailers, regulators and consumers (Figure 1.1). In India, veg/non-veg can refer to both vegetarian/non-vegetarian foods as well as vegetarians/non-vegetarians. ‘Non-veg’ (meat, fish, eggs and alcohol) is an IndianEnglish term that originated in the early 20th century and was used in menus at restaurants and resorts catering to middle- and upper-class British and Indian patrons. In its traditional usage, the term denotes an antinomic position by naming things that do not belong within normal, polite and socially orthodox Hindu practices, whereas ‘vegetarian’ indicates a ‘normal’ position. While vegetarianism in India reflects a cultural vision of normativity, it is not a dominant practice (Novetzke 2017, 367). To this day, the veg/non-veg binary is ubiquitous in public space in India (Figures 1.1 and 1.2). Under the heading ‘Clearly Mark Food Items As Veg, Non-Veg’, The Times of India (4 March 2022) reported that in connection with a plea by Ram Gau Raksha Dal, a trust working for cow protection as cows are venerated in Hinduism, Delhi High Court called for the FSSAI to enforce ‘a complete disclosure’ regarding food items being veg or non-veg. The court stated that:

Veg or Non-Veg?  3

Figure 1.2  A popular restaurant in central Hyderabad serving both vegetarian (veg) as well as non-vegetarian (non-veg) South Indian food.

Since the right of every person under Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) and Article 25 (freedom to conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion) under the Constitution is impacted by what is offered on a platter, in our view it is fundamental that a full and complete disclosure regarding the food article being vegetarian or non-vegetarian is made a part of consumer awareness. The court argued that using non-veg ingredients in commodities labelled as veg ‘would offend religious and cultural sentiments of strict vegetarians and interfere in their right to freely profess their religion.’ These debates are ever-present and ongoing in India, and they also circle around the issue of whether care products/ cosmetics should be labelled as green/brown. 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 such as Brahmins, the Hindu priestly caste within the Varna (caste/class) system, and the exclusion of lower castes and Dalits (untouchables), are at the core of vegetarian politics in India, including the 2011 law on green/brown labelling. The 2011 law was implemented at a time when meat and non-vegetarian food production, trade and consumption

4  Veg or Non-Veg?

Figure 1.3  Rao’s portrayal of Telangana.

were thriving in India, and nowhere was this more visible than in Telangana, the youngest Indian state. Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014, becoming the 29th state of the Indian Union. Hyderabad is the state capital of Telangana, whose first and current chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has been instrumental in developing Telangana, and Hyderabad in particular, into a vibrant and business-friendly metropolis that attracts migrants and investments from across and beyond India (Figure 1.3), including investments in abattoirs that are often accused of illegally slaughtering ‘holy’ cows. Arguably, Telangana is the Indian state with the highest percentage of nonvegetarians. There are nearly 3,000 retail meat shops in metropolitan Hyderabad, and the findings of surveys that have been conducted on this topic, including my own, indicate that Telangana/Hyderabad are among the least vegetarian states/cities in India (The Hindu, 1 March 2014). In Telangana, 98.8% of people are meateaters (higher than in the US or Australia, for example) while the annual volume of meat consumed is low (approx. 4.5 kilos per capita). In India, gross value added from livestock is about 7%. The unorganized sector dominates, as most abattoirs are unregistered as well as uninspected and meat is often sold in traditional meat shops, while there are increasing domestic demands for processed food products in super/hypermarkets (a combined supermarket and department store that carries a large range of products) and a growing young population that is exposed to globalized cultures and food trends that support meat-eating. At the same time, export markets for meat and seafood are growing (Statista 2022a).

Veg or Non-Veg?  5 In the context of Hindu nationalism and liberalized markets, new meanings of meat/beef affect Christians and lower-caste groups in South India (Staples 2020), although Staples’ book is less interested in the emerging Hindu middle-class universe that is central to the changing veg/non-veg relationship – for example in hypermarkets that have opened within the last decades or so. I recall being in the Star Hypermarket in Gachibowli, a modern suburb and IT hub located about 20 kilometres west of Hyderabad, where several of my middle-class Hindu informants lived. This is also the place to look for processed ‘veg’ and ‘non-veg’ foods such as the instant noodles depicted in Figure 1.1. The Star Hypermarket opened in 2017 just before my fieldwork started, and like all other stores across India, all wrapped food items (except for actual vegetables and meat), drinks and most personal care products carry distinctive green or brown labels. After coming to power, Modi decreed that not only all food products but also all nutraceuticals (dietary supplements), personal care products and cosmetics should be labelled as either green or brown. Local and multinational industrial players who have entered India in large numbers in the wake of the country’s market reforms and liberalization starting in the 1990s filed a lawsuit arguing that the law was rushed through without any kind of consultative process being carried out, resulting in high costs and highly complex challenges in its implementation. To my knowledge, this issue is still unresolved. In the Star Hypermarket as well as in hypermarkets such as SPAR, which have outlets across India, including in the suburb of Gachibowli and in central Hyderabad, a wide range of fresh meat items and (live) fish are readily available for consumers to buy. And they are certainly popular. During my fieldwork in Hyderabad (and shopping in a Delhi outlet of SPAR Hypermarket), I often encountered long queues in front of the meat sections in these hypermarkets, and their managers told me that meat sales were booming, including among new groups of consumers who were traditionally considered vegetarians. In the SPAR Hypermarket outlet, which opened within the Oasis Centre in central Hyderabad in 2007 (Figure 1.4), the meat/fish section remains enclosed behind a glass wall that clearly sets it apart from the main shopping area. The side of the glass wall facing the main shopping area is lined with vegetarian or ‘green’ products, including Organic India (the country’s largest producer of organic products that are also marketed internationally). Thus, the division between the meat/ fish section on one side and the main shopping area on the other is clearly marked and ‘fortified’ by ‘green’/organic products that appeal to many middle-class consumers, even though they may harbour doubts about the ‘organicness’ of these products. In hypermarkets such as Star Hyper that opened more recently there are no walls partitioning the meat/fish sections from the main shopping area for two reasons. First, meat/non-veg food consumption is gaining increasing acceptance in South India, even among traditionally vegetarian (Hindu) groups. A second reason is that newer hypermarkets are designed to accommodate meat and fish sales. In these hypermarkets, chicken, in particular, is promoted as being healthy and wholesome on posters displayed in the meat sections, and this portrayal resonates with my qualitative and quantitative findings, as illustrated by an empirical

6  Veg or Non-Veg?

Figure 1.4  SPAR Hypermarket in central Hyderabad.

example drawn from my fieldwork. The manager of the SPAR outlet at the Oasis Centre explained to me that even though vegetarianism remained widespread in India, this trend is changing. Now, even his friends who are Jains (a religious group that traditionally adhere to strict vegetarianism) have started eating meat that is promoted as healthy and nutritious and sold in standardized and sanitized retail spaces. In the SPAR’s meat section, two posters on display during my visits explained that the chicken sold there is of superior quality, sourced locally from quality assured farms and fully traceable from farm to fork. Another poster contended that chicken is low in calories and high in protein and can ‘relieve stress’ and minimize the risk of heart disease. The store manager asserted that even doctors now recommend meat as part of a healthy and nutritious diet. In this way, meat is becoming a modern and mass-produced remedy. Neoliberal reforms and the intensified globalization of food markets, commencing from the early 1990s, have evidently led to a profusion and pluralization of shopping desires and choices. In this book, I examine these desires and choices and show how religious, vegetarian/vegan (avoiding all animal-derived products) and ‘green’ protests and regulations struggle to keep up with but also legitimize food production, trade and consumption. I explore the middle-class universe of Hyderabad through the conceptual lens of a changing veg/non-veg binary, attending to the multiple components of this universe that comprises not

Veg or Non-Veg?  7 only middle-class shoppers/consumers but also producers, managers and bureaucrats actively involved in resignifying the veg/non-veg relationship in Telangana and at the federal level. My study is not so much about the cultural landscape within which food is prepared and eaten, but primarily about contemporary public manifestations of this relationship between veg/non-veg in contemporary Telangana/Hyderabad. In other words, my aim is to explore how my informants understood, practised and contested the ubiquitous public transformations of this relationship and the underlying reasons in a context of what I refer to as the retail revolution, changing consumer culture and meat modernity in the age of the ‘green’. Of course, food cultures and the veg/non-veg binary are extremely diverse across India, and most of all my study focuses on Telangana/Hyderabad with an eye to federal/national trends such as law and Hindu nationalism. Moreover, I show how large and growing numbers of middle-class Hindu consumers are confronted with all of these extensive changes on a daily basis. I pay specific attention to sanitized forms of vegetarianism that are not necessarily related to meat, that is, the revolution that has occurred within the processed food sector as well as to non-food products, notably health supplements and personal care products, such as toothpaste, that are also subject to new forms of regulation. However, as I reveal, butcher shops retain their importance within the non-veg food landscape in Telangana. Notably, butcher shops are predominantly located in the bazaar near Nampally station in Purana Shaher (the Old City). Here, beef, poultry, mutton and seafood are available, whereas pork, which is haram (unlawful) in Islam and not halal (‘lawful’ or ‘permitted’), is sold by butchers who are Dalits, other lower-caste Hindu groups or Christians (Staples 2020).

Meat-Eaters, Flexitarians, Vegetarians and Vegans Through its focus on ‘veg’ and ‘non-veg’ at different levels of the social scale, this book explores the paradox between an increasingly dominant (Hindu nationalist) ideology of vegetarianism and the reality of a rise in meat production in India that is being promoted in the name of meat modernity, according to which meat and non-veg diets, more generally, are associated with health, nutrition and urbanized/flexible lifestyles. My central research question centres on why and how this powerful vegetarian ideology and green/brown regulation have created the hegemonic view of vegetarianism as a dominant and proper Hindu practice and how Hindu middle-class groups (meat-eaters/non-vegetarians, vegetarians and vegans) and also Dalits in Telangana respond to and are affected by this ideology. Moreover, I explore the paradox entailed in India’s introduction in 2011 of one of the world’s most stringent regulations on vegetarian foods in the context of changing patterns of meat production, trade and consumption. The findings of my study reveal that the relationship between veg and non-veg is being redefined in contemporary South India. The long-held idea that a higher social status is associated with greater adherence of individuals and social groups to a vegetarian

8  Veg or Non-Veg? lifestyle is challenged. Moreover, being vegetarian or non-vegetarian is increasingly an individual lifestyle choice within middle-class groups that is determined by concerns such as health rather than religious orthodoxy. 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. While there is a large body of historical works on vegetarianism (Stuart 2015; Barstow 2017) and meat (Lestel 2016), most meat ethnographies have focused either on production (Gewertz 2010) or on consumption (Williams-Forson 2006) and do not discuss meat-eating versus vegetarianism in depth at differing levels of the social scale. Meat has always evoked multiple and ambivalent meanings (Leroy and Praet 2015), and for many people, meat is synonymous with ‘real’ food (Fiddes 1991, 14). At the same time, it is mostly particular types of meat that are taboo, as is the case with beef consumption in India. Meat is often considered prestigious and vital for nutrition on the one hand, and dangerously immoral and potentially unhealthy on the other hand (Fiddes 1991). What is more, meat is often associated with male dominance and power (Adams 1990). Notwithstanding considerable anthropological reflection on cultural rules and functional systems surrounding meat-eating, empirical studies of meat-eating (Staples 2020) are scarce but necessary to explore how daily practices of vegetarianism are shaped by a wide range of factors, such as household dynamics, risk, trust/blame, emotions, taste and modern life, as well as the relationship between humans and animals (Sutton 2017). For the most part, studies on vegetarianism and meat-eating have focused on more generalized and stable notions of preference, rarely exploring everyday practices, changes and complexities. Clearly, there are significant social stratifications and variations across time and space, and this is especially true in India. Evidently, most meat-eaters are omnivores who consume not only meat and non-vegetarian food but also vegetarian food, as illustrated by the following empirical example. A single man in his mid-20s at the time of my fieldwork, moved to Hyderabad from a ‘non-vegetarian village’. He became a vegetarian and subsequently a vegan after moving to Hyderabad. He explained that ‘I didn’t even know what a vegan is. I had never heard of the term until I came to Hyderabad three years back.’ His family was non-vegetarian, but when he took his sister to a vegan potluck, she too became a vegan. The point that I wish to make here is that many Hindu families are composed of veg(etari)ans and non-vegetarians, whose numbers are increasing in the wake of the transformations that I explore in this book, including what I term meat modernity. A flexitarian or semi-vegetarian diet is primarily vegetarian but occasionally includes meat or fish (Derbyshire 2017), while a vegetarian diet never includes flesh of any kind. However, there are subcategories of vegetarians, such as lactovegetarians (who consume dairy products but not eggs) and ovo-vegetarians (who consume eggs but not dairy products). Whereas empirical investigations of beliefs and practices associated with vegetarianism are recent, the recorded history of vegetarianism begins in ancient Greece (Ruby 2012). Highlighting the limited cultural scope of existing research, a study (Ruby 2012, 14) called

Veg or Non-Veg?  9 for broader cross-cultural investigations, both quantitative and qualitative, and a shift away from the prevailing conception within the literature of Indian culture as a ‘collectivistic culture’ (Haidt et al. 1997) in which people are vegetarians from birth and display a strong relationship between feelings of disgust and morality judgements. The book The Bloodless Revolution (Stuart 2015) explores how vegetarianism, influenced by an Indian ethos, has been a potent social force in Europe over the last 400 years that has helped to forge the image of India as the world’s most populous vegetarian nation. The debate on vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism qualifies as a surrogate comparison between Western and Eastern cultures (Sengupta 2010). Other historical works have also portrayed vegetarianism in India as an age-old practice that is generally cultivated from birth and associated with tradition, power and status (Spencer 1993; Preece 2008). Furthermore, Indian vegetarianism is also thought to be influenced by cultural values of asceticism and purity through the avoidance of bodily pollution associated with meat consumption. Before returning to the discussion of veg(etari)anism, the above points evoke the qualification of the designation ‘Hindus’ essentialized in much of historical Western scholarship. Through this Orientalist lens, vegetarianism was seen as a marker of a flourishing and collectivistic Hindu civilization in which Hinduism came to be the true and underlying subject of the thinking of Hindus and an unchanging agent of practices such as vegetarianism (Inden 1990). In the context of contemporary India, ‘Hindus’ is no longer a designation that can be used to both indicate a general, somewhat unmarked population of people with a particular belief system, but rather a designation of nationalist affiliation according to the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu political organization that seeks to secure social dominance by upper castes and cultural nationalism/conservatism (Chatterji et al. 2019). A parent organization of the BJP, RSS has mobilized upwardly mobile groups around cow protection as a key narrative of Hindu nationalism and Indianness (Andersen and Damle 2019). Central to the Hindu nationalist project is to produce and project Hindu identities that are not prescribed, but are open and intricate and in which vegetarianism is a qualification or practice that marks proper Hinduness. Bearing in mind the above points, I asked informants about their self-identification in terms of ethnicity and caste and as we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5, informants who identified themselves as Hindus would at times qualify or de-essentialize this designation – for example by explaining that Hinduism or caste were not primary markers their of identity and self-identification. A continuum of categories of vegetarianism can be mapped, entailing progressive degrees of avoidance of animal foods. Thus, there are categories of vegetarians who consider themselves vegetarian but occasionally eat red meat or poultry; who avoid consuming meat and poultry; who avoid fish; who also exclude eggs; who exclude dairy products produced with rennet (enzymes extracted from the stomachs of young calves); and who consume only vegetable-derived foods, avoiding all animal-derived food products (vegans). Even if vegetarianism is understood and practised in widely differing ways, key concerns about animal

10  Veg or Non-Veg? welfare, personal health and the environment are shared concerns among many vegetarians (Beardsworth and Keil 1992). Vegetarianism can entail a focus on morality, food production, religion/spirituality, the ‘New Order’ (political critiques of the ‘conventional’ social order) and health/physiology, as well as aesthetics or gustation (Twigg 1979). For some vegetarians, consumed meat is associated with the quality of rottenness and, more broadly, the corruption of human relations or of the state (Twigg 1979). Being vegetarian or non-vegetarian impinges on the status of the body and conceptions of purity, which are foregrounded in a central argument or ideal that prevails within vegetarian thought. Accordingly, vegetarianism reflects pure nature and natural unity at a deeper level. Notwithstanding its complexity, vegetarianism crucially entails a rejection of cruelty relating to the treatment of animals and a concern about health, although few vegetarians would ascribe to just one issue. Other central concerns relate to the wastefulness of meat production and the exploitative aspects of the world economy. Purification (of the body) whereby disjunctive features of life are eliminated and substituted by wholeness is at the core of the foundation of vegetarianism. Ultimately, it is the practice of vegetarianism that conveys its expressive power. Complexity and diversity of understandings and practices of vegetarianism surround meat-eating and vegetarianism, and many individuals are temporarily ‘vegetarian’, and this point calls for a reconsideration of vegetarianism as a model that positions meat-eating and vegetarianism as oppositional (Willetts 1997). A commonly held belief is that the widespread adoption of vegetarianism would reduce societal dysfunction and that there would be increased ‘warmth’ within a veg(etari)an society (Judge and Wilson 2015). Vegans eschew all animal products (as illustrated by my informant introduced earlier), including dairy produce as well as leather clothing and items (Lea et al. 2006). They often argue that animal mistreatment is at the centre of their abstinence (Germov and Williams 2004). Veganism can be situated within a framework that encompasses family, faith, sexuality, gender, music, culture, embodiment and activism, pointing to the hostile reactions that vegans may face (Griffin 2017). In sum, the relationship between ‘the veg(etari)an’ and ‘non-vegetarian’ is a complex and changing one that is fraught and characterized by multiplicity across time and space, and nowhere is this more evident than in contemporary India.

Ahimsa as a Modern Food Taboo In sacred Hindu texts, dietary laws/customs and social stratification/privilege were inseparable: there is a distinction between foods classified as kacca, that is, uncooked, and ordinary food without ghee (clarified butter that is costly and nourishing) that may be received from or handled by members of any caste or person. Conversely, pakka foods are carefully prepared and can thus only be accepted from an equal or a superior. This distinction is common for North India but not to the same extent in the south. Cooked rice, for example, is prone to pollution and can only be taken from those of equal or higher status whereas this is not the

Veg or Non-Veg?  11 case with snacks (Cantlie 1981; Caplan 2008). Different types of meat are graded according to their relative amount of pollution, with beef being the most defiling (Zimmermann 1987). Conventionally, the status of vegetarians was considered to be higher than that of meat-eaters due to the polluting contact with dead animals, but there are exceptions to this purity/pollution binary, for example the use of proper food and vessels (Marriott 1976; Khare 1986). Ahimsa originally signified non-violence relating to living beings and had nothing to do with vegetarianism (Alsdorff 2010 [1962]). In the Brahmanical treatise Lawbook of Manu, leeks, garlic, onions and mushrooms are forbidden foods, as they are considered ‘heating’ and may arouse sexual desire. Ahimsa is based on a ‘magico-ritualistic’ dread of destroying life, but the origins and source of ahimsa remain to be explored satisfactorily. The concept of ahimsa within legal texts featured in the gradual emergence and assertion of vegetarianism and cattle protection. However, vegetarianism and the cow taboo should be distinguished. Historically, Buddhism and Jainism reinforced Hindu understandings of vegetarianism, but its origins remain unclear (Alsdorff 2010 [1962]). Therefore, my study moves beyond ‘rationalist’ answers and a tendency to essentialize vegetarianism as an unequivocally Hindu phenomenon across India. Eat Not This Flesh (Simoons 1994) is a classic study that explores various historical forms of vegetarianism in India, covering the entire gamut from meateating ‘vegetarians’ to strict vegetarians who reject meat, fish and eggs, as well as many other types of food. Traditionally, strict Jain and Hindu vegetarianism was accorded the highest social status. The Hindu Dravidians in South India, the Reddys of Hyderabad and tribal peoples who breed pigs for sacrifice were exceptions as meat-eaters. Cow veneration in India is the best known surviving cattle cult globally and entails the rejection of beef as human food, despite the importance of cattle in Indian economic life. The origins of cow veneration and the reasons for the ban on beef are not only contested as we shall see throughout this book, but they are also dynamic in nature, changing over time. For example, Brahmins accepted beef-eating during an early historical period. A plethora of explanations for Hindu, Muslim and Jewish food taboos have been proposed. For example, one argument is that taboos are arbitrary; they make no sense to human beings and can only be understood by God. Another explanation is that such injunctions were based on sanitary concerns. Symbolic explanations offered by the anthropologist Mary Douglas (1975, 2004) posit that acceptable animals for consumption are associated with proper human behaviour, whereas banned animals are associated with sinful human behaviour. Some scholars have argued that food laws originated in the rejection of cultic practices of alien peoples and social groups whose worship of foreign deities and particular ideas/practices relating to food set them apart from other people in the mainstream. Some anthropologists, most famously Marvin Harris, have posited a more contemporary explanation, namely that the prohibitions are grounded in economic, environmental and/or ecological rationales (Harris 1977, 1998). Traditionally, for some Hindu groups ‘internal pollution’ may be worse than pollution resulting from external contact because it entails penetration of the body by pollutants, including impure

12  Veg or Non-Veg? foods. Moreover, according to Harris (1977), Hinduism was profoundly affected by Islam that to a large extent influenced the emergence of ahimsa. Taboos can protect specific components of the universe and induce consensus and certainty about the organization of the cosmos, thus reducing intellectual and social disorder (Douglas 2004), as can be seen in the manner in which Hindu vegetarianism is evoked as Hindu ‘culture’ or a ‘green label’. However, feelings of uncertainty and disorder often underlie the certainty and order that is produced. These doubts mostly surface within everyday strategies for dealing with everintensifying demands for practising consumption according to religious or social norms, as illustrated by the promotion and patrolling of vegetarianism through the green/brown binary. Elsewhere, Douglas (1975) argued that when people become aware of encroachment and danger, dietary rules controlling what goes into the body have an analogous function to the corpus of cultural categories of risk. The debate over the origins of the ban on beef in Hinduism is far from being resolved, given the lack of sufficient historical evidence. My brief discussion of the arguments of two anthropologists, Douglas and Harris, is intended to introduce the reader to central arguments within a debate that has spanned decades and that still apparently inform scholarly and popular controversy over not just the beef prohibition but also the nature of taboo itself. On the one hand, I am drawn to the explanation that the ‘sanctity of the cow’s body and the prohibition against killing and eating her is made real for Hindus through crucial ritual performances that communicate a variety of cosmological constructs’ (Van der Veer 1994, 87). On the other hand, as I show, meat modernity is prevalent in India for a number of contrasting reasons. Gandhi’s vegetarianism, encompassing a gastro-politics, ideology and rationale, has critically influenced Indian food systems and impacted tangibly on the connections among ahimsa, celibacy/bodily administration and leadership (Alter 2000). Gandhi’s programme of social and political action focused on somatic concerns and a bio-moral public health imperative. For Gandhi, an ideal meal would be simple and natural, consisting of moderate, minimally cooked, unprocessed and quickly prepared ingredients. According to this understanding, vegetarianism is intrinsically good. While Hindu nationalism is often associated with vegetarianism, at least rhetorically, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who in 1923 coined the term Hindutva, signifying a form of political Hinduism that sought to organize and militarize Hindus as a nation, viewed Gandhi’s vegetarianism as effeminate and retrogressive (Nandy 2014). Hindu nationalist projects of cow protection are troubled by the incompatibility of the undifferentiated/abstract metaphor of the cow mother of the Hindu nation on the one hand and materiality of actual cows on the other (Govindrajan 2018). There is more to vegetarianism than meets the eye; it is not simply a matter of personal choice, and it is also distinct from the Brahmanical rationale of purity and from Jain spirituality, which has traditionally entailed strict vegetarianism (Laidlaw 2015). As I show throughout this book, meat production, trade, regulation and consumption are challenging the status of the cow mother, and the question of vegetarianism is one that is ever-present in the country’s modern

Veg or Non-Veg?  13 history. Moving beyond meat, I explore the consequences of processed and packaged foods that carry green/brown labels, such as the instant noodles depicted in Figure 1.1. Such products reflect the success of global capitalism and a form of ‘consumer citizenship’, wherein industrialized foods enable affluent groups of consumers to assert that they belong to the modern world and to transform social relations within India (Baviskar 2018). Interestingly, none of my vegetarian informants referred directly to ahimsa as a rationale that explained their vegetarianism. For example, one informant, Satish, who is in his 50s, described himself as a ‘pure vegetarian’ and would often refer to Hindu scriptures when discussing food and vegetarianism but never to ahimsa. He explained that ‘I have a distaste for non-vegetarian food. Even if it is cooked in my house, I have that feeling. My wife is fond of fish, but I don’t like it.’ He further explained that his ‘distaste for non-veg is certainly not a religious sentiment and I support animals’ rights.’ This example reveals that among middle-class Hindus in Telangana, vegetarianism is not explicitly related to ahimsa; rather, it is linked to a range of other factors that will be explored in Chapters 4 and 5.

The Argument In this book, which is the outcome of eight months of fieldwork conducted among veg and non-veg producers, traders, regulators and consumers, I argue that many existing studies and understandings of vegetarianism in India have taken the dominant ideology for granted, namely that vegetarianism is intrinsic to Hinduism and therefore self-evident. Accordingly, vegetarianism purportedly does not require systematic empirical investigation. However, the reality in India is quite different, with Muslims, Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and large sections of Hindu communities also being meat-eaters. The book’s main focus is on the changing relationship between vegetarian/veg/green and non-vegetarian/non-veg/brown as understood, practised and contested by the Hindu middle-class in Telangana, taking account of national/federal transformations such as the 2011 law that marks a move from Hindu dietary law towards law as culture (Rosen 2008), that is, law as a cultural domain that possesses distinctive histories, terminologies and personnel. Law must be considered when exploring how a culture operates, and law is always part of and connected to culture so that problems in legal systems move in tandem with the features of their broader cultures. The Hindu middle class does not just comprise shoppers/consumers, as most of the literature would have it; it also includes those who are actively involved in resignifying the relationship between veg/non-veg as producers, managers and bureaucrats. Questions of who eats and with whom and what is rejected as food are fundamentally linked conceptually to empire, decolonization and globalization, especially in the context of India’s recent emergence as a superpower with a booming economy and expanding middle class (Roy 2002). The polarity of ‘carnivory’ or meat modernity versus everyday/ideological vegetarianism illustrates this argument. Thus, food can advance understanding of how people respond to and resist the circulation of power within colonial and postcolonial modernities.

14  Veg or Non-Veg? Exploring meat and beef, but also moving beyond these, I argue that the law on green/brown coding, introduced in 2011, is an attempt to redefine, surveil and protect the vegetarian domain, which, especially in the context of the processed food revolution, has meant that all packaged products across India are required to carry green/brown labels. The overarching argument of the book is that a systematic study of the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg understandings and practices at different levels of the social scale illuminates broader transformations and challenges that relate to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in India. Food in India is inseparable from sentiments of community (caste, ethnicity, region or nation), and controversies surrounding cow slaughter and beef/meat-eating on the one hand and vegetarianism on the other is at the core of contemporary debates (Bhushi 2018). More specifically, I present the following four sub-arguments to support and qualify the main argument. First, India is emerging as a major producer/exporter of meat, and of water buffalo beef in particular. Production and consumption of meat, especially chicken, have been increasing since the 1980s. Comparatively, meat consumption in India is still very low compared to almost any other country, but meat/non-vegetarianism is being mainstreamed and legitimized in new ways. At the same time, the country is undergoing a retail revolution, and its consumer culture is being transformed. India’s consumer landscapes have changed significantly since the implementation of the 1991 reforms that resulted in the lowering of trade, the effective dismantling of the policy of state regulation of industrial production and the liberalization of investments. These transformations also mirror wider societal changes, most notably urbanization, increased affluence and the growth of the middle class. With the introduction of hypermarkets within the last two decades or so, major retailers are now, selling fresh meat and fish alongside veg products on a massive scale under one roof. Second, my study extends beyond meat, as I explore the introduction of green/ brown labels as signifiers of a Second Green Revolution, that is, a preoccupation with all that is ’green’ and of an Indianized form of green ideology. My understanding of this Second Green Revolution differs from the Green Revolution conceptualized as adopting genetic engineering of new food crops to increase crop yield as well as nutrition. By focusing on the bigger institutional picture, including regulation that frames everyday consumption, I offer a multi-sited ethnography at different levels of the social scale (discussed in the methodology section at the end of this chapter) of the overlapping technologies and techniques of production, trade and certification/standardization that together warrant a product as veg or non-veg, thereby helping to shape the market. I analyze this type of regulation, conceived as an expression of state power and ideology in the context of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism. In doing so, I argue that it is essential to move beyond the confines of meat/beef/cow veneration/ahimsa concepts to gain a deeper understanding of the bureaucratization/scientification of Indian food markets with regard to the explosion of processed foods, such as instant noodles, as depicted in Figure 1.1. While numerous studies have examined violence and ‘cow lynchings’ inflicted on Muslims and Dalits and provoked through discourses of

Veg or Non-Veg?  15 militant Hindu vegetarianism, I show that the proliferation of standardized, sanitized, impersonal and, in principle, democratic shopping spaces in which more and more social groups encounter, shop for and consume meat/fish/non-veg items may serve to counter the historically controversial role that meat has played in India. After all, in plural societies such as that of India, members of communities mostly meet in markets (Siegel 1997), and these communities increasingly rely on technological means of regulating food to the same extent that they rely on religious authority. Third, why and how Hindu middle-class groups eat meat are not well understood; the prevailing assumption within the existing literature is that the Hindu concept of ahimsa (non-injury to all living creatures) along with cow veneration, and the consequent banning of cow slaughter, prevent many Hindus from eating meat – as part of ‘collectivistic’ Hindu culture. A further assumption is that the relationship between vegetarianism and meat-eating is relatively simple and stable among Hindu groups. In Hindu elite/nationalist discourses as well as in many scholarly studies, Hindu meat-eating is often seen as exceptional and attributed to ritual or religious circumstances rather than being viewed as an everyday practice. Scholars writing on Indian vegetarianism, including the author of this book, may favour vegetarian principles and are seeking to understand how vegetarianism in Europe and the United States, influenced by an Indian ethos, has been a potent social force over the last 400 years. Fourth, while numerous studies have been conducted on food/vegetarianism/ meat in cities such as Mumbai (Anjaria 2016, Solomon 2016) and Delhi (Ahmad 2018), the booming city of Hyderabad, and South India more generally, have attracted considerably less attention. An exception is work on beef politics in South India among Christians and lower-caste groups in particular (Staples 2020). Furthermore, Muslims play an instrumental role in India’s meat markets, as most of the meat processed in abattoirs is halal and can only be certified as such by Muslim organizations. What is more, Hyderabad’s culinary culture should be seen against the historical backdrop of Islamic influences. In this book, I attend to vegetarians and non-vegetarians among the more fastidious Hindu middle-class groups in line with the general tendency within scholarly research. However, I also include ‘ordinary’ Hindu groups who are not at the forefront of contemporary religious or political developments and who are somewhat ambivalent about them, exploring why and how the middle class eat meat and non-veg food, including beef. In Chapter 2, I argue that the promotion and patrolling of the veg/non-veg binary within the public sphere has substantive effects on the urban middle-class universe of Hyderabad. I chose Hyderabad as my primary fieldwork site because this city has experienced a massive retail revolution and a changing consumer culture – and Telangana and Hyderabad are often seen to qualify as the most developed/modern state and city in India. As we saw above, the vast majority of people are meat-eaters (my own survey supported and detailed this finding), and there are a substantial number of abattoirs. The economic boom and high growth rates have led to an influx of well-educated migrants and, most notably, to social mobility

16  Veg or Non-Veg? among Hindu groups. For example, increasing numbers of international super/ hypermarket chains, such as Star Hyper and SPAR, where I conducted fieldwork, are opening outlets in the city and especially in the surrounding suburbs. Moreover, the city embodies a striking blend of a Hindu majority and a large Muslim minority, while Telangana’s Muslim heritage and cuisine have been formative influences. Within India, Muslims and Dalits are typically characterized as meat-eaters. Hyderabad’s environment is quintessentially middle class. The city is dynamic and bustling, and its emerging suburbs, such as Gachibowli, are home to migrants from other parts of India, including many of my informants, who typically work in the IT or education fields. At the same time, Hyderabad is the site of ongoing debates among higher-caste Hindus more widely, and to some extent, local upper-caste groups, backed by the BJP, seeking to protect the holy cow and enforce vegetarianism, even though meat is big business in Telangana and nationally. Other currents and countercurrents include a localized Dalit movement that is highly active within universities and elsewhere advocating, conversely, for the right to eat meat, and beef in particular, while emerging groups of vegans are promoting animal rights, and an evolving organic movement is apparent. Telangana/Hyderabad is the focus of my study, but this location may also hold potential for future nationwide trends, and in Chapter 3 I shall compare my findings to Delhi.

The Retail Revolution and a Changing Consumer Culture Three themes run through this book. The first theme focuses on consumer landscapes in India and on questions of why and how they have significantly changed since the early 1990s and the consequences of these developments for ways in which veg and non-veg are understood and practised. The 1991 reforms completely altered the landscapes of consumer spaces and goods and of economic policies (Maiorano 2015). These transformations also mirror wider societal changes, most notably evidenced by increased affluence and better material status as well as a large proportion of Indian middle-class women working outside the home (as it is the case with the majority of my informants), while often remaining responsible for grocery shopping and food preparation as in the case of many of my female informants. Agro-food chains in India are being rapidly transformed largely because of changes in income, consumption and work patterns propelled by economic development. Agricultural marketing is being strengthened through the gradual liberalization of the retail sector, coupled with an emphasis on investment and the rise of organized retail. Most importantly, scientific methods of storage, including grain storage, refrigeration, grading and packaging, are being promoted through increased investments. The entry of foreign players has led to increased competition, greater professionalism and better service. Specifically, these retailing giants are at a considerable advantage over traditional retail and small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of the procurement of goods and services, given the vast scales of their operations (Rao et al. 2016). Many of India’s

Veg or Non-Veg?  17 13 million smaller retail stores are being supplanted by large malls, especially in areas located along the outskirts of cities. Within the contemporary, Westernized milieu of these malls, new stores need to project a strong cosmopolitan image. Evidently, India’s urban markets, which are undergoing a process of transformation, offer a promising new landscape for qualitative studies, especially those that employ observational methods (Dholakia and Sinha 2005). A classic study of Indian food systems explores how everyday food practices are constrained by Indian institutions, values, cultures and sacred/secular domains, as well as nutritional, economic, political and historical processes, thereby situating many of the topics discussed in this section in an Indian context. All of these dimensions collectively constitute the Indian food system and shape the classification and categorization of veg and non-veg food (Khare 1966). In India, the culture of Hinduism (and Buddhism) approaches food as an essence and experience within personal and social life: food can possess cosmological, moral, social and material qualities within an order of essence and experience. While food is synonymous with life’s refining essence, Hindu food discourses often critique the Hindu cosmic order/hierarchy and not least in connection with vegetarianism idealized as superior, which seems to clash with meat-eating in the Vedic (relating to the Vedas or holy texts of Hinduism) tradition. Thus, as will be clear, vegetarianism challenges a simple or consistent caste rank correlation, and it involves several rival historical forces and value paradoxes in Hindu cosmology (Khare 1992). Taking account of more recent developments and transformations, a number of studies have advanced our understanding of standardized vegetarianism, including those that have explored the complex relationship between social movements and market adaptation, that is, cultural ideals of how food relates to specific places, people and food systems (Johnston et al. 2009; Janeja 2010). Another important study (Johnston et al. 2011) called for increased attention to how privileged consumers think about food ethics when engaged in everyday shopping and the need for such analyses to explore the ways in which class, ethnic and cultural orientations, as well as symbolic boundaries, are forged through food. My own research, for example, revealed that SPAR was among the first chains to introduce the sale of fresh meat within its hypermarkets in India. Nevertheless, butcher shops still retain their importance within the Indian retail landscape. These transitions can be conceptualized as a move from a ‘bazaar economy’ to a ‘standardized’ economy (Fanselow 1990; Schwecke and Gandhi 2020). My analysis centres on the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg food in particular, situated at the interface of the retail revolution and new forms of consumer culture, that is, the broader extension of Indian consumer goods, markets and advertising. In Chapter 3, I explore this extension within production, shops and restaurants. The impacts of processes of standardization and the consumer culture are illustrated in the statements of the manager of an exclusive restaurant that serves both veg and non-veg food. The manager revealed that in his former workplace in Gujarat, there was only a veg menu, reflecting what he termed the ‘demographic profile of the region.’ He made the following argument:

18  Veg or Non-Veg? There is nothing like [a] veg or non-veg restaurant. It is veg-restaurant and restaurant. It is so tough to cook both veg and non-veg foods in the same restaurant; there are certain communities in India who don’t prefer [sic] their food to be cooked in a non-veg kitchen. Not only vessels and utensils, they don’t even like their food to be cooked on the same fire. Thus, in the post-liberalization period, a pattern of ‘moral consumption’, discernible among India’s emergent middle class, is producing a new configuration of capitalism that makes recurrent reference to Hindu doctrine and practice and to the formation of a Hindu subject capable of acting and competing within a neoliberal but still profoundly religiously inflected economic environment. Moral consumption is constitutive of India’s contemporary ‘divine market’ in which commodities are spiritualized, and spirituality conforms to a logic of commodification (Srivastava 2017). Similar trends are visible in Muslim Southeast Asia, and I have called this Muslim Piety as Economy (2019). Moral consumption and divine economies can be viewed as an extension of Swadeshi, that is, the preference for goods produced in India that began in 1905 and played a major role in the country’s freedom struggle. It was also employed as a rhetorical device to promote agricultural self-sufficiency as part of the import substitution strategy pursued by the Indian state from 1950 to 1991 (Hansen 1996). The Hindu nationalist resistance movement that opposed liberalization and the import of foreign goods after 1991 also deployed the rhetoric of Swadeshi in which agrarian-focused and community-based notions of self-governance were central. An example is the closing down of a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Delhi by the BJP government on the peculiar grounds that flies had been recovered inside its kitchen premises. The ban on cow slaughter and the rigorous enforcement of the green/brown regulation can be seen as a continuation of Swadeshi, entailing the deepening of moral economies and divine markets on the one hand and the disciplining of imported food products, in particular, on the other hand. The reconfiguration of veg and non-veg food markets reflects India’s ‘aesthetics of arrival’ (as we saw in Modi’s speech), namely the novelty, visibility and celebration of the post-reform landscape (Kaur and Hansen 2016). On the one hand, vegetarianism is celebrated, promoted and certified by the BJP and the state, and on the other hand, meat-eating (and its ‘brown’ regulation) is a sign of prosperity, pluralized markets, reconfigured status/hierarchies, inclusion, social mobility, health and cosmopolitanism. Indeed, a wide range of meat products is now available in relatively expensive hypermarkets as well as in traditional butcher’s shops. Capitalism in India is well diversified, spanning a wide range of industries and communities. Especially in South India, intermediate castes have access to modern education, which has contributed to the integration of the towns and countryside and to the formation of a new middle class. This phenomenon helps to explain why and how the middle-class universe in South India is changing. Never before have class/caste identities in India been as fluid and dynamic as they are today, and nowhere is this more visible than in Hyderabad. It is from the

Veg or Non-Veg?  19 ranks of the socially heterogeneous middle class comprising both Brahmins and non-Brahmins that a new group of socially mobile industrialists has emerged and flourished in the context of Southern ‘democratization’ of capital and the inability of traditional mercantile and banking communities to gain a stranglehold over business. Moreover, caste has been less of an impediment to business in the South compared with its influence on business in the North (Damodaran 2008, 314). The globalization of food systems has led to their entanglement within complex webs of political significance (Lien 2004); a phenomenon that is nowhere more visible than in (sub)urban India. Today, India is a global superpower, and multinational chains are promoting a vast and increasing range of every kind of food, now available in the country, all carrying green or brown labels. I support the argument for the necessity of applying an integrative approach that builds on economic, political and environmental processes to develop a better understanding of the challenges of food regulation, and these processes all condition the relationship between the vegetarian and the non-vegetarian in contemporary India (Pritchard et al. 2014). With intensified trade and importation of food as well as the expansion of nutritional and scientific knowledge, food is becoming increasingly less ‘natural’, ‘simple’ and ‘traditional’, and notions of nature and purity are being challenged in relation to food cultivation (Wallace 1998, 3). In India, the emergence of a new ontology of global consumption was conveyed most forcefully in advertising images that reflected the desires of individual consumers and simultaneously presented the national community as an aesthetic community distinguished by its taste-based preferences (veg or non-veg), which are most pronounced among the emerging middle class (Mazzarella 2003). Indian advertising and marketing professionals have succeeded in Indianizing brands and have devised new sources of value for products. The veg/non-veg binary plays an important role in this respect. Most importantly, perhaps, Hinduism has been effectively mobilized as an antidote to globalizing consumerism.

‘Go Green or Go Down … Choice Is Yours’ A second theme addressed in this book is ‘green’ aesthetics and ideology in modern India. The heading of this section is borrowed from a sign that I passed daily during my commute while conducting fieldwork in Hyderabad (Figure 1.5). Hyderabad is promoting itself as ‘green’ by planting millions of trees in the metropolitan area. During the mid-1990s, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority implemented the Hyderabad Green Belt Project, aimed at regulating developments around the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and implementing extensive greening of wastelands, industrial estates and residential areas. Not only are green labels and tree-planting projects now ubiquitous throughout India and beyond, but there has been a proliferation of powerful green discourses within the political, economic and cultural arenas. In India, the colour green can symbolize new beginnings, harvests, happiness, nature and divinity. Conversely, brown, which is the colour of dying leaves, may connote death and mourning in addition to evoking the brown economy, that is, economic activities that have a

20  Veg or Non-Veg?

Figure 1.5  Greening India.

variety of negative environmental effects, notably the production of carbon emissions through the burning of fossil fuels for generating energy as well as inefficient uses of energy (Svendsen 2013). The meat industry is widely considered to be part of the brown economy. In India, the use of new agronomic technology during the Green Revolution, which began in the 1960s, contributed to modernizing the agricultural sector (Death 2014). However, the state’s attempts to industrialize the agricultural sector through the introduction of new technologies as well as fertilizers and pesticides caused massive environmental problems, notably in the area of food security, that have continued into the present. By contrast, green food security has been conceptualized as a type of food security with a specific focus on ensuring access to and availability of healthy/nutritious food on the one hand and environmental sustainability on the other hand (Richardson 2010). State agencies play a critical role in achieving green food security and environmental sustainability and require local, national and global coordination (Duncan 1990). More broadly, green economies are concerned with how social well-being should be envisioned and practised. Green production, politics, regulation and consumption all reflect the belief that there are limits to industrial growth (Dryzek

Veg or Non-Veg?  21 2005; Brockington and Ponte 2015; Adams 2019). What I refer to as a ‘Second Green Revolution’ signifies a preoccupation with all that is ‘green’, namely green discourses, practices and commodities, including green labels, but also organic production and veg(etari)anism. New national green economic strategies can be conceived as being linked to the knowledges, politics, institutions and subjectivities associated with the emergence of the environment as a domain that requires regulation and protection (Agrawal 2005). These linkages are illustrated, for example, by veganism, discussed in Chapter 5. What is evidently common to all of these national strategies and articulations of the green economy is the central role of the state (Death 2014). However, a key question relates to how businesses think about and practice green/brown production and regulation and consequences for consumers. The green economy not only qualifies as a moral economy, how moral life shapes economic decisions and relations, but it also strongly reflects an aesthetic ideology of ‘the green’ that generally contrasts with everyday practice. In ancient Greek, aisthitkos means ‘perceptive by feeling’. The modern notion of the aesthetic artefact is inseparable from the construction of the dominant ideological forms of the modern class society. In his seminal work, Critique of Judgement, Kant (2009 [1790]) argued that whatever an individual experiences sensorily is aesthetic. For example, the green colour of a meadow is a sensation in that the pleasurable aspect of the colour is a subjective impression. To think of something as ‘good’ requires an understanding of the object, and ‘the good’ must have a purpose. Ultimately, the manner in which the observing subject’s mind organizes and structures the sensory world evokes the aesthetic. Specifically, an image’s design and colours are indissociable from the way it is perceived or the locations and modalities of its use (Harpham 1994). In the formation of a class society, aesthetic concepts begin to play an intensive role in the constitution of a dominant ideology. Aesthetics emerge as the discourse of the body, and each subject is responsible for their own individual self-government when judging the aesthetic (Eagleton 1990). Thus, emancipation from a dominant green aesthetics – for example, through meat-eating – provides the middle class with a model for their political aspirations, transforming the relations between law on one side and desire, morality, knowledge, social relations, custom, affection and sympathy on the other. Similarly, bourgeois environmentalism, which reflects upper-class concerns around aesthetics, leisure, safety and health, is an ideology and organizing force that significantly shapes the landscapes and lives of millions of Indians and the disposition of urban spaces in metropolises. For bourgeois environmentalists, urban spaces should be reserved for white-collar production and commerce and for consumption activities. Commerce and leisure are fused together in the new shopping malls and super/hypermarkets sprouting up across cities (Baviskar 2011). More generally, the aesthetic can also be conceived as a mode of apprehending reality or as a mode of articulating and constituting the real (Viladesau 1999). Theological aesthetics considers religion in relation to sensory knowledge, that is, sensation, imagination and feeling. In my view, the veg/non-veg binary is

22  Veg or Non-Veg? a good example of the interplay between aesthetics and the mundane world of shopping, which is also informed by other concerns, such as convenience, thrift and health. Green religion, or the greening of religion, that is, environmentally friendly behaviour considered as a religious obligation and the notion that nature is sacred and has intrinsic value, is constitutive of a form of modern environmentalism (Taylor 2010). In his seminal work Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature, William James argued that the ‘æsthetic motive’ is endemic to religion (2002 [1902], 355). This concept is central to James’ conceptualization of religion, wherein ‘the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance’ (2002 [1902], 375). For the Hindu middle-class, the veg–non-veg binary is simultaneously a manifestation of the polarity between a spiritual universe and the visible, mundane world of shopping. Food is employed simultaneously within symbolic systems and ritual ceremonies as well as in everyday choices (Korsmeyer 1999). Subjects of modern dietary science are permeated with ethical and ‘spiritual’ problems that arise through the government of food (Coveney 2000). In the following chapters, I show how the veg/non-veg dichotomy helps to shape both a moral and an aesthetic community among different Hindu groups. Hindu revivalist agendas, discourses and institutions penetrate everyday life and reconfigure the public culture in India (Hansen 1999). For decades, promises of modernity, national strength and development were the predominant rallying calls of the Indian National Congress party within Indian politics. The agenda of the current Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, focuses ‘on operationalising mega-development in India via globalization to position the country as an emergent, modern world power, and, simultaneously, a well-defined Hindu state’ (Chatterji et al. 2019, 10). Balibar’s (1991, 95) conception of a fusion of national and religious identities is a good fit with the topic of Indian veg/non-veg food that was also evident in Modi’s speech delivered at the World Food India event, cited earlier. According to Balibar, a national ideology entails ‘ideal signifiers’, such as the name of the ‘fatherland’ onto which a sense of the sacred and the sentiments of love, respect, sacrifice and fear that serve to cement religious communities are infused. Moreover, ‘national identity, more or less completely integrating the forms of religious identity, ends up tending to replace it, and forcing itself to be ‘nationalized.’ At the core of the nationalization of Hinduism and Hinduness is the question of what constitutes proper Hindu practice. Vegetarianism (cow veneration, banning of cow slaughter and vegetarian regulation), in particular, has become prominent as a signifier in the nationalization of Hinduism within India. Even if statistics in India show that most Hindus are non-vegetarians, the national ideology that India is, or should be, a vegetarian nation is widely upheld and promoted. Ideology can explain why and how many scholars writing on vegetarianism have been seduced by a powerful vegetarian ideology. Differing from these scholars, I show that a veg/non-veg dichotomy has been formative of both a moral and an aesthetic Hindu community constituted by Hindu middle-class groups. In other words, this dichotomy is inseparable from individual and group

Veg or Non-Veg?  23 trajectories, and my multi-sited approaches for examining these trajectories have provided a historical context for their exploration. The following extract from a discussion with the SPAR store manager in Hyderabad illustrates the force of ‘the green’ and simultaneous serves as a bridge to the next section which focuses on the final theme of meat. The manager made the argument that green/brown marks are essential because some 40% of Indian Hindus are vegetarians according to ‘a global survey’. However, he also highlighted the issues of surveillance and punishment of infractions: We follow the green and brown marking and keep products separate in the store. The authorities may come to the store anytime, unannounced, to check that the products are labelled appropriately. The authorities are very strict and will impose fines in case they find inappropriate labelling or weights. He further observed that among SPAR customers, veg is giving way to nonveg, and more Hindu groups have started to eat more meat. Thus, vegetarians are becoming non-vegetarian, but this trend is entirely based on the customers’ choices. Classifying and qualifying veg and non-veg items is prioritized by SPAR, and green/brown marks are found on all packaged food products except for fresh meat and vegetables. A second informant, Sanjay, who was in his 40s and worked as a teacher in higher education, made the following remark regarding the introduction of the green/brown marks. He stated that he first noticed the green/brown marks about five years earlier when a friend drew his attention to their existence. The shopping habits of vegetarians like Sanjay were transformed by these marks ‘because before these marks, I did not do shopping in supermarkets.’

Meat Modernity and Sustainability A third and final theme running through this book is the relationship between veg/ non-veg food and modernity. Surely, the Second Green Revolution qualifies as a modern response to environmental problems and as a modern aesthetic. However, I explore modern paradoxes and contradictions by bringing in the growth of the meat/non-veg economy and the potency of meat in contemporary India parallel to the Second Green Revolution. Evidently, modernity, or modernities, is a topic that is both extensive and diverse, but its application is constructive for exploring modern middle-class universes in relation to India’s rise as a superpower. Berman (1982, 15) defines modernity as a mode of ‘vital experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life’s possibilities and perils.’ To be modern, ‘is to find ourselves in an environment that promises adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.’ To be(come) modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction while trying to make the world our own, including fighting bureaucratic organizations, which is a relevant point in India as the world’s largest democracy. In Chapter 4, I shall call this middle-class projects, that is, a conceptual framework to capture the diversity

24  Veg or Non-Veg? involved in the constitution of the Hindu middle class, with specific reference to how the veg/non-veg binary is understood, practised and contested. I contend that veg/non-veg culture and knowledge give shape to how an Indianized modernity is experienced, made sense of and lived (Seth 2012). Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries – of geography and ethnicity, class and nationality, and religion and ideology. This conceptualization of modernity as essentially ambivalent has also inspired anthropologists (Miller 1994) in their explorations of the consequences of modernity in developing countries/economies. In his work on modernity in Trinidad, Miller argues that juxtaposing descriptions of Trinidad and modernity could account for some of the specific features and contradictions entailed in the characterization of both. The rise of modernity is one in which the focus is first on its growing contradictions and second on its association with the expansion of a more extensive material culture. A study that is empirically and historically grounded addresses all of those elements of contingency and variability that characterize humanity. The advantages of adopting an ethnographic approach to study modernity are derived from a two-way process in which both descriptive ethnography and theoretical debates on modernity may challenge each other as well as be interpreted in relation to each other. Meat evokes multiple and ambivalent meanings: more than anything, it conveys a modern taboo surrounded by law as culture. The sacred cow concept gained impetus in light of the rivalry between Muslims and Hindus at the time of India’s independence, and the ban on cow slaughter was incorporated into the Constitution of India via Article 48, leading to decades of legal controversy often involving Muslims. Lynchings of Muslims accused of slaughtering, selling and eating cows have occurred frequently in India (Jaffrelot 2017). Today, cow slaughter is banned in many Indian states, including Telangana. Article 48 prohibits the slaughter of cows, and in 2005, the Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutional validity of laws prohibiting cow slaughter that were enacted by 20 out of 29 Indian states. Violators face six months in jail and/or a fine of 1,000 rupees (approx. US$ 12). While the export of beef (from cows, oxen and calves) is prohibited, the export of the meat of buffalos, goats, sheep and birds is permitted. India is home to the world’s largest concentration of water buffalos. It is important to differentiate between water buffalo and cattle beef or zebu cows (also known as indicine or humped cattle). Since the 2000s, India’s export of water buffalo beef has expanded rapidly, with the country emerging as the world’s largest beef exporter in 2014. This phenomenon can be attributed to rising consumer demands for low-cost meat in the Global South, the large numbers of water buffalos in India and the emergence of private sector and export-oriented Indian meat processors. More specifically, the centralization of animal slaughter in abattoirs and meat processing/marketing are common in industrial societies. Abattoirs are designed to avert the human gaze from the violence done to animals within them and are established in response to public hygiene concerns, the dangers of transmitting animal diseases to humans (a notable concern in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic) and in light of economies of scale and the sizeable

Veg or Non-Veg?  25 units created by large businesses (Lee 2008). The geographies of ‘meatification’ (Jakobsen and Hansen 2020) of human diets reveal South-South connections such as that of India-Southeast Asia. India is a large and growing meat (almost exclusively ‘meat of bovine animals’) producer, and by far the largest are exports from India to Vietnam, which at 1.9 billion USD annually is the fifth largest bilateral meat trade flow measured in monetary value globally, and also Thailand, Malaysia and Egypt. Meatification or meat modernity sits uneasily with India as a Brand New Nation (Kaur 2020). On the one hand, India features prominently in South-South meat connections/economies as a ‘brown’ market logic that reconfigures the nation-state into a commercial-cultural zone and emerging market, and on the other hand Hindu nationalist discourses that insist on the ‘green’ virtue of vegetarianism and cow protection. In India, abattoirs are quintessential examples illustrating the above-described ambivalence. On the one hand, they follow the logic of meat modernity, entailing the presence of a booming and sanitized meat economy, and on the other hand, they are perceived by Hindu nationalists, and fastidious vegetarians and vegans in particular, as sites of industrialized and impersonal mass killing (of cows) that are abhorrent or improper in vegetarian India. This description fits both abattoirs and the new outlets that for the first time are selling veg/non-veg products under one roof. To provide a contextual background to my quantitative/qualitative study of meat consumption presented in Chapter 4, here I shall review existing studies that have explored these issues. There is a lack of studies that combine quantitative insights with in-depth qualitative studies. Moreover, existing studies are not situated in the larger context of the retail revolution, changing consumer culture and green/brown regulation. Meat production, export and consumption are increasing in India, as is the case in much of the Global South, and this book examines why and how this is happening. The emerging body of literature on animality in South Asia (Dave 2014; Govindrajan 2018; Narayanan 2018) provides a more nuanced picture in contrast to the predominant literature that mostly explores microsocial aspects, such as the everyday dietary habits of Hindu groups and, to a lesser extent, vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism among the general population. Moreover, not even the most fastidious vegetarians/vegans among my informants objected to shopping for food in a hypermarket in which both veg and nonveg items are sold or to going to a Muslim/non-veg store/restaurant, now that the green/brown FSSAI labels are legally mandated. Food and drink consumption practices among Hindus of divergent classes and castes have always been contentious in India, but now the country finds itself at the interface of ‘modern’ transformations that are fundamentally reshaping the complex relationship between veg and non-veg foods. These transformations include the rise of Hindu nationalism, the emergence of a new Hindu middle class of about 300 million consumers – who are more flexible about food practices than previous generations but also acutely aware of health issues in a context of environmental degradation and constant food scandals in the wake of the Green Revolution and urbanization – and liberalized and globalized markets in which abattoirs and super/hypermarkets play essential roles. The most important drivers of these transformations may

26  Veg or Non-Veg? be ambivalent aesthetics, manifested in the clash between ‘green’ and ‘brown’ and associated ideologies, and forms of regulation at different levels of the social scale. Middle-class consumers are clearly central to meat modernity, but an exploration of their middle-class status is also essential in an investigation of how well-educated food regulators and managers shape the market for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. The nationalization of modern ‘food science’ has entailed the production of a hybrid form of knowledge that combines Western ideas about science/regulation and local cultural and religious understandings with the cultural authority of science serving as a legitimating signifier of rationality and progress (Prakash 1999). Similarly, in India, agriculture, food production, modernity and nation building are inseparable. Development, considered as a modern ‘reason of state’, enters into relationships that institute new forms of governmental rationality. Thus, the development of agriculture is an index of the health of the nation (Gupta 2013). Since the mid-1990s, formal scientific risk management has been codified at all levels of food safety governance in India. Central to this endeavour has been the adoption of science-based governance models and strategies wherein local stakeholders attach their own interests and agendas to science-based reforms producing rational myths about the benefits of scientization. The FSSAI is illustrative of these trends, with the establishment of strong politico–scientific networks being part of a larger strategy of exercising power (Epstein 2014). However, food scandals have appeared regularly in the media in articles with titles such as ‘How the safety of India’s processed food was compromised by orders from the Prime Minister’s Office: The Narendra Modi government has done away with scientific scrutiny of how companies mix ingredients in many new processed food products’ (Scroll​.​in 9 January 2018). Paradoxically, while vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism have been subjected to green aesthetics/ideology, general food security is conspicuously lacking. In sum, this theme focuses on the role of meat/non-veg products in the contemporary world. World meat production increased by 1% to 327 Mt in 2018 (OECD/FAO 2019). Within the Global South, increased production of beef, pork and poultry meats has been observed in Argentina, India and Mexico. A ‘continued expansion in [the] meat supply over the next decade’ is anticipated, and ‘global meat production is projected to be 13% higher in 2028 (…) with developing countries accounting for the vast majority of the total increase’ (OECD/FAO 2019, 169). Almost half of the growth in direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is expected to be attributable to the cattle industry, with another 15% attributed to the sheep and goat industries. Geographically, most of the increase in direct GHG emissions from the agricultural sector is projected to come from the Global South, with Asia accounting for 45% of these emissions. The large contribution of the Global South can be explained by higher agricultural production growth rates, and by extensive pastoral livestock systems, which lead to relatively high GHG emissions per unit of output (OECD/FAO 2019). However, the reasons and trends underlying the increase in meat consumption in the Global South are not well understood. The literature on meat consumption,

Veg or Non-Veg?  27 including the observed increase in meat-eating in the Global South, calls for more empirical evidence on the distribution of – and emerging preferences in – meat consumption in specific geographical, economic and social contexts. For the new middle classes, rising purchasing power offers increased choices, and the consequences of this increased demand are compounded by the fact that even small increases in the per capita consumption of meat will increase the quantities of meat required and therefore the ecological impacts of this industry (Lange 2016). The expanding consumer classes in the Global South, especially in emerging market leaders, such as China and India, represent a substantial potential challenge to global food and resource supplies (de Zoysa 2011). In particular, beef (including meat from water buffalo) constitutes a non-sustainable nutritional option (Dauvergne 2008). The role played by trade reforms, as we saw it in the case of liberalization in India from the 1990s onwards, in dietary transitions is not well researched. As we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5, older informants recall how liberalization changed (food) markets in India. Nonetheless, little is known about the linkage between trade reforms and food tastes (Thow and Hawkes 2009). Increased meat production and demand are expected to occur mainly in developing countries (Popkin and Reardon 2018), and India is no exception to this projected trend. Recent quantitative studies conclude that meat-eating and production in India are much more widespread than is suggested by common claims and stereotypes. Increasing meat production and meat-eating in India sit uneasily between (mal) nutrition, social hierarchy and sustainability (Bruckert 2019b). From a broader perspective, my study suggests that meat modernity may be just as widespread in other urban areas in the Global South. Meat-eating is not only recommended by doctors; it is often promoted as being healthy and nutritious in the numerous hypermarkets that signify a form of meat modernity that evokes middle-class lifestyles in the era of industrialized mass production. Together, the three themes, described above, constitute the conceptual framework of the book.

A Note on Methodology and an Overview of the Chapters I conducted the fieldwork for this study between June 2017 and January 2018. Most of this time was spent in Telangana, with shorter stays in Delhi. The first phase of my fieldwork was quantitative in scope. I administered a survey among 1,000 informants aged above 15 years in and around Hyderabad and mapped their food habits with specific reference to their veg and non-veg food consumption habits. The empirical component of the study entailed the use of a multi-sited ethnography approach advocated by Marcus (1995) in his seminal article ‘Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography’. Applying this approach, I followed ‘people’ (veg and non-veg consumers, whom I often accompanied when they shopped for food, as well as bureaucrats, representatives from vegan/vegetarian organizations, activists and company representatives); ‘things’ (the circulation of veg/non-veg commodities/meat as the material objects of study) and ‘the metaphor’ (the vegetarian/non-vegetarian binary

28  Veg or Non-Veg? embedded within particular realms of discourse, modes of thought, and practices) in Telangana. Urban India was the setting for a detailed, intensive and complex analysis that encompassed diverse primary and secondary data. I conducted participant observation, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and life biographies with informants from the above groups. The names of informants have been changed. Furthermore, I analyzed texts and images within the mass media as well as political, policy and historical documents. Additionally, I used photographs taken during my fieldwork as documentation to support participant observation. This material also allowed me to explore broader perspectives surrounding the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg food in India. Thus, this study is not an ethnography in the classic sense understood as following a relatively small number of informants over an extended period of time in the intimacy of their homes. Rather, it was a multi-sited ethnography based on observations and interviews conducted within the public sphere as well as within the homes of Hindu middle-class informants, with a specific focus on who/what/ where/when/why questions relating to veg/non-veg shopping and consumption. It would be constructive to expand on Marcus’ 1995 article by discussing some of the more recent approaches to multi-sited ethnography (Coleman and Hellermann 2011). My study is inspired by the core argument in support of multi-sited ethnography. As observed by Marcus (2011), this approach can capture and accommodate the anthropology of globalization, contemporary (change) and public anthropology while preserving the ‘“feel”, aesthetic, and distinction of ethnography despite the considerable changes that multi-sited projects engender’ (Marcus 2011, 26). Another powerful argument in favour of multi-sited ethnography is its crossing of zones of expert and common knowledge, moving beyond an analytical and descriptive case study. Thus, through its focus on ‘veg’ and ‘non-veg’, encompassing food producers, regulators and middle-class Hindu consumers, as well as Dalits, my study not only demonstrates the value of multi-sited ethnography, but it also covers different levels of the social scale. My understanding of scale here is inspired by Comaroff and Comaroff’s (2003) exploration of ethnographic means that can, for example, inform an analysis of material/moral conditions animating cultural/religious economies. The authors argue for a radical expansion of the horizons of ethnographic methodology, even if this means embarking on processes that unfold on an awkward scale. My multisited, scalar ethnography enables me to explore Appadurai’s (1981, 1988) call to focus on the heightened importance of institutional, large-scale, global, multiethnic and public food production, and trade and consumption in modern India. These transformations should be seen in the context of the commercialization of agriculture, transport, marketing and credit that are enabling the expansion of nationalized food systems. Many of my informants were busy managers and civil servants who could only be accessed, interviewed and observed as they went about their work in offices, plants or shopping spaces and not within the spaces of their private lives. Thus, during my fieldwork, I viewed and understood organizations (businesses

Veg or Non-Veg?  29 and institutions) of different sizes as distinctive sociological laboratories with their own histories, cultures, structures, hierarchies and values to be observed and analyzed (Mitchell 1998). I argue that informants representing these sociological laboratories are not only instrumental in promoting and patrolling the veg/nonveg binary; they are also representative of ‘real’ middle-class people who embody a seemingly increasingly ‘impersonal’ world of production, trade and regulation. I selected Hindu middle-class informants (vegetarians and non-vegetarians) on the basis of a survey. In addition, I conducted interviews and participant observation among vegans and Dalits. The design of the survey was primarily intended to specify the ethnic composition of the households; develop and apply indicators, such as family size, income and consumer behaviour; and introduce potential participants to the theme of veg/non-veg consumption and to the general purpose of project. At a subsequent stage, this information served a statistical function, enabling me to expand the qualitative outlook of the project. However, during this early stage of the fieldwork, the material from the questionnaires and impressions gained from meeting informants enabled me to formulate qualitative interview guides. The specific data obtained in the survey were thus translated into a more qualitative format, and I was able to select key informants among these middleclass groups. As to be expected, participant observation among these informants and families varied in its nature and intensity. I therefore kept one detailed fieldwork diary for each of the informants selected and a general one for recording notes on the overall fieldwork. In sum, my informants within this complex setting were selected to obtain a good representative spread. Chapter 2, ‘Setting the Scene: The Publics and Politics of Green and Brown Labels’, introduces and discusses the law surrounding the green/brown labels. In this chapter, I reflect on the importance of Telangana as a fieldwork site, given its unique historical, political and culinary features, and I subsequently discuss green/brown labels in public space. The two concluding sections of the chapter clarify how food regulators and politicians have understood and have applied the green/brown regulation. Chapter 3, ‘Markets: Manufacturing and Selling Veg and Non-veg Commodities’, draws on and adds to the literature on morality and markets, standardization and audit cultures, as well as the burgeoning field of business anthropology in India. Moreover, Chapter 3 is the core chapter presenting a multi-sited ethnography of how veg and non-veg foods are understood, practised and contested within manufacturing companies, shops (butcher shops, farmers’ markets and super/hypermarkets) and restaurants. Chapter 4, ‘Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food’, discusses ‘meat as medicine’ as part of an Indianized meat modernity. The chapter subsequently engages with the literature on middle-class consumption and food and memory and presents the findings of my survey of 1,000 consumers, which I situate in the context of other surveys. Lastly, the chapter explores how vegetarianism and non-veg/meat-eating have been formative of ‘middle-class projects’ and the development of local class cultures among vegetarians and non-vegetarians in India (Liechty 2002). Chapter 4 ends with a glimpse into veg/non-veg in Delhi and thus offers a reflection on a

30  Veg or Non-Veg? comparative perspective in North India; that is, I contextualize the findings from Telangana by comparing them with those obtained during shorter periods of fieldwork conducted in Delhi to bring out similarities and differences in the data. Chapter 5 takes its cue from the literatures on youth, food activism and caste. Its title, ‘The Good Life Clubs’, was inspired by a series of events organized by philosophy students at the University of Hyderabad. The Good Life Clubs centre on the anticipation of what the good middle-class life after graduation is or should be. This chapter presents an ethnography of vegetarians and non-vegetarians among four younger, well-educated, middle-class groups: students, Dalits and vegans. As the chapter reveals, universities are important ‘clubs’ when it comes to middle-class projects. I also explore organics, with a special focus on a popular organic farm and shop in suburban Hyderabad. I discuss the topic of organics because it highlights many of the central themes raised in the book – not just the veg/non-veg issue but also health and sustainability that have entered national agendas as a Second Green Revolution. Chapter 6, ‘Conclusions and Broader Perspectives’, ties together the findings of the book and reflects on why and how this interdisciplinary study on veg/nonveg foods lends itself well to exploring how national and global issues are framed and understood, applying the following steps. First, I summarize my findings. Secondly, I theorize the role of vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism in middle-class modernity between human values and markets. This book marks a continuation of my research into the relationship between religion, human values and markets, with a specific focus on kosher (a Hebrew term meaning ‘fit’ or ‘proper’), halal and veg(etari)an products and services among middle-class groups. Key to this theory is empirical data generated by applying mixed-methods and multi-sited ethnography.

2

Setting the Scene The Publics and Politics of Green and Brown Labels

The FSSAI, which was established under the Food Safety and Standards Regulations of 2011 legislated by the Congress-led government, introduced green/ vegetarian/veg and brown/non-vegetarian/non-veg labels on all packaged foods/ drinks in India. The Food Safety Standards Act 2006 allows food safety commissioners and authorities to take punitive actions against businesses that fail to meet the required standards (Dey 2018). These regulations repealed and replaced previous regulations, such as the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act of 1954. In a notification issued by the FSSAI, non-vegetarian food is defined as follows: ‘an article of food which contains whole or part of any animal including birds, fresh water or marine animals or eggs or products of any animal origin, but excluding milk or milk products, as an ingredient’ (FSSAI 2011, 29). ‘Vegetarian food’ is ‘any article of Food other than Non-Vegetarian Food as defined in regulation’ (FSSAI 2011, 30). The notification provides the following instructions: Every package of ‘Non-Vegetarian’ food shall bear a declaration to this effect made by a symbol and colour code as stipulated below to indicate that the product is Non-Vegetarian Food. The symbol shall consist of a brown colour filled circle that must have a minimum specified diameter to be inside a square with brown outline having sides double the diameter of the circle. For vegetarian food, the following instructions are provided: Every package of Vegetarian Food shall bear a declaration to this effect by a symbol and colour code as stipulated below for this purpose to indicate that the product is Vegetarian Food. The symbol shall consist of a green colour filled circle that must have a minimum specified diameter to be inside the square with green outline having size double the diameter of the circle. The notification provides further detailed specifications stipulating that the size of green/brown labels must match the overall surface of products in order to be clearly visible (FSSAI 2011, 35). Thus, all packaged foods/drinks must bear labels, and detailed specifications for packaging and labelling are provided throughout the document. In addition to these labels, Agmark is a certification DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-2

32  Setting the Scene label used on agricultural products in India. The term Agmark was coined by joining ‘Ag’, denoting agriculture to ‘mark’, representing certification. This term was introduced in the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act of 1937 to ensure that agricultural produce conforms to a set of recognized standards, and to this day Agmark standards cover quality for hundreds of commodities. This chapter explores the 2011 law as public culture, including politics and regulation, with specific relevance to Telangana.

On Fieldwork and Food in Hyderabad, Telangana In Hyderabad, I lived on the west bank of the Hussain Sagar Lake, which is also the area where the SPAR Hypermarket, one of the first markets of its kind in Hyderabad, was opened in 2007. Muslim butcher shops are predominantly located in the bazaar area near Nampally Station, a couple of kilometres south of the lake around Purana Shaher or the Old City. Hyderabad’s Old City is a relatively poor district accommodating a Muslim majority and low-caste Hindus, where social problems are exacerbated by inadequate infrastructure and political neglect (McLaughlin 2017). Muslims make up just over 30% of the population of the city of Hyderabad. The polarizing forces of Hindu nationalism and Muslim communitarianism have resulted in the reification of notions of difference and have been directed at mobilizing vote banks by espousing the language of caste, religious and linguistic differences that have impacted many Indian Muslims in post-independence state-making processes (Gayer and Jaffrelot 2012). As we shall see, vegetarian politics plays an important role in polarizing Hindu nationalism and Muslim communitarianism (van der Veer 1994). Communal violence is embedded within everyday social practices in Hyderabad and, more broadly, in Telangana (Mangiarotti 2019), and food has often been at the centre of conflicts over divergent social practices among and within different groups. These trends are indicative of social problems that also relate to meat production and sales, which are traditionally associated with Muslims and lower-caste Hindus. However, these tendencies are changing, and in contemporary India, vegetarians are embracing meat, while non-vegetarians are turning to vegetarianism. Moreover, neither of these groups necessarily defines itself according to caste and faith. These trends are particularly conspicuous in Hyderabad, where they are indicative of a new phenomenon of social mobility and changing aspirations as well as a rising consumer culture against the historical backdrop of the fabled Islamic empire (Giridharadas 2011). In the bazaar, meat and vegetables are mostly sold separately, and there are few open markets or wet markets where the two co-exist. Clearly, this situation differs radically from hypermarkets such as Star Hyper and SPAR, where all types of foods (except for beef and pork) are on sale. To purchase beef, it is necessary to go to one of the beef shops in the bazaar, typically operated by Muslims, and for pork, which is haram or ‘unlawful’ in Islam, there are shops run by Dalits, Christians or other lower-caste groups as I discuss later in this chapter. There is a world of difference between the Old City and the affluent suburbs of Jubilee and Banjara

Setting the Scene  33 Hills en route to Gachibowli, a modern suburb located about five kilometres west of Hyderabad, where several of my informants lived. Around the Hyderabad metropolitan area, large tracts of peri-urban spaces are being transformed by infrastructure-led growth and the development of specialized business and technology parks. The Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City (HITEC City) is a large-scale information technology (IT)-dedicated industrial park situated about 20 kilometres away from downtown Hyderabad. Located within a large campus, it is a classic example of peri-urban development that is positioning Hyderabad at the forefront of change and innovation as a modern and bustling metropolis. The state was ruled by the Nizams (hereditary Muslim rulers) of Hyderabad, from 1724 until 1948. In Hyderabad, an Indo-Muslim ruling tradition had been developed and established, wherein Muslim rulers interacted with non-Muslims, participating in a distinctively South Asian tradition of secularism or pluralism (Leonard 2011). At the time of India’s partition in 1947, Britain offered the 565 princely states the options of acceding either to India or to Pakistan or remaining independent. Unlike other rulers of princely states, who mostly acceded voluntarily to India or Pakistan, the Nizam opted for the independence of Hyderabad, which was the largest state in the country and one of its most prosperous. Nevertheless, the leaders of the new Indian Union sought to include Hyderabad by any means necessary. Consequently, in September 1948, the Indian Army invaded Hyderabad, deposed the Nizam and annexed the state, which was then merged with the Indian Union. On 2 June 2014, after a lengthy campaign directed at achieving autonomy, Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, becoming the 29th state of the Indian Union. Telangana’s first and current chief minister is K. Chandrashekar Rao, a popular leader who represents the party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Rao has played an instrumental role in the creation of modern Telangana and the branding of Hyderabad as a ‘happening’ and business-friendly metropolis that attracts professionals from across and beyond India. As a regional party, TRS is based in Telangana. It was founded by Rao in 2001 with the sole purpose of creating a separate state of Telangana, with Hyderabad as its capital. The BJP basically favours smaller states for reasons that centre on the convenience of governance and its electoral gains and supported the creation of Telangana, whereas Congress Party political leaders from the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh and at the federal level were more sceptical. Posters that link Rao, the new state of Telangana, culture and business, an example of which was included in Chapter 1, are proudly displayed all across Hyderabad. The Telangana movement that helped bring the new state’s independence to fruition reflects a localized type of nationalism in a context of globalization and postcolonialism. Specifically, it brings together marginalized groups, media, identities and politics in modern India. In all of this, the emerging middle class has played and continues to play an active role. Traditional and folk festivals at which non-veg meals are served give shape and form to a Telangana identity (Inukonda 2019) that is inseparable from meat modernity.

34  Setting the Scene The redrawing of state boundaries was not merely an exercise in administrative reorganization in favour of smaller states and better governance; rather, it was a consequence of multiple factors entailed in the construction of regional identities. Telangana is the first region in South India to achieve statehood after the splitting of a state that was created in 1956 on the linguistic grounds of a common language. Comprising the Telugu-speaking areas of the former princely state of Hyderabad, Telangana is a territory with a distinctive geography, culture and history that signifies successive struggles for freedom, social justice and self-respect over the past several decades. The creation of Telangana marks the achievement of a long-pursued goal of self-determination (Benbabaali 2016). The strong regional sentiment that unites the 40 million residents of Telangana should be seen in a context wherein 90% of Telanganites belong to socially disadvantaged (and generally non-vegetarian) groups: Dalits, Adivasis or tribal groups, Muslims and ‘Other Backward Classes’. The locally dominant castes, notably the Reddys and Velamas, were historically associated with the feudal regime of the Nizams as revenue-collecting landlords. Hyderabad is the administrative capital as well as the economic and financial hub of a largely rural state (Rao 2015) and the largest contributor to the state’s GDP. The city is complex in character, incorporating a mix of rural and urban areas and multiple agencies governing the urban space. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Region, with a population of 5.7 million, is managed by 11 municipal authorities spread over an area of 168 square kilometres. The core city, with a population of 3.4 million, is administered by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). The city’s top administrator and chief executive is the municipal commissioner, who is a civil servant seconded to the city. Hyderabad gained a place on the global map in the late 1990s when it capitalized on the IT boom. By the turn of the 21st century, it had acquired the status of a hi-tech city. Hyderabad’s new identity has been attributed to Rao’s visionary leadership and his ambitious plan to transform Hyderabad into a city that will be recognized as one of the nerve centres of the global economy within a decade of its implementation. The IT revolution, economic globalization and political leadership have served as catalysts in a process that has mobilized existing patterns of growth within the region for achieving a major economic transition (Kamat 2011). At the same time, new middle-class groups in Hyderabad are attempting to create a type of ‘middle-class Hinduism’ that is devoid of caste and focused on auspiciousness rather than on purity and pollution (Säävälä 2001). Within Hyderabad, areas such as the west bank of the Hussain Sagar Lake in many ways embody a quintessential middle-class city characterized by cosmopolitan sensibilities (Gilbertson 2017). This location was my research setting and the environment where many of my informants lived. Regional and separate statehood movements have practically applied these narratives around food and the creation of boundaries. Celebrating the new state’s culture and traditions, the Telangana government has embarked on an initiative aimed at creating culinary traditions that differentiate the state from its neighbours. Thus, narratives of Telangana cuisine encapsulate and embody communities and

Setting the Scene  35 imaginaries (Bhushi 2018). Notably, the cuisine characterized as Hyderabadi or Deccani (referring to the Deccan Plateau where Hyderabad is located) is the native cooking style of the Hyderabadi Muslims. A particular ‘cuisine’ entails a set of classifications and their associated rules that are performed and materialized within a given culture. These rules ‘regulate the combination of elements thus defined and, more generally, those which govern the whole set of practices and representations connected with the production, gathering, preparation, attribution and consumption of food’ (Fischler 1988, 286). More broadly, Telugu cuisine is a cuisine of South India native to the Telegu people from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In the semi-arid region of Telangana, millet-based breads (roti) are a staple food. However, the Nizams of Hyderabad promoted a cuisine that blends Mughal, Turkish and Arab tastes, while also being influenced by native cuisines. Thus, Hyderabadi cuisine comprises a wide repertoire of rice, wheat and meat dishes and the use of various spices, herbs and natural edibles (Sanjeev and Sokhi 2008). Biryani (a Turkish dish) and haleem (an Arab dish) are typical Hyderabadi dishes. To accommodate different tastes, biryanis are prepared with a choice of mutton, chicken or with the addition of potatoes instead of meat in a version of the dish developed for vegetarians – in India a plethora of traditional meat dishes come in veg as well as non-veg versions. Actually, since 2010, biryani and haleem are registered with Geographical Indications under the Geographical Indications Act of 1999 that link these dishes to Hyderabad’s distinctive ecology (Kapur 2016). In recent decades, the city has witnessed a culinary revolution reflected in the availability of a huge variety of global foods, both veg and non-veg. The history and ethnic composition of Telangana and Hyderabad in the context of a booming economy and intensified migration can help to explain why one of the highest number of non-vegetarians in India can be found here. Moreover, while the central government has encouraged the GHMC to ‘modernize’ and ‘green’ the state’s slaughterhouses and meat shops, many of them unregistered, India’s first hypermarket also opened in Hyderabad in 2001, selling both veg and non-veg items under one roof. As India’s youngest state that has long struggled for independence, Telangana demonstrates an ethos of independent ambition coupled with a retail revolution and changing consumer culture, a green aesthetics and ideology, and a meat modernity.

Looking for Labels Figure 2.1 depicts a poster displayed in front of a Hindu temple in central Hyderabad that I passed on my daily commute while conducting fieldwork. The text, in Telegu, explains that worshipping the cow is tantamount to worshipping the gods. The Telegu text can be roughly translated into English as follows: Mother Cow is an image depicting all the gods, and worshipping her means worshipping all of the gods. Everyone should worship, protect and feed Mother Cow, and worship will keep the world safe. The text at the bottom right-hand corner of the poster states that chanting the words ‘Mother Cow’ 108 times daily will vanquish

36  Setting the Scene

Figure 2.1  A poster depicting the holy cow in central Hyderabad.

all foibles and augur good luck. The text at the bottom left-hand corner explains that care of cows equates with care of the universe, that is, caring for cows is nothing but caring for the universe. Thus, in India, the cow is a ‘fundamental symbol’ (Yang 1980, 585). All around the temple where the poster was displayed, the public visibility of green labels was ubiquitous, marking the promotion and patrolling of vegetarianism evoking the idea of the deprivatization of religion in the modern world (Casanova 1994). In trendy and expensive Hyderabad, most food stalls and smaller restaurants are located on residential side streets, one of which is depicted in Figure 2.2. Signage for larger ‘multi-cuisine restaurants’ often display brown labels inspired by the FSSAI l, as illustrated in Figure 2.3, and global chain restaurants, such as the one depicted in Figure 2.4, are commonly found on high/ main streets. All across Telangana and Hyderabad, there are restaurants advertising themselves as 100% vegetarian, with many of these restaurants displaying the green label on their facades, as illustrated in Figure 2.5. Debray (2000) argues that messaging relating to historical communication constitutes cultural transmission and is conceived as a duty and an obligation, as is apparent in the messaging conveyed by green/brown labels within the Indian public space. An investigation of the history of technology is also a study of affect and sociality that integrates technoculture and the social imaginary, that

Setting the Scene  37

Figure 2.2  A veg and non-veg food stall.

Figure 2.3  A multi-cuisine restaurant displaying red/brown labels.

38  Setting the Scene

Figure 2.4  A global food chain outlet.

Figure 2.5  A 100% pure veg restaurant.

Setting the Scene  39 is, the instruments and technical apparatuses that support the formation of cultural meanings. Cultural materialism is made possible by technologies that enable cultural transmission or the technological production of culture. Evidently then, transmission is a key aspect of cultural life, alterations of which are in alignment with shifts in the technological processes through which cultural life is constituted as well as acts of mediation of a transcendent ‘outside.’ Thus, I looked for labels, viewed as public manifestations of the green/brown law. In doing so, I considered them as a specific type of historical communication or instrument that constitutes cultural meanings and explored the effects and consequences of this transmission among bureaucrats, politicians, producers, managers, sellers and consumers. An extensive body of literature exists on Indian visual cultures, encompassing topics such as the crucial role of audio-visual media within Hindu cultural nationalism (Brosius 2010) and the public science of sacredness in contemporary India (Skoda and Lettman 2018). The latter includes a study by Brara (2018) of the visual culture of meat shops in Delhi, where meat is marked as either halal or as jhatka or chatka (a method of slaughter that is aimed at killing animals instantaneously). However, studies of these visual cultures have not extended to veg/ non-veg and green/brown labels. I argue that the visual culture conveyed by these labels, which gives expression to a powerful vegetarian ideology that plays a central role in middle-class production, trade and consumption has not been subjected to systematic empirical investigation. Ultimately, a detailed study of the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg labels illuminates broader transformations and challenges that relate to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in India. Like the green/brown labels, printed images known as ‘calendar art’ or ‘bazaar art’ are ubiquitous in India, and the meaning and centrality of these images within public culture are arguably derived as much from the production and circulation of the images as from their visual features (Jain 2007). Thus, while the ubiquity of the veg/non-veg labels through which commodities and spaces are classified and standardized as green, brown or green/brown signifies a new phase in the development of labelling characterized by regulation, certification and standardization, the labels themselves remain poorly understood theoretically, conceptually and empirically. More broadly, visual systems are processes that lead to the production of visible objects by human beings, who reflexively construct their visible environment and communicate through visible means (Morphy and Banks 1998). As a visual system, green/brown labels can be studied as signs within a field of design that communicate the content of a message in its specific setting. However, in this book, I move beyond mapping green/brown labels as part of visual systems to explore their effects in middle-class India among producers, managers, bureaucrats and consumers. An urban environment such as that of Hyderabad is bursting with information, messages or directional signage, and within this environment, green/brown labels have become ubiquitous urban texts or guides for new kinds of public readings. Accordingly, many of my discussions with my informants focused on these readings. In other words, green/brown labels help to ‘letter’ the urban environment (Baines and Dixon 2003), and in the case of India, the state’s

40  Setting the Scene involvement in designing and disseminating green/brown labels cannot be overestimated, reflecting linkages between organizational issues of communication, culture and control and the visual communication of identity within the public domain (Lavin 2001). Labels can be considered as signs that the senders – in this case, the FSSAI and the Indian state – use to identify themselves. They work by attaching political and moral messages to lifestyle brands and communicating these branded messages (Bennett and Lagos 2016). The design of green/brown labels systematically creates identifiable images in India through visual differentiation and consistency. My choice of a multi-sited ethnography enabled me to move beyond a focus on the public manifestations of labels/signs to explore why/how organizational labels affect the social construction of difference and authority and shape how specific views or accounts of the world are deemed to be warranted. Writing and labels designed for the public domain also raise wider questions of the power entailed in conveying order, clarity and cleanliness within the messy reality of a city such as Hyderabad. In this context, standards and standardization may be regarded as instruments of control and forms of regulation that are intended to generate elements of global order, as we shall see in Chapter 3. Green/brown labels constitute a visual system that can refer both to the design and quality of products and to the proper conduct of the proprietors and staff of restaurants and shops. The Indian visual system of green/brown labels thus represents a particular take on how India is situated at the intersection of a range of interlocking forces: local economies of consumption and a globalizing food industry; religious principles and administrative practices; the country’s economic ambitions; and the experiences of market actors.

Green Government at Work An article titled ‘Veg or non-veg? Labels now make it clear’ (The Times of India 7 August 2011) discusses the introduction of green/brown labels. This report is one of the only newspaper articles in English that I was able to find on the law that made the green/brown labels mandatory. The article notes that the FSSAI took this decision after ‘consultations with the experts’ and that ‘regulations are intended to make packaged food more transparent for the public.’ Moreover, the article quotes a scientist from the National Institute of Nutrition, who argued that the ‘rules will certainly be more stringent for manufacturers, but this is in [the] larger public interest and to meet food safety standards requirements internationally.’ These statements reveal that the reason for introducing these labels is framed in expert and scientific terms while omitting broader perspectives relating to Indian vegetarian politics. During my fieldwork, I explored why and how the marking of food items as green or brown came into existence and how this system is managed and enforced. In this section, I describe its management and enforcement first at the federal level in Delhi and then at the state level in Hyderabad. Before doing so, however, I would like to make some observations about the FSSAI, which was instituted under the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006, with the aim of consolidating various previous acts and orders related to food and

Setting the Scene  41 issued across several different ministries and departments. The FSSAI’s website states that this organization was created to establish ‘science-based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale, and import to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption’ (https://fssai​.gov​.in​/cms​/about​-fssai​.php). The Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 established ‘a single reference point for all matters relating to food safety and standards, by moving from multi-level, multi-departmental control to a single line of command.’ Accordingly, the FSSAI was instituted as an independent statutory authority that works together with state food safety authorities to enforce the provisions of the Act. The FSSAI’s operations are administered by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India. The FSSAI is tasked with the following responsibilities under the Food Safety and Standard Act of 2006: implementing and enforcing food standards, accrediting certification bodies and laboratories, providing scientific advice and technical support to the central and state governments for framing policies and rules, collecting and collating data on food consumption and identifying risks, developing a countrywide information network that enables the public to receive ‘rapid, reliable and objective information’ about food safety and issues of concern, and designing training programmes for persons who are involved or intend to get involved in food businesses (www​ .fssai​.gov​.in​/home​/about​-us​/introduction​.html). Formal scientific risk management has been codified at all levels of food safety governance in India. Thus, an examination of how science-based governance models have been adopted and of the ways in which local actors attach their own interests and agendas to sciencebased reforms is salient. The FSSAI is illustrative of science-based governance models and the establishment of robust politico-scientific networks as part of a wider strategy for exercising power (Epstein 2014). Similarly, an ethnography of the grain market at Naya Bazaar, Old Delhi, shows that the grain market is subjected to the politics and fiscal policies of the federal government. A system of generalized grading has effectively been put into use in the case of certain agricultural products, and the biggest traders and exporters support this system and argue that national grain production should be homogenized. Thus, standardization is inseparable from broader processes of classification and categorization (Vidal 2000). Arguably, the Indian state system is characterized by rational-legal authority as well as being penetrated and influenced by social forces, leading to the blurring of the boundary between state and society (Fuller and Benei 2001). The term ‘state’ not only serves as an analytical concept that encompasses various practices and institutions of government but is also the locus of authority involved in and reproduced by a range of interventions aimed at prohibiting substances or encouraging forms of behaviour that promote public health, for example, as illustrated by the green/brown labels. The state is an organizing concept through which people in India imagine their own society. Leadership and legitimacy in postcolonial India, in combination with the public culture, have been productive of a large reservoir of shared symbols, languages and references, such as brand names and consumption styles. This national culture has been systematically promoted by state authorities

42  Setting the Scene and by politicians, drawing on religious imaginaries and texts. Moreover, legally powerful registers of authority have been cultivated within the domains of science and administration. Bureaucrats, planners and scientists occupy critical positions within contemporary political imaginaries, not least for the middle class (Hansen 2001). The introduction of the green/brown labels and the vegetarian/non-vegetarian binary is continually subjected to powerful religious, political and scientific claims about vegetarianism as a proper theology associated with nationalism and wholesomeness. Through the concentration of ‘informational capital’, the state attempts to impose mental structures and ‘common principles of vision and division’ (Bourdieu 1999, 61). Here, I take the veg/non-veg binary to be one such principle. Through enactments of physical and symbolic violence, the state may possess the capability of producing and imposing categories of thought that are then applied to all things in the social world, including the state itself (Bourdieu 1999). I would argue that the power that is concentrated with the state in the form of green regulations or informational capital constitutes a state effect, described by Mitchell (1999, 89) as the materialization of the modern state out of ‘the powerful, apparently, metaphysical effect of practices.’ I am inspired by the call to apply ethnographic approaches to explore shifting sovereignty in practice, that is, changing relationships between market forces, privatization, outsourcing and the new configuration of sovereign power. Examples of this phenomenon include the powerful drive to control the ‘legal contract’ or modern-day concessions that empower private companies to carry out state functions (Hansen and Stepputat 2006) such as labelling commodities as green/brown. Viewed from a broader perspective, the FSSAI, as an agency of the Indian state, is attempting to standardize vegetarian production, trade and consumption to achieve legibility and simplification (Scott 1998). At the same time, there has been a marked shift from craft production to mass production of ‘religious commodities’ (Starrett 1995). Within the food domain, a shift has taken place from butcher shops and bazaar economies based on trust between or within religious/ ethnic groups to abattoirs and standardized/impersonal shopping. Unlike the many studies that have explored the slow, corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy of the Indian state such as Gupta’s book, Red Tape (2012), I show that markets have adapted relatively easily to vegetarian law as culture in India. During my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to discuss why and how the green/ brown law came into existence and its consequences with high-ranking civil servants at the federal level, all of whom were involved in different ways in the drafting and/or enforcing of this law. An informant who was involved in drafting the green/brown law argued that it came into being because of the demographic makeup of India and also because ‘slowly, vegetarians are growing into non-vegetarians, especially in urban areas where there’s awareness about animal-based nutrition and protein.’ Another informant explained to me that the 2011 law crucially lays down science-based standards for food and its regulation, covering the manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import of food items. Previously, these responsibilities were dispersed among various ministries and departments.

Setting the Scene  43 However, since 2011, the green/brown labels have been mandatory, and my informants suggested that even though similar acts and labels have long been in existence in India, the new labels are there to give consumers the right to choose. As one civil servant put is, they 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.’ These informants recognized that in contemporary India, the consumption of eggs, fish and meat is increasing. One of them revealed that with increasing incomes, consumers ‘are opting for non-veg, and that includes Brahmins.’ Exposure to Western foodways is leading to increasing consumption of non-veg food among these groups. Another informant argued that the 2011 law came into existence because there are still people who are ‘pure vegetarians’ and ‘They should know if it is a vegetarian product. Companies believe there is a market for pure vegetarian foods. Certainly, the upper-middle class and educated people, particularly in urban places, look for the green marks.’ Thus, while the market for non-veg is thriving, companies, as well as political elites, are well aware of the ‘green effect’, as one of the informants termed it. Brahmins are ‘by and large’ non-vegetarians and only vegetarians ‘in principle’, so they were not the main reason for the introduction of the 2011 law, as one informant put it. Conversely, Jains and Guptas belong to the business community and are mainly vegetarians. Another informant summed up the reason why the 2011 law was introduced in this way: ‘Basically, green marks are a marketing strategy most of all. So far, the law has not been reviewed.’ This statement suggests that green labels are an Indianized way of classifying and marking ‘the green’ nationally as well as globally in a way that is similar to the promotion of vegetarianism alongside yoga as quintessentially ‘Indian’ (as discussed in the next section). This point resonates with a comment made by another informant: ‘The main issue for the current government is the holy cow as a religious issue and not so much green/brown law as a specific standard or certification.’ To enforce the 2011 law, inspectors are required to inspect production premises, although this aspect of control and enforcement may not be widely known among the general public, as noted by one informant. In order for companies to attach the required labels to food products, their representatives should first approach the federal-level FSSAI in Delhi, whose officers will advise them on how to proceed with FSSAI in the relevant state. To avoid misuse, electronic versions of labels are not provided. This informant explained that in general, India does not have enough food inspectors or sufficient food regulation ‘infrastructure.’ Indian states have to appoint food inspectors, commissioners and other officers, and the process is slow and uneven. At the same time, several informants argued that the FSSAI is not in a position to classify all products as veg and non-veg because they do not have ‘parameters to determine what is allowed and what is not.’ For example, it is permitted to categorize a product with 5% of animal gelatine as vegetarian. Therefore, an animal substance in the mix is allowed within the permissible limits. Another example is fish oil, which is used in a wide variety of products, including many veg products, but people are not opposed to

44  Setting the Scene it, and they are not really aware of its use. While it is mandatory for companies to comply with veg/non-veg regulations, the FSSAI mainly checks for quality. As one informant revealed, no company is taken to court on these matters. Moreover, food is not systematically tested for non-veg ingredients. Products are examined at testing facilities within individual states, and if a company violates the law, there is a penalty to be paid. Green labels are part of inspections as are the company’s quality, hygiene and safety measures. Inspectors are trained at both the federal and state levels. New companies must apply for two types of licenses: a central and a state license, and surveillance is carried out by both bodies. Certain types of products are exempted from labelling, and there is no strict definition of the maximum content of animal ingredients. As one informant observed, ‘very low is not defined. How can we define very low?’ I now turn to a discussion of food labels at the state level, drawing on the views of a food processing director in a southern state and those of a senior civil servant, also involved with food processing, whom I met at the World Food India event. According to the director, the green/brown labels were first introduced to enable consumers to understand what ingredients are contained in products. The director explained that this state exports large quantities of prawns, but companies engaged in this export do not generally produce veg products along with prawns. Although it is not difficult for companies to produce veg and non-veg items, technically, they will not agree to it. The reason may have to do with the large number of FSSAI inspections. More generally, the director provided the following explanation for the introduction of green/brown labels: To bring [in] standards. Before this, there was Agmark. When I was a child, I was told that if something is with Agmark, it is standard. Now that we have FSSAI, it works at the central level. It is [about] standardizing the quality of the products in the domestic market, but the FSSAI mark is not accepted globally; they [other countries] have their own standards and there is big lobbying globally. The director noted that even cake, for example, must be marked as brown rather than green because it contains a small amount of egg. The FSSAI tests products, and ‘they have a huge network. They are tied up with the national government and state governments. They have multiple testing centres and [also] the National Institute of Nutrition.’ However, the director was not aware of any court cases in which companies had been penalized for manufacturing or selling non-veg items as veg items. Through audits, authorities are able to identify any kind of fraud, and those who are greedy will be caught, he explained. Moreover, food inspectors, of which there is a huge number, do this job: ‘The number must be in lakhs [equivalent to 100,000 rupees (approx. US$ 1200)]. Every city has some ten to twelve inspectors. They cover the entire country and make good money too.’ At the World Food India event held in Delhi, I met a high-ranking civil servant involved in food processing in Telangana, and I had the opportunity to discuss the green/brown regulation in the context of Telangana with him during my fieldwork.

Setting the Scene  45 He grew up in Delhi and held degrees in engineering and management and has working experience within the manufacturing industry. He is a non-vegetarian. While IT and pharmaceuticals account for a large part of Telangana’s revenue, sectors such as food, textiles and logistics have been identified as strategic priority sectors. In Telangana, he told me, 70% of the revenue from the food sector comes from veg products and 30% from non-veg products, namely dairy, meat and livestock products, such as wool. While both the agricultural and livestock sectors are expanding, agricultural fluctuations and the volatility of vegetable production far exceed fluctuations in the livestock sector, which is relatively stable. Eventually, revenue from livestock or non-veg production will increase at a faster pace than revenue from veg products because of nutritional awareness among the population and urbanization. This informant estimated that the amount of meat coming from abattoirs is less than that available at local butcher shops. He noted that consumers mostly prefer fresh meat to frozen meat, and at the butcher/poultry shop, meat can be cut according to the customer’s specifications. Fresh meat in hypermarkets is a relatively new concept in India, and customers have to get used to it. He speculated that pork and beef will enter super/hypermarkets in the future; there is no law against selling this meat; what matters is demand and exploring new global foodways. My informant explained that in the social context of India, food choices are determined by cultural and religious practices, and some Hindu groups are very careful not to eat or cook any sort of meat, eggs or garlic, so the green/brown labels distinguishing veg from non-veg items are important: in India, if you accidentally eat non-veg it is a big deal from a religious point of view – it is similar to contamination. He could not recall any companies being taken to court accused of including non-veg ingredients in a ‘green’ product, but FSSAI testing of products is not widespread. Arguably, the reason for limited testing could be that most Indian food manufacturers produce either green or brown products, whereas multinationals such as Néstle and Nissin, the company that produces veg as well as non-veg noodles, introduced in Chapter 1, produce both. In November 2017, I visited FSSAI’s modest office in Hyderabad. I was told that there were 14 inspectors attached to the office and employed by FSSAI. The inspectors there explained to me that looking for green and brown labels is essential when they carry out inspections in Telangana; thus, their assessments are based on visual impressions. Inspectors do not test the products themselves; rather, they focus on hygiene and quality. They told me that while the labelling of vegetarian products has been conducted for many years, the standard introduced in 2011 is a new one. New companies first approach the FSSAI in Delhi, which then recommends that they contact the state-level FSSAI in Telangana for the issuance of a license. Inspectors do ‘periodical’ inspections because they have many companies and products to cover, including bakery products for egg content. As one inspector explained to me, ‘we pick up samples and send them to the laboratory and act according to the test result.’ In sum, in the eyes of civil servants, the 2011 law seems most of all to be a product of green labelling and protecting vegetarians amidst a non-veg revolution taking place among producers, retailers and consumers. In the view of my

46  Setting the Scene informants at federal as well as state levels in South India, non-veg food consumption has always been dominant, but in the wake of the retail revolution and a rapidly changing consumer culture, what I have referred to as meat modernity, encompassing meat and non-veg products more generally is evident, with considerable bureaucratic efforts being invested in enforcing the 2011 law, which conveys a form of politicized green ideology. The green/brown law entails a wider strategy of exercising power through the building of robust politico-scientific networks. It is clear from the above discussion that the expansion of non-veg production, trade and consumption has prompted a convergence of social forces, leading to the formulation of the 2011 law that promotes an image of the state as an organizing concept through which people in India are supposed to imagine their own society, classified according to a veg/non-veg binary. This phenomenon is indicative of a form of standardized national culture that is backed by science, law and administration but is not systematically enforced within the legal system.

Veg/Non-veg Politics I am not aware of any studies that have explored the consequences of the 2011 law. Conversely, the BJP’s ban on cow slaughter and opposition to meat-eating has been studied as an attempt to render an account of Indian cultural history and meat-eating. Hindu and Jain trading castes tend to be associated with vegetarianism and non-violent traditions, and these privileged positions inform the social and political structures of contemporary India (Babb 2004). More specifically, vegetarianism and ahimsa constitute an important part of the social base of Hindu nationalism. Cow protection, the banning of animal sacrifice and ‘vegetarian politics’ promoted by the BJP and Hindu groups effectively mobilize constituencies around India. Violence inflicted in the context of extreme Hindu nationalism against Muslims in the state of Gujarat in 2002 is explored in a seminal ethnographic study of Hindu nationalism and meat-eating and vegetarianism (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). The book focuses on the deployment of the concept of ahimsa within the media and in contexts of violent actions and everyday life, demonstrating how ethnic and religious differences between Hindus and Muslims were constructed through diet, animal slaughter and religious sacrifice. Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time and arguably played a role in these atrocities. This detailed ethnographic study shows how rage against stereotypically bloodthirsty and violent Muslims was fuelled among stereotypically pious, vegetarian Hindus. At the time of Ghassem-Fachandi’s fieldwork, restaurants, including McDonalds, had started to cater to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, and when the author returned to Ahmedabad in 2008, new malls and supermarkets had appeared. Defence of the practice of vegetarianism appeared to be less vigorous, as the younger generation of the new middle class seemed to be inclined toward eating meat, even though national interest in vegetarian politics had not dwindled. I consider this pivotal moment, entailing both new and sanitized forms of meat-eating and vegetarianism, as the starting point for my own study. A mere three years later, in 2011, the green/brown labels were introduced at the national

Setting the Scene  47 scale, adding a new layer of significance to the existing veg/cow politics leveraged within electoral strategies that induced communal tensions and violence (Bruckert 2019a). As part of the larger Hindu nationalist movement, the BJP has arguably made successful attempts to foster and project a modern Hindu identity, albeit one that is not given but instead is fluent and subject to a process of constant redefinition, negotiation and patrolling. Notably, notions of proper Hindu practice such as cow protection and vegetarianism are at the core of these efforts, and vegetarianism in a context of meat modernity signifies a key contestation of these unfolding processes of redefinition. A Hindu revivalist agenda, characterized by discourses and institutions, is penetrating everyday life and reconfiguring public culture within a nationalist project of making India simultaneously a modern world power and a Hindu state (Hansen 1999; Chatterji et al. 2019). Arguably, authoritarian politics in India reflects a long-term crisis of the state that has been unable to establish legitimacy for neoliberalist policies (Chacko 2018). These changes reflect major shifts in governance, ideology, identity and social relations. The 2011 law was introduced during the tenure of Manmohan Singh and elaborated on in 2014 after Modi’s tenure began, so these transformations importantly reflect efforts made by both the Congress and the BJP parties to govern veg/non-veg food production, trade and consumption. This point resonates with Appadurai’s (1981, 1988) exploration of ‘gastro-politics’, in which he traced the formation of ‘the national cuisine’ and middle-class and public food consumption, showing how beliefs about food encode complex sets of social and moral propositions. Specifically, Appadurai focused on the heightened importance of institutional, large-scale, global, multi-ethnic and public food consumption in India. Class transformation and changing cuisines that are flourishing in Indian cities are supported by shifts in the technology and economy of cooking, evidenced by a large and growing food industry selling diverse ingredients and instant/processed foods. All of these transformations should be seen in the context of the commercialization of agriculture, transport, marketing and credit in India that are enabling the expansion of nationalized food systems and markets subjected to regulation through the green/brown law and labels. Four articles that appeared in the wake of the 2011 law highlight important linkages between Hindu nationalism, politics and the veg/non-veg relationship. These articles are ‘India’s Vegetarian Edict Dismays Cosmetics Industry’ (The Financial Times, 12 September 2014); ‘Narendra Modi, Baba Ramdev, Others Preach Vegetarianism, but What is the Meat Consumption Reality in India?’ (Financial Express, 24 October 2016); ‘BJP Leader G. Kishan Reddy Alleges “Beef Mafia” in Hyderabad, Demands CBI Probe’ (The Indian Express, 5 July 2017); and ‘A Matter of Choice: Eating Veg, Voting BJP’ (The Indian Express, 6 April 2017). While the theme of the third article, which describes an alleged ‘beef mafia’ operating in Hyderabad through ‘illegal slaughterhouses’ is well known in India, the remaining three articles describe a field of debate that opened up after the implementation of the green/brown law. One of them reports on Modi’s insistence that consumers are legally entitled to know whether care products (that for

48  Setting the Scene the most part do not enter the body) are veg or non-veg. A second theme relates to the discrepancy relating to the insistence of Hindu nationalists on maintaining the image of India as a quintessentially vegetarian country, even though no survey has supported this idea. It is these sentiments that I explored through a multi-sited ethnography. Arguably, due to Hindu nationalism’s insistence on a Hindu majoritarian state and neoliberal economic policies, India finds itself in a beef paradox between holy cows and buffalo meat/carabeef (Jakobsen and Nielsen 2021). Ethnographic studies disrupt the framing binaries of religion/economy, legality/illegality and cow-l​over/​cow-k​iller​/cow-​buffa​lo/ec​onomy​-ritu​al in India (Adcock and Radhika 2019; Hardy 2019). However, these studies mainly explore ‘bovine politics’ in the context of Hindu nationalism and not so much the broader landscapes of law as food culture at different levels of the social scale. There are also many studies on food and nationalism (Belasco and Scranton 2002; King 2019) that examine how culinary nationalism is in a state of flux that entails wider global transformations. As discussed in Chapter 1, Balibar’s (1991) argument about fusing national and religious identities fits the topic of Indian vegetarianism. In other words, the question of proper Hindu practice, and especially vegetarianism (cow veneration, banning of cow slaughter and vegetarian regulation), is at the core of the nationalization of Hinduism in India. However green regulation as a form of nationalist ideology has not been explored to the same extent. During my fieldwork, I discussed the role of vegetarianism in India with a leading BJP politician within the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, an organization that supports and mobilizes Hindus internationally. The Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh is a subsidiary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the mother organization of the BJP. Since the 1970s, this politician has worked in tribal areas and abroad to mobilize Indians in support of Hindu nationalism. He explained that he is a vegetarian by birth and by family tradition: ‘I maintain that vegetarianism always. My family and parents are all vegetarians.’ He is also a yoga instructor. In India, transcendental aspects of social life, such as religion and spiritual/ ascetic practices, are associated with foods possessing the qualities of purity, freshness, radiance and calmness, denoted by the Sanskrit term, satva. These qualities are acquired by those who eat foods that are sattvic in nature. Vegetarian Brahmins and ascetics who eat sattvic food are therefore seen as purer and possessing higher faculties than others (Bhushi 2018). Scholars have used the term Sanskitization to refer to this higher plane of being and social standing, entailing the desire for upward mobility through the imitation of castes perceived as superior, such as Brahmins (Shepherd 2020). The BJP representative explained that in the Indian tradition and culture, there are three categories of foods. The first category comprises sattvic foods that are always vegetarian and associated with the saints. These foods are closely linked to Ayurveda and yoga, evoking purity and naturalness. The second category comprises rajasic foods or the food of kings, entailing vegetarian stimulants but also certain meats that are neither beneficial nor harmful. These foods are thought to cause aggression and restlessness. The final category comprises tamasic foods that are harmful to the mind and/

Setting the Scene  49 or body, and they include meat, fish, eggs, onion and garlic among other foods. In the Indian tradition of Ayurveda and yoga, these three categories of food are inseparable from identity and social stratification. All non-veg foods are considered either rajasic or tamasic, and even among vegetarian foods, there are rajasic and tamasic foods. These food categories are significant within medical and other texts as well as in spiritual texts (Ahmad 2018). During our discussion of the reasons why India’s market for veg and non-veg foods is more regulated than that of any other country globally, the BJP representative provided the following rationale. Not only does India have more vegetarians than any other country in the world, but these vegetarians will immediately spit out non-veg food that they have eaten by mistake, and they are able to spot what is veg or non-veg. To avoid all [of] these things, India has come up with a unique formula, that is, these labels. When he was at a Malaysian restaurant in Hong Kong, he explained to the waiter that he did not want shrimp or any kind of fish or meat, but, he told me, ‘no dish on the menu lived up to the standards of the vegetarianism we follow in India.’ He noted that vegetarianism in India is determined by the country’s hot climate, which differs, for example, from Europe’s cold climate. In a cold climate, he argued, vegetarians cannot survive. They need to maintain their body temperature, so non-veg food is necessary in these conditions: It’s all about climatic conditions. India has more vegetarians, because plenty of vegetables and greeneries [sic] grow here, and heat is also there, so you don’t need extra heat from outside by eating meat or non-veg; vegetarianism is enough. These days, vegetarianism is growing very fast even outside of India. For example, [there is] the movement, ‘Meatless Monday.’ Therefore, vegetarians are able to find food everywhere. Because of air conditioners, it is not a matter for me whether it is Toronto or Abu Dhabi; inside the house, you can control the temperature, so people started thinking about vegetarianism. Speaking of food in relation to the BJP’s brand of cultural nationalism, he made the case that culture takes everything, and food is also part of culture. It includes agriculture and food. He stated: ‘There are people who became saints and they were still non-vegetarians, but when it comes to the cow, it is holy for all Hindus.’ Referring to meat consumption among Hindus, and Brahmins in particular, he explained that food is parallel with your work, so a doctor not eating non-veg cannot work as a good doctor because they have to see blood and bodies every day, while an IT employee cannot perform well and would be sleepy with a non-veg diet. Discussing the relationship between health and veg/non-veg diets, he told me that there’s a food pyramid showing that all of the green vegetables at the bottom are the best, and as you go up, meat comes [into the picture], and the worst

50  Setting the Scene thing is beef. Yes, doctors and scientists also agree with it, so scientifically it is accepted that vegetarianism is better than non-vegetarianism. When we talked about fresh meat that is increasingly being sold in hypermarkets, he made the following argument: Fresh meat has an aroma. For some it is inviting and for others it pushes them out [of the place where the meat is], but these days everything is packaged, so there is no smell anymore and there is no complaining. I walk into a supermarket, and I am a vegetarian, but this never affects me. Pork and beef are not a problem in supermarkets and hypermarkets. Speaking of this impersonal meat market, he suggested that Hindus do not and should not generally support Hindu businesses and food markets in particular: I am a vegetarian, so I only see if it’s vegetarian or not. I won’t mind who the owner is. For example, if there is a vegetarian restaurant run by a Muslim I will go there. It doesn’t matter who runs the restaurant. When we discussed changes in Indian food markets over the last couple of decades, he argued that Indians are highly creative when it comes to ‘innovative varieties of vegetarianism’, referring, for example, to the kinds of vegetarian pizzas that can only be found in India. It was clear from this discussion that the ancient food hierarchy was alive and well within contemporary Hindu nationalism. Not only do sattvic, rajasic and tamasic signify caste and class, but they also essentialize foods and their functions, such as the relationship between foods and hot/cold climates. There is also a clear perception that the green/brown law standardizes Indian food markets positively for the benefit of vegetarians. Moreover, a unique form of Indianization is created through this standardization (together with yoga) that brands India globally. In this chapter, I have shown why and how the 2011 green/brown law, including the public manifestations of labels, has reinforced the age-old concept of ahimsa, cow worship and the taboo on eating cows within a culture of regulation. Paradoxically, while the reasons for and origins of religious food taboos in India and elsewhere have remained blurred, the country embarked on an ambitious, costly and highly resource-demanding programme of identifying, defining, classifying and bringing into law the veg/non-veg binary but did not systematically enforce it. My discussion of the bureaucratization and politics surrounding the labels revealed this paradox and provided a potential explanation for one of the world’s strictest veg/non-veg regulations: with the expansion of India’s meat modernity or ‘meatification’, increased efforts are correspondingly being invested into the maintenance, patrolling and enforcing of this binary. The ongoing retail revolution, the evolving consumer culture, meat modernity and the green ideology entail a convergence of these issues, which are clearly apparent in the booming marketplaces of Hyderabad to which I will now turn.

3

Markets Manufacturing and Selling Veg and Non-veg Commodities

This chapter explores how veg and non-veg are understood, practised and contested in manufacturing companies, shops (butcher shops, farmers’ markets and super/hypermarkets) and restaurants in and around Hyderabad. My understanding of the market for veg/non-veg commodities and their regulation is inspired by studies that question what markets in the wake of neoliberalism actually mean in practice (Caliskan 2010). I take seriously the argument that following commodities’ growth and circulation is a way of mapping the multi-sited fields of a market. In this kind of understanding, the market is characterized by calculative dynamics of power, and it comprises multiple fields that produce its commodities and prices. The market can be studied as fields of power made and maintained by various agents that confront each other on asymmetrical platforms, for example hypermarkets versus butchers. This requires researchers to locate how different market participants engage in and understand the sustenance, production and market fields of power. This chapter explores the veg/non-veg market (an ensemble of practices and institutions) from the perspective of involved actors to move beyond discussions of legislation, public life, bureaucrats and politicians in the preceding chapter (Schwecke and Gandhi 2020). For example, while the market for meat (in butcher shops) is characterized by grey areas and tacit understandings endemic to the bazaar economy, the standardized market (in super/hypermarkets) is subject to state-led market-framing processes. This approach calls for further exploration of elusive, underspecified and opaque Indian markets characterized by intricate links to state/society, and my study is an example of what the authors call a ‘sedimented stream’ of exchange, namely veg/non-veg transactions (Schwecke and Gandhi 2020, 2). In India, food markets are complex systems in which physical stages and firms are not congruent, and horizontal/vertical conditions for transactions are meshed (Harriss-White and Heyer 2014). As we shall see, the FSSAI plays a powerful part in veg/non-veg businesses in India. I understand companies or businesses of different sizes to be types of sociological laboratories with histories, cultures, structures, hierarchies and values to observe and analyze (Mitchell 1998). These business organizations possess shared characteristics such as explicit rules, division of labour, aims that involve acting on or changing everyday life and a governing ethos (making money or a management principle, for example) (Gellner and Hirsch 2001). DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-3

52 Markets My study recognizes that companies are comprised of individuals who are themselves the products of the above characteristics that are giving shape to the veg/non-veg market in India. This exploration of veg/non-veg in businesses is comparable to ethnographies that explore the complexities of bureaucratic practice and corporate practitioners in China (Kipnis 2008) and Japan (Miyazaki 2013). However, corporate employees are, to a large extent, part of teams and, ideally, team members involved in meat sections in super/hypermarkets or implementing the green/brown law, for example, complement each other’s capacities. Thus, the team as a paradigm of productivity and organizational control is internalized through the reconstitution of expertise and redistribution of worker responsibility in small teams (Urciuoli 2008). Moreover, Indian advertising agencies adapt to complex cultural politics of mass consumerism in a globalized marketplace (Mazzarella 2003), and never before have super/hypermarkets invested so heavily in advertising. My study feeds into business anthropology in India as an emerging field (Singh 2017) with specific reference to veg/non-veg actors and practices. Foucault’s (1991) concept of ‘governmentality’ describes forms of proceduralism and expert knowledge that reshape attitudes and values and internalize forms of (self)discipline. According to this approach, bureaucratic regulation creates compliant subjects, and auditing and risk management can be seen as the internalization of attitudes and procedures. The concept of (transnational) governmentality grasps how new practices of government and new forms of ‘grassroots’ politics are emerging on a global scale. Examples are new strategies of discipline and regulation (green/brown regulation and standards) but also transnational alliances forged by activists and grassroots organizations and the proliferation of voluntary organizations supported by complex networks of international and transnational funding and personnel (Ferguson and Gupta 2002). Governmentality helps explain why and how veg/non-veg food markets are subjected to new forms of regulation, with direct consequences for business organizations. Another important theme is the emergence, consolidation and expansion of an audit culture around vegetarian/green and non-vegetarian/brown regulation and practice. The FSSAI regulates production and sales by performing ‘on-site’ audits and inspections in businesses as we saw in the previous chapter. Audit culture has been explored from an anthropological perspective focusing on consensus endorsing government through economic efficiency and good practice. In this form of modern accountability, the financial and the moral converge to form a culture of what are deemed acceptable forms (Strathern 2000). Audits and audit practices are discussed as descriptors applicable to all kinds of reckonings, evaluations and measurements and as distinct cultural artefacts in the market that works as a platform for both individual interest and national politics (Strathern 2000). There is a large body of literature on the rise of an ‘audit society’, but further scholarship is needed on the ways in which audits and inspections are understood and practised in the context of veg/non-veg. The pervasiveness of an audit culture within and around veg/non-veg practices is not well understood, but, as I will show, it links veg/non-veg and markets in new ways. Audit and inspection systems feature prominently in modern societies (Power 1999). They exist to generate comfort

Markets  53 and reassurance in a wide range of policy contexts. To a large extent, auditing is about the cultural and economic authority granted to auditors – enforcing law as culture. A central aspect of audit culture that is also highly relevant to the market for veg/non-veg is the call for increased control and self-control in companies to satisfy the need to connect internal organizational arrangements with public ideals. Risk is a mode of governmentality that reveals itself in managerial forms of standards and guidance. Ethnographies of audit cultures are relatively sparse and more focus on the disordered capitalism supported by audit regimes is needed. I am inspired by a study in an Indian shipyard that shows how auditing creates opacity, disorders the work process and is part of value chains supported by diverse forms of charisma and racial distinction (Bear 2013). Standardization processes are apparent in green/brown certification, but standardization is also market driven. Green/brown standards and standardization can mean several things. They can refer to the design and qualities of products as well as to the proper conduct of states, organizations and individuals with regard to the production, preparation, handling and storage of products, for example. But they can also be seen as instruments of control and forms of regulation attempting to generate elements of global order (Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). Standards are part of the moral economy of the modern world that stipulates norms of behaviour and creates uniformity – a relevant point when it comes to the emergence and expansion of green/brown standards. Moreover, standards are the recipes by which we create realities, and they invoke the linguistic categories we use to organize the world – material as well as ideal. Moral and religious behaviours are subject to standards of tolerance because they define the limits of tolerable behaviour in divergent (veg/non-veg) settings. Processes of standardization, which are also market driven, are apparent within green/brown certification (Busch 2000, 2013). Based on empirical data, this chapter explores standards and their stories, that is, how businesses interact with standardized forms, technologies and conventions built into infrastructure (Star and Lampland 2009). Standardization is inseparable from broader processes of green/brown classification and categorization. Such processes produce new identities, subjectivities and forms of social organization among authorities/producers/consumers. Standards are one of the most important devices that are at play in rearticulations of the governance of economy and society that also disciplines people, organizations and states in the promotion of self-regulation: governing through standards (Ponte et al. 2011). Famously, Walter Benjamin (1999) argued that with new production processes, appearances (schein) are crystallized in commodities. The surface of mass-produced (food) products allows for endless reproducibility of authenticity in these objects and produces a differentiation and grading of authenticity in the case of veg/non-veg labels: as either veg or non-veg. In effect, the surface allows for ‘qualification’, that is, how qualities are attributed, stabilized, objectified and arranged (Callon et al. 2002). I am interested in how food products (as well as care products) become veg or non-veg through successive processes of qualification and requalification linked to production, retailing and certification/standardization. Green/brown food labels are expressions of neoliberalization, that is,

54 Markets these labels signify the creation of markets, value and regulation. Food labels are political forms of economic protection that exclude the non-certified/standardized. Moreover, labels are governed by non-transparent public-private partnerships, leading to radical governance mechanisms and property rights (Guthman 2007). I am inspired by an approach to legal anthropology that draws on cultural studies (Coombe 1998). From this perspective, veg and non-veg can be studied as being subjected to new forms of intellectual property laws. Most of the products discussed in this book are protected by property laws, that is, they are produced, marketed and certified as veg or non-veg while simultaneously being subjected to copyrights, trademarks, publicity rights and design patents. This point reflects the notion that in modern consumer cultures, labels, trade names and designs are governed and controlled by regimes of intellectual property. As we shall see, veg/ non-veg as a cultural or religious form has created new fields of potential economic value in new industries and raised legal and ethical quandaries. I explore how the law is at work in the case of green/brown labels shaping social worlds of meaning. Both trademarks and labels represent legal and institutional forms that struggle to establish and legitimize authoritative meanings in public spheres. Consequently, the legal protection of veg/non-veg forms creates new relations of power in contemporary cultural politics. In other words, the law legitimizes new sources of cultural authority, and it also fixes social meanings.

Manufacturing Companies A Meat Food Products Order from 1973, issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, reads: If the licensed premises are used for the manufacture of meat food products and non-meat food products there shall be a gap of at least one month when the change is made from marine products to meat food products and three days gap when the change is made from fruits and vegetable products to meat products. The premises shall be cleaned thoroughly with disinfectants, one day in advance of production of meat food products and the equipments shall be sterilised before use. (Ministry of Agriculture 1973) The Order was issued at a time when import substitution was still the order of the day and neoliberal reforms would emerge some two decades later, but it shows that veg/non-veg regulation has a long but relatively unexplored history in India. Under the heading ‘6 Months Imprisonment to Papad Maker, Sellers’, The Hindu on 3 November 2011 reported that a Judicial Magistrate Court sentenced a papad (a cracker) maker and two sellers to six months imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000 for making and selling products without conforming to the stipulations and norms of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. When a food inspector conducted a ‘surprise check’ in a grocery shop at Thatchanallur, the suspicion was confirmed as the manufacturer had not complied with the mandatory information

Markets  55 such as a vegetarian label, batch number, date of manufacturing or expiry date. There may be other incidents such as this, but given the magnitude of green/ brown regulation, it is striking that there do not seem to be more food scandals and reports of these in the media, and that it is only a modest grocery store that made the headlines. Under the heading ‘India’s “Vegetarian Edict Dismays Cosmetics Industry”’, The Financial Times (September 2014) reported that India’s Hindu nationalist government argued that the country’s vegetarian consumers ‘have a right to know’ whether care products derive from animal products or not, but this edict ‘dismayed India’s $6bn personal care and cosmetics sector’ that filed a complaint in the Bombay High Court. The dispute put pressure on PM Modi, who promised to ‘make doing business in India easier yet also needs to placate his most ideological conservative supporters, many of them upper caste Hindus, and strict vegetarians.’ This should be seen as the backdrop to animal rights activists and conservative Hindu groups advocating for the labelling of cosmetics and personal care products. In 2002, Maneka Gandhi, a leading animal rights activist and member of the BJP, ordered that cosmetics and personal care products be labelled vegetarian or non-vegetarian and the case was taken to Delhi High Court, where it was ruled that consumers had a ‘fundamental right’ to information that would allow them to act in consonance with their religious beliefs. The consumer goods industry in India appealed, arguing that questions of ‘vegetarian’ or ‘non-vegetarian’ did not arise, since make-up, soaps and shampoos are not meant to be eaten. After a decade-long legal battle, the companies thought they had finally won their case last year when the Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling, saying it had no authority to order such a requirement, and only appropriate government authorities could amend the rules. Consequently, PM Modi’s administration, ‘with an eye on its conservative Hindu constituency, has moved to do just that, requiring that any package containing soap, shampoo, toothpastes, cosmetics and toiletries should display the red or brown dots for non-vegetarian products.’ To my knowledge, this issue is unresolved and it illustrates why and how the green/ brown binary sits uneasily between commercial interests and Hindu nationalist ideals. Simultaneously, it also shows that once labels on care products/cosmetics have been standardized as green/brown this scheme is unlikely to be rolled back. In this section, I will first explore ‘green’ companies (that only produce veg), then ‘brown’ companies (that only produce non-veg) and finally, ‘green and brown’ companies (that produce veg as well as non-veg).1 Green At World Food India I met the CEO of a South Indian company that strictly produces veg, with all the company’s products bearing the green label issued by the FSSAI in Delhi. The company has 32 employees and, among other products, it manufactures flour, poha (flattened rice) and suji (semolina). Before the company can use the label signifying that the FSSAI audits the company, they test the ‘veg’ quality of products and then the company pays the specified fee. The

56 Markets CEO explains that the FSSAI do ‘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’. It is up to the company to choose the specific placement of the label and the CEO believes that the introduction of the label in 2011 was the start of a new era. Most companies manufacture either veg or non-veg, and the CEO is aware of only a handful of companies that do both – for example dairy, poultry and meat at the same complex. Also at World Food India, another CEO and her Indian representative from a multinational food manufacturer based in Europe explained that the company has many years of experience with the manufacture of fruit-based raw materials for dairy products, beverages, bakery products, desserts and added-value products. The company has an advantage in the Indian market, since all of its products are fruit-based and can unproblematically carry the green label. Once the company paid the required fee, the label was considered a type of certification or standard. The CEO explains that inspectors do not really come to the plant: ‘What they do, the system that we have in India is that they can pick up any product in the market and test it in principle.’ Local regulations, such as that of the green label, are seen to be part of broader Indian quality control and assurance. Due to the company being veg in the first place, it did not really affect production processes when the green label became mandatory in 2011. Importantly, the company does not use gelatine: ‘If we have to use a flavour in our product, then we have to take the necessary certificate from a flavour house and then we have to check if there is any non-compliance substance to the vegetarian in the flavour,’ the CEO explains. Moreover, the company representatives argued that while the green label is only mandatory in India, the label serves to advantageously brand the company elsewhere too, due to the fact that there is a lot of focus on ‘green’ production internationally. In a way, the representatives suggested, the green label is added value to products, and it can also be considered a standard because they are ensuring it is pure veg and doesn’t contain non-veg. Novozymes is the leading enzyme (proteins that act as catalysts in living organisms) manufacturer globally. The company has enzyme plants in six countries: three in Denmark, two in the US, two in China, two in India, one in Brazil and one in Canada. Novozymes has more than 6,000 employees, and the company makes around 900 enzyme products that are purchased by many different industries that manufacture detergents, food, beverages, textiles, biofuel and animal feed, among other things. The company started its operations in India in 1983 and is the largest supplier of industrial enzymes and microorganisms in South Asia. When I visited the Novozymes facility in Bangalore, the head of quality assurance explained that Novozymes India has more than 500 employees, with three sites in Bangalore that cover research/technology, manufacturing, business functions and a service centre. Some of the key business areas for Novozymes India are: household care, textiles, food/beverages, oils/fats, baking and beverage alcohol. The head of quality control had been with Novozymes for 18 years, and she held an MSc in food technology. Her main responsibilities were raw materials and good manufacturing practices, including the FSSAI vegetarian regulation, and kosher and halal

Markets  57 products. Novozymes has complied with kosher standards since the 1990s and halal since around 2000 (Fischer 2015; Fischer 2022; Lever and Fischer 2018). The 1954 Prevention of Food Adulteration Act was the first federal law to ensure safe, pure and wholesome food for consumers. The current green/brown labels enforced by the FSSAI are only the latest versions of labelling indicating whether food and ingredients in India are veg or non-veg. Novozymes India is a strictly ‘green’ company, that is, all the company’s food-grade products carry the green label. However, from 2011 onwards, Novozymes India had to apply for an FSSAI license. The head of quality assurance explains that Novozymes must obtain a ‘central’ license in Delhi. All details can be found on the FSSAI’s website. She made clear that for licenses there is a fee that depends on: the type of unit you are putting up. The FSSAI Inspectors come for inspections. They have their federal headquarters in Delhi, but inspections and audits are at the state level. They don’t inform us when they are coming here. They can come down whenever they want. They inspected us in 2016. The person who came last time was here for around four hours. We also have FSSAI requirements like how the plant should be established, what kind of activities should be conducted regarding veg and non-veg. Everything is outlined on the website. We have never had any animal ingredients. When we discussed why green regulation was so important in India, she argued that many people in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Southern India are vegetarian and there are different cultural backgrounds, labels, therefore, making it easy to choose veg or non-veg. Most of all, she considered the labels to be ‘symbols’ rather than labels denoting certification or standards. The green label can be found on a wide range of Novozymes India’s packaging in India and elsewhere, and in Novozymes India’s formulation unit, the relevant personnel team receives training on labelling each product with green labels. In sum, for Novozymes India, green regulation in India is not very complex or challenging as long as the company only uses ingredients and products that are not of animal origin and there is no formal requirement in terms of personnel being vegetarians themselves. Brown During the last phase of my fieldwork in India, I met a CEO of a multinational company based in Europe that produces marine omega-3 powder. Without any smell or taste, the powder can be added to food products to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and inflammation, and it is important to cognitive development and function in children. The CEO explained to me that she has worked with omega-3 for more than 20 years and that entering the Indian market has proven to be a major challenge. More specifically, the company faced three challenges, she suggested. Firstly, there was the legal requirement that all packaged foods in India must bear green or brown labels. This meant that any product that is enriched with the company’s omega-3 powder must also bear the brown label and that was

58 Markets a challenge – especially when powerful discourses maintain that Hindus are or should be vegetarians. The company contacted major ‘influencers’ in the Indian market that produce biscuits, bread, cakes and dairy products, as well as an Indian dairy cooperative that helped the country become the world’s largest producer of milk. Both companies were interested in collaboration but had to decline, arguing that ‘We can’t implement your ingredient as it is marine based. We have this regulation in India, and we can’t risk our green dot, sorry.’ Even when the CEO explained that beneficial and efficient omega-3 can only come from fatty fish and not vegetarian sources, this did not encourage the companies to reconsider. The CEO also recalled meeting a government civil servant who suggested that for the company to be successful with its product in the Indian market, it had to be a ‘rule-breaker’ that could ‘green-dot’ its products even though it should actually be labelled with a brown dot. The civil servant argued that ‘rule-breaking’ and ‘green-dotting’ were in fact acceptable, as the majority of Hindus eat meat and fish in the first place and the green/brown legislation was all about politics and not religious sensibilities. In order to address these issues, the company produced a chocolate bar that contained the recommended daily intake of omega-3 a person needs. At a big food fair in United Arab Emirates, several businesspeople from India were interested in the chocolate bar but had to decline collaboration as the product was not vegetarian. The company’s main product is the omega-3 powder that is already added to a whole range of products around the world. This success is built on the company’s aim to cooperate with local food producers that can create value not only for producers but also for health-conscious consumers. One suggestion the CEO is working on is to target smaller and upcoming companies in India, as these may be more willing to take risks compared to the big ‘influencers’. Secondly, it had become clear to the CEO that not only is India vast and diverse, but existing market research is scarce and not always reliable. The company tried hard to set up meetings with the FSSAI through its home country’s foreign ministry and embassy in India, but so far, no concrete meetings with the FSSAI have taken place. Multinational food producers new to India are often not sure why their products sell or do not sell, and they call on their governments and embassies to assist with research and market analysis. ‘What do Indian millennials eat?’ she asked. The CEO explained that even if there was a memorandum of understanding between the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and its counterpart in the company’s home country, this had not proven very fruitful so far – there is more talk than anything else, with little corresponding action. It was not until the embassy employed local market experts that any progress was made. At the same time, among similar companies in the company’s home country, there is reluctance to share their experiences of working in India – perhaps due to a concern about intellectual property rights, the CEO speculated. In sum, a company such as this one felt that its foreign ministry and embassy could play a much more active role in supporting the company’s vision to become successful in India – both in terms of market research and in setting up specific lines of cooperation and communication between authorities in the two countries with specific reference to veg/non-veg challenges and how they can be overcome.

Markets  59 Finally, and inseparable from the first two points, there was the myth that India is or should be a vegetarian country. When legislation stipulates that all processed food products must be classified and labelled as either green or brown due to vegetarian sensibilities, this supports the myth that the majority of Hindu groups are or wish to be vegetarians. When we discussed research findings showing that the majority of Hindu consumers are non-veg, as was the case among 90% of my respondents in Hyderabad, this came as a surprise to the CEO. She was aware that, demographically, the Indian population is young, was aware of the value of omega-3 and that India is one of the top countries in terms of eating fish oil capsules, but she was more unsure about the existence and quality of market research on everyday food habits in a country where food habits are complex and changing. Prior to our conversation, the CEO had asked a Hindu consumer: ‘Why do you eat fish oil capsules? I thought Hindus were vegetarians.’ The consumer answered: ‘My doctor tells me to eat this.’ To push for its endorsement of omega-3 enrichment of food and drinks, the CEO considered revisiting the Indian government, which is acutely aware of omega-3 health benefits in a population that increasingly experiences a range of lifestyle diseases. Checking the stores in India, she found quite a number of products that contained animal ingredients that were erroneously ‘green dotted’. In sum, a company such as this one experiences multiplicity and ambiguity in connection with green/brown regulation, government enforcement and reluctance among Indian food producers; insufficient knowledge of the Indian market and institutional support from its home country; and the myth that, essentially, Hindus are or should be vegetarians. At World Food India, I met a representative from a major meat-producing company based in Europe. He holds a diploma in commerce and began working in the meat industry in 1980. Since that time, he has focused on trading meat and training employees in Europe, the Middle East and China. About ten years ago, the company became interested in the vast and expanding Indian market. The representative remarked that ‘a market of 1.3 billion consumers simply can’t be ignored.’ Most importantly, the company exports pork to India, but it also buys Indian water buffalo meat that is exported to other countries in Asia, in particular. The company was aware that India has local pork production, but as far as the company knew, there is little research on this market. In order for the company to export meat to India, products aimed at the Indian market are kept separate from ‘normal production’ – especially because they must bear the mandatory brown labels. At the company’s headquarters in Europe, this type of compliance only exists because the Indian market is seen to be vast and growing. More specifically, the company exported meat to a local Indian importer that sells the meat to hotels and restaurants and thus green labels had relevance beyond the retail sector. On each label, the following information is mandatory: the brown label issued by the FSSAI, the name and details of the exporter/ importer, the license number, the type of commodity and the expiry date. The Indian market has proven to be challenging, and total exports to India ‘only’ amounted to 650 tons in 2016: ‘We’re still waiting for the boom, and one of the problems is that Belgian pork exporters were approved before us,’

60 Markets the representative explained. These exporters sent large shipments of pork and were ‘first movers’ in the Indian markets that have only recently and slowly begun to open up for meat imports, and pork in particular. Being a ‘first mover’ in this emerging meat market for pork was absolutely essential, the representative argued. Moreover, negotiating with local importers is challenging. The company learned that large amounts of Belgian pork breast are consumed by Koreans working in the Indian car industry. The company has been exporting large quantities of pork breast to Korea for decades and knows Korean preferences well, yet the Indian context remains challenging. Altogether, Indian meat markets were still ‘unstandardized’, and this also applied to detailed market statistics that could potentially be provided by the embassy of the company’s home country in India, except that such data has to be generated from scratch and this is time-consuming and expensive. The representative went on to explain: ‘And this is unfortunate: our feeling is that this is a market in which everything is changing, but we’re not sure what the trend is.’ When company representatives first went to India ten years ago, they visited Indian supermarkets in Bangalore and elsewhere, such as Big Bazaar and Ratnadeep, and all they found was a very narrow selection of frozen meat and fish – and no pork. Traditionally, pork products in India consisted of Spanish serrano ham and bacon that had to be boiled or cured to be approved by the food safety authorities. However, these authorities were often inefficient and difficult to reach. Even though obtaining a certificate signed by the FSSAI was the most important step in order to be able to import, if a customer has an order, this person must apply for an import permit with the FSSAI and this process takes around two weeks on average. When the customer is registered as an importer, s/he instructs the company regarding detailed information on labels to be put on each piece of meat. The food safety authority in the company’s home country agreed with their Indian counterpart on how a veterinary certificate must be done, and this certificate is then in the certificate database, just like any other certificate. The process of putting the brown label on packaging was troublesome, to say the least, because the brown label is unique to India and this precluded any kind of standardized labelling that was normally unproblematic elsewhere. Altogether, the import process was bureaucratic, and every new customer headquarters had to issue new customer numbers. Green/brown During my fieldwork, I visited one of India’s largest food manufacturing companies, located in South India. The company’s history stretches back several decades, and during that time it has expanded not only within India but also abroad, where it has production facilities, offices and cold storage. The company produces both veg (meat, poultry and seafood) and non-veg food, including readymade meals, which pose certain challenges in terms of managing veg and non-veg. Following approval by veterinary authorities in many countries, each month the company exports thousands of tons of meat to Asia and Africa especially. The food processing complex occupies a large area in a rural zone outside one of

Markets  61 South India’s major cities. The company stressed that it does not slaughter cows, bulls or oxen, but only buffaloes, and that all slaughter is carried out according to halal guidelines. These points should be seen in the context of constant rumours circulated on websites, for example, that a company such as this one not only mistreats animals but also slaughters cows, bulls and oxen illegally. More recently, the company started focusing on the vegetarian market and now produces items such as frozen French fries and samosas, for example. During my visit to the complex, the general manager explained to me that he had been with the company for almost 20 years and that his father and grandfather were also part of the same company. As a Muslim, he explained that if Allah allowed, future generations would also serve in this business, which the general manager hoped. The green/brown regulation is resource-intensive: the FSSAI regularly conducts announced as well as unannounced inspections and audits in the company. A typical FSSAI visit takes an entire day, and it is different inspectors every time. Ingredients should also have that FSSAI certification and the FSSAI also checks for that. Many personnel are involved in quality control because it is a big place. That goes both for halal and green/brown regulation. Green and brown labels are only necessary for the Indian market, not for exports, the general manager explained, as we examined a box of frozen halal buffalo meat intended for export to the Philippines. However, halal labels for exports are only necessary in relation to meat, not veg. Islamic authorities often carry out inspections of the company. For example, Islamic Development Department of Malaysia visit every two years, whereas the FSSAI visit more often. There are detailed FSSAI rules about the separation of veg and non-veg. The general manager outlined these rules as follows: Veg and non-veg production must be in separate buildings, or at least there must be a wall between veg and non-veg production. When a company starts food production in India, the FSSAI provides layout plans detailing how the plant must be organized. When they award their license, they also check whether or not construction has been carried out according to the plan, and to FSSAI standards. These rules are clear and make production easier – even for companies that only produce veg. Standardizing everything will be good for the Indian market. There is no requirement that Hindus have to be involved in veg production. Anybody can produce either veg or non-veg, but when they produce, it should be pure veg and non-veg. Similarly, people from all over India, including Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, work at the complex. About 230 employees are involved in veg, and the number for non-veg is about 1,100. The general manager made it clear that the difference in the number of personnel assigned to each category has to do with volume. Personnel never switch between veg and non-veg production. Prior to the 2011 introduction of the green/brown labels, there was a label for non-veg. It was a brown-coloured semicircle. In other words, the company already complied with existing regulations and did not have to change its production

62 Markets processes. Most certificates are valid for four years, and if anything changes in relation to requirements or legislation, the FSSAI lets the company know so that it can adjust accordingly. We discussed why green/brown labels were introduced in the first place and in the general manager’s opinion, it was due to ‘the unity of the people. According to me, the main idea behind the legislation is to make sure that nobody should suffer when choosing veg and non-veg food items.’ Before we started our tour around the complex, I noticed that posters in the reception room stated that the company maintained the highest level of quality assurance, ensuring a hygienic production environment. This was evident as, wearing protective plastic suits, we moved from the non-veg/abattoir area to the veg area in which workers produce samosas, for example. In the veg area, signs above doors state that this was a ‘raw vegetables’ zone only. In sum, it is clear from the above that veg and non-veg are subjected to elaborate forms of regulation and disciplining in manufacturing companies. Traditionally, many companies manufacture either veg or non-veg and that is still the case except for the last company discussed, which is Muslim-owned, and Nissin, the company that produces instant noodles (discussed in Chapter 1). Even in modern mass production, notions of purity have filtered down to give shape to elaborate forms of proceduralism and expert knowledge that reshape attitudes and values and internalize forms of (self)discipline – even before 2011 – as India has a long tradition of separating veg/non-veg production. Elaborate measures are in place to classify veg/non-veg in terms of content (in ingredients/products) and context. In other words, the veg/non-veg binary is subjected to and patrolled by a whole range of notions ranging from purification, through aestheticization, to scientification. In all of this, a localized form of green ideology permeates manufacturing companies and ubiquitous labels testify to that.

Shops This section explores markets in which veg/non-veg foods are sold, that is, butcher shops, farmers’ markets and super/hypermarkets. While there is a growing amount of literature on (Muslim) butcher shops, super/hypermarkets have not attracted the same ethnographic attention. Ahmad (2018) explores successful Muslim Qureshi butcher shops in Delhi in the context of ways in which the meat sector, both domestic and for export, has exploded in the last three decades. The Indian meat sector witnessed ‘the emergence of new technologies, new geographies, and new economies in the post-colonial and particularly post-liberalization period’, Ahmad (2018, 9) writes. Similarly, Brara (2018) explores the visual culture of meat-shop signs in Delhi and these religious signs are concerned with morality and ethics that are voiced in the idiom of the religious. Studies of butcher shops, cattle traders and beef eaters in South India, including Hyderabad, shows that the beef trade, unlike popular notions, also directly concerns Hindus (Staples 2019, 2020). I explore butcher shops as important outlets for meat, even if competition from hypermarkets in particular is increasing, as we shall see. While these studies focus on meat only, I will provide a broader insight into veg/non-veg in

Markets  63 different types of shops. My point here is that butcher shops are only one outlet among many in the retail revolution in India, so I provide a brief look at each type of outlet. Many of the meat shops in Hyderabad are located in Nampally, the predominantly Muslim area in the Old Town discussed in Chapter 2. It is no coincidence that Hindu temples in the area are not located next to the many Muslim meat shops (Figure 3.1). Several butchers suggested that it is common knowledge that it is unwise to have a meat shop too close to a temple, as this can raise tension. Butchers believed that even if some Hindus eat meat, the majority of Hindus are veg most of the time. In Nampally, all the butcher shops visited during fieldwork were run by Muslims and smaller shops sell either veg (Hindus) or meat (Muslims), unlike super/hypermarkets. There are nearly 3,000 retail meat shops in the metropolitan area (960 mutton shops, 681 beef shops, 1,077 dressed chicken outlets and 241 other outlets which sell eggs, pork and fish (The Hindu, 1 March 2014). In Nampally, there are 40–50 butcher shops, and roughly 30 exclusively sell chicken (and in some cases seafood), 5 sell beef and 3 sell mutton, while the rest sell a mix of these. As would be expected, in other areas of Hyderabad and suburbs such as Gachibowli, there are more butcher shops. In Nampally, all the non-veg shops that sell meat/poultry, fish and eggs are owned/run by Muslims, according to several of the Muslim butchers. I could not find any shops selling

Figure 3.1  A Hindu temple in Nampally.

64 Markets pork in this area. Instead, there are more than a dozen shops in which vegetables and masala ingredients like garlic, ginger, coriander and onions are sold, and, in most cases, these are owned/run by Hindus (Figure 3.2). Even on Fridays many of the Muslim butcher shops are open and business is lively – to such an extent that prayers do not always seem to be observed in a butcher’s busy schedule. However, butchers would ask for silence during prayers heard from the nearby mosque while continuing their work. Most of the customers in Nampally are Muslims, but many Hindus also shop for meat in this area, as we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5. When I discussed meat with a Qureshi butcher who comes from Uppal Kalan, a suburb of Hyderabad, he explained that the beef he sold is halal. The butcher’s license is visible on the wall behind the counter. One kilo of beef amounts to Rs. 280 (approx. US$ 3,5). On an average day, about 100 customers find their way to the shop. The meat is refrigerated, and a shipment of meat will generally be sold within a couple of days due to large demand (Figure 3.3). In a pork butcher shop in HITEC City (Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City), the Hindu owner migrated from Mumbai and had been selling pork since 2003 (Figure 3.4). He asserted that his caste is Ktika, one of the subcastes under Scheduled Castes. The butcher’s license was visible on the wall behind the counter. The pork meat came from a pig farm outside the city, and it was produced under very hygienic conditions, he assured me. The price of one kilo of pork varies depending on supply/demand, quality and the bargaining

Figure 3.2  A Nampally veg shop.

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Figure 3.3  A beef shop in Nampally.

Figure 3.4  HI-TECH Pork Shop.

66 Markets skills of the butcher/customer, but usually the price for one kilo is around 170 rupees (approx. US$ 2). Customers are ‘all sorts’ in terms of religion and class, that is, Christians and Hindus, but also Adivasis from the Northeast, as well as migrants from Delhi and Kerala. Over the years, business has steadily improved, and competition from super/hypermarkets is not felt because these do not sell pork. According to these two informants, Muslims typically sold beef and Hindus pork. Christians were also involved in the meat business but not in the areas I visited. Other butchers specialize in chicken and seafood (Figure 3.5), but none of the shops in Nampally sells both veg and non-veg. Typically, Muslims sell meat/non-veg in butcher shops and restaurants while Hindus sell veg in small shops (Figure 3.6). These establishments often display different kinds of religious paraphernalia. In sum, this glimpse into butcher shops and smaller food outlets in and around Hyderabad reveals how the market is organized around religion and caste: Muslims typically sell beef, chicken, mutton and seafood, while lower-caste Hindus sell pork. Findings are to a large extent supported by those of Ahmad (2018), Brara (2018) and Staples (2019, 2020). A notable point here is that, while butcher shops are ubiquitous in areas such as Nampally, it is super/hypermarkets that dominate in middle-class suburbs. Here, it suffices to say that traditional (Muslim) butcher shops are still dominant in the meat/poultry/seafood market, and they embody the ancient trade relation built on trust between seller and buyer. Sahlins (1972, 313)

Figure 3.5  A chicken and seafood shop.

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Figure 3.6  A veg shop next to a non-veg restaurant.

writes that ‘the economic flexibility of the system depends on the social structure of the trade relation.’ In spite of tensions between Hindus and Muslims in the context of Hindu nationalism – the social structure, as it were – Hindu groups often frequent Muslim butcher shops. Thus, I add to the detailed ethnographies of butchers in existence by placing my observations of butcher shops and interviews there in a broader perspective: comparing the sale of meat in butcher shops to other types of outlets and how Hindus shop for veg/non-veg in these different outlets. Satish was in his 50s and lived with his wife, Sushmita, and his mother in a suburb outside Hyderabad. I discuss these two informants in greater detail in Chapter 4 but bring them in here because they often shopped at a farmers’ market; farmers’ markets were generally popular among Hindu middle-class consumers. Satish was originally from the state of Kerala. As a commerce graduate, he worked in the finance branch of the Indian Air Force before settling in Hyderabad to work as an accountant. Sushmita was from West Bengal and she also worked in the Indian Air Force before starting to work in the private health sector in Hyderabad. The couple had a son who worked abroad. Satish was Nair of Kerala, a forward caste, and Sushmita was a West Bengal Brahmin. Satish described himself as a ‘pure vegetarian’. His mother told him that he ate non-vegetarian food until the age of four, but ‘Suddenly something happened and I stopped eating it and never

68 Markets touched it again.’ Satish’s parents were non-veg and so was his wife, who took fish on a daily basis. Satish’s family ate chicken, mutton, fish and eggs, but ‘never beef’, he declared. Their son was a vegetarian. Satish explained that ‘I have a distaste for non-vegetarian food. Even if it is cooked in my house, I have that feeling. My wife is fond of fish, but I don’t like it.’ Satish ate onion and garlic, and his distaste for non-veg was not a religious sentiment and he supported animals’ rights, for example. These sentiments reflect the diverse veg/non-veg understandings and practices within just one family, as well as the way in which these understandings and practices are conditioned by the retail revolution, for example. When I was out shopping for food with Satish, we first went to a local Rythu Bazar or farmers’ market in a suburb of Hyderabad close to the couple’s home. The market has been there for about 20 years and here farmers sell directly to customers without middlemen, which ensured a more stable income. Local government in Telangana allocates land free of charge for such markets and they are very popular with customers. The market is held weekly on Wednesdays, and when we visited in October 2017, the large market was very crowded. At the market, flowers, vegetables, fish and meat (Figure 3.7) were sold, but I could not see any kinds of processed foods or green/brown labels for that matter. Vegetables dominate the market while meat/and fish are sold in a smaller and secluded section. Sellers told me that produce was cultivated nearby. This is where Satish did most of his shopping for food, including fish for Sushmita. He

Figure 3.7  The farmers’ market.

Markets  69 bought the fish at a particular stall where they clean the fish nicely so that it did not have to be done at home. The favourite of Sushmita was a freshwater fish called rohu, a kind of carp. The farmers’ market is popular among customers, and it is an example of a kind of market in which veg and non-veg are sold at the same outlet. Customers, including Satish, carefully selected the items they want, and these are then weighed to the customer’s specification and brought home in either a plastic bag or, in most cases, shopping bags customers bring to the market. This point is important because none of the produce at the market was wrapped, which would require these wrappings to carry labels, including green/brown labels: at the farmers’ market – just like at small food carts and convenience stores that I had a hard time finding in central Hyderabad (Figure 3.8), as they were being overridden by super/hypermarkets – customers rely on the personalized expertise of farmers who take their fresh produce to market. In super/hypermarkets all this is turned on its head, and it is to super/hypermarkets that I will now turn. Street food vendors in Mumbai call supermarkets such as Big Bazaar ‘showrooms’ in which products are wrapped in plastic and appear to be artificial (Anjaria 2016). I draw attention to this study because little research has been done in these Indian ‘showrooms’ or standardized shopping spaces. Agri-food chains in India are rapidly transforming and, to a large extent, this has been triggered by changes in incomes, consumption and work patterns driven by economic development (Rao et al. 2016). Demand-driven chains are replacing the previous supply-driven chains, and new groups of Indian consumers welcome these changes. The gradual liberalization of the retail sector, coupled with an emphasis on investment and the rise of organized retail, is strengthening agricultural marketing. Most importantly, investment in scientific storage, including grain storage, refrigeration, grading and packaging, is increasing. The entry of foreign players has increased

Figure 3.8  A food cart and a convenience store in central Hyderabad.

70 Markets competition and improved professionalism and service, but the enormous size of these players has put pressure on traditional retail and small and medium-sized enterprises in the procurement of goods and services, leading to advantages for the retailing giants. However, butcher shops still retain their importance in the Indian non-veg landscape even if many of India’s 13 million smaller retail stores are being supplemented by large malls, especially on the outskirts of cities. In the modern, Westernized milieu of these new stores, there is a need to project a strong cosmopolitan image. In transforming the urban markets of India, a new landscape for qualitative research, especially employing observational methods, is opening up (Dholakia and Sinha 2005). These transitions can be conceptualized as a move from a ‘bazaar economy’ to a ‘standardized’ economy (Fanselow 1990; Schwecke and Gandhi 2020) characterized by standardized and replaceable commodities in terms of quality/quantity. Buyers can collect information about highly standardized and economically replaceable commodities prior to purchase through direct comparison, precedent or consultation with other buyers. Hence, in the standardized commodity market, brand names and trademarks work as classificatory devices through which the provenance of goods becomes identifiable and their quality therefore more predictable. With the declining importance of personal loyalty (in butcher shops and wet markets, for example) in the labour market, the importance of previous experience, training, skills and formal qualifications among personnel increases. In standardized shopping spaces such as super/hypermarkets, a vast amount of information is transmitted via product labels and labels. Hence, this form of impersonal shopping warrants detailed information on labels and in the form of green/brown labels, for example. Furthermore, super/hypermarkets are themselves standardized spaces in terms of design, allowing for the proper handling of goods on the one hand and readiness for audits/inspections on the other. Explorations of the complex relationship between social movements and market adaptation with specific reference to how organics has become part of corporate ‘foodscapes’, that is, cultural ideals of how food relates to specific places, people and food systems (Johnston et al. 2009) help us understand super/hypermarket standardization. Another important study calls for more focus on how privileged consumers think about food ethics in everyday shopping and for such an analysis to include ways in which class and ethno-cultural background as well as symbolic boundaries are drawn through eating practices (Johnston et al. 2011). The paradox in hypermarkets in particular is clear: on the one hand, a powerful ‘green’ ideology maintains that meat/non-veg has no place near veg, but on the other hand, consumers and market players are ready and willing to include more and new forms of meat/non-veg in super/hypermarket ranges – while strict veg/ non-veg legislation patrols the boundaries. Furthermore, in supermarkets, meat is either not sold or only a limited frozen selection is available, whereas hypermarkets offer a wide variety of meat and fish. I focus mostly on hypermarkets and not so much on supermarkets as most consumers prefer fresh meat: not only is meat/fish in supermarkets such as Big Bazaar frozen and kept in closed freezers, but it is also tightly wrapped, and it can

Markets  71 thus carry both the brown label and a halal label (with no identifiable certifier) together with other labels. Moreover, there is no smell from frozen meat/fish. This means that supermarkets, which are considerably smaller than hypermarkets, are not really designed to accommodate meat/fish. In the freezer next to the one where I found boneless chicken drumsticks and salmon fillet, both carrying the brown label, veg products are stored. In hypermarkets, middle-class consumers spend a considerable portion of their time and global consumer goods like clothing, consumer electronics and other luxuries are on sale under one roof. Hypermarkets are designed according to veg/ non-veg requirements because fresh meat/poultry/seafood are sold. In a way, hypermarkets that sell fresh meat/fish combine the personalized service and expertise of the butcher/fishman with an extremely wide range of (processed) foods/ drinks as well as non-food items. When customers buy meat/fish in a hypermarket, the selected quantity is weighed and wrapped, and customers pay at the counter. In hypermarkets (as in butcher shops) there are no brown labels on fresh and unwrapped meat/fish. It is in super/hypermarkets that most of the food carries green/brown labels. All drinks, including Coca-Cola, will carry green labels or brown if containing egg or ingredients of animal origin (Figure 3.9). Instant noodles produced by the company Nissin, discussed in Chapter 1, are one of the few examples of a comparable product from the same company that is produced as both veg (Italian Delight) and non-veg (Rich Mutton Curry). Another example of a food product that carries a brown label is the Mars Bar, which contains egg (Figure 3.10), while the Bounty Bar produced by the same company carries a green label. Many studies of hypermarkets (Halebsky 2006) explore these as sites of controversy, that is, the extent to which social movements are successful when

Figure 3.9  Green drinks.

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Figure 3.10  The brown Mars Bar.

criticizing the construction of superstores, rather than focusing on ethnography in these stores. In subsequent chapters, I shall explore if this is also the case with hypermarkets signifying the retail revolution in India. I now discuss three hypermarkets that have a distinct presence in Hyderabad and Gachibowli: SPAR, Hyper City and Star Hyper. SPAR is a Dutch multinational group that started in 1932 and independently owns and manages outlets around the world. In 2017, the income in India was around €150,000,000. SPAR started its operations in India in 2007 and this hypermarket outlet opened in central Hyderabad in 2008: it was the first of its kind to sell fresh meat/fish in Telangana. It is centrally located in the Oasis Centre, a small shopping mall that also houses furniture and clothing stores. Above SPAR, on the top floor, there is a fine-dining vegetarian restaurant (see below). The SPAR store manager in the central Hyderabad outlet had 13 years of working experience. He explained that SPAR chose Hyderabad because Hyderabad was not only the capital of booming Telangana, but also because the state has a steady influx of highly educated and affluent migrants that often work in ICT. In this particular outlet, including all the levels of employment, there were 120 employees currently working. Qualifications and experience in similar workplaces were more important than religion or ethnicity. Most of the personnel in the store were from Hyderabad and the surrounding areas, and before newly employed personnel started working in the store, they were given training for up to 21 days in another store and then moved to this one. SPAR has a specially trained team of butchers, including both Hindus and Muslims, working since the opening of the store. The fish/meat section was still enclosed behind a glass wall (as was also the case at SPAR in Delhi, but in Delhi alcohol was sold behind another glass wall

Markets  73 next to the meat/fish) that clearly set it off from the main shopping area, with the vegetable section on the other side of the wall. The side of the glass wall that faced the main shopping area was lined with Organic India products. Organic India is the country’s largest producer of organic products, such as tea, which are also marketed internationally. Thus, the division between the meat/fish on one side of the division and the main shopping area on the other was clearly marked and ‘fortified’ by the Indian organic produce as if to patrol the border between non-veg and organic veg. In the newer SPAR and Star hypermarkets in Gachibowli there was no wall between the meat/fish and the main shopping area, and this suggests that meat and its sale/consumption were becoming more and more standardized in Telangana and new hypermarkets were designed to accommodate the sale of meat/fish. The SPAR store manager explained to me that SPAR outlets were specially designed to accommodate meat/fish in a ‘hygienic way’ – more specifically, outlets were designed to accommodate veg/non-veg and SPAR had elaborate procedures for handling and storing meat/fish – cold rooms and ice makers. Previously, customers in central Hyderabad would find fresh meat/fish in Muslim or lower caste butchers or frozen meat/fish in supermarkets. Butchers in SPAR include both Hindus and Muslims and the SPAR store manager revealed that religion was not a ‘qualification’ when selling meat in a hypermarket. Even if vegetarianism was still widespread in India, this trend was changing: now even his Jain friends had started eating meat that was sold in standardized and sanitized shopping spaces and promoted as healthy and nutritious. All the meat sold in SPAR was certified as halal by a local mosque in Hyderabad. Next to the halal label in SPAR’s meat section, two posters explain that the chicken was of superior quality meat sourced locally from quality-assured farms and fully traceable from farm to fork. Another poster argued that chicken was low in calories and high in protein and could ‘relieve stress’ and minimize the risk of heart disease. The store manager insisted that now even doctors would recommend meat as part of a healthy and nutritious diet. The meat section had been the same from the beginning and many customers came to buy meat at the store. A favourite among customers is lamb cubes. SPAR must obtain separate certificates before selling meat, fish and vegetables, and these certificates are issued by local authorities. Hyderabad FSSAI Inspectors regularly do ‘quality checks’ in the store and the focus here was mainly on the ‘fresh category’ items, which covered meat/fish, bakery items and fruit/vegetables. Virtually all of the meat comes from authorized abattoirs around Hyderabad and seafood from local vendors or markets. If customers want meat/fish in this area of Hyderabad, they often go to SPAR, as the nearest butcher was quite far away and most of the butcher shops were in Nampally, as we saw above. The store manager speculated that it must be a drawback for nearby Ratnadeep that no fresh meat/fish was sold. So far, the store manager suggested, there have been no complaints about the presence or odour of fish or meat by (veg) customers. Arguably, this was because the non-veg section was separated by a ‘glass arrangement and modern equipment is used in order to eliminate the odour.’ According to the store manager, green/

74 Markets brown labels were essential because, according to ‘a global survey’, some 40% of Indian Hindus were vegetarians. However, We follow the green and brown marking and keep products separate in the store. The authorities may come to the store anytime unannounced to check that the products are labelled appropriately. The authorities are very strict and will impose fines in case they find inappropriate labelling or weights. Among customers, veg is giving way to non-veg and more Hindu groups have started to eat more meat –vegetarians are becoming non-vegetarian, but this was entirely the choice of customers. In sum, classifying and qualifying veg and nonveg is a major focus in SPAR and green/brown labels are found on all packaged food products except fresh meat and vegetables. Thus, a head of garlic did not carry a green label, but peeled garlic did. Most care products such as toothpaste were also labelled (Figure 3.11). Star Hyper is a hypermarket that opened an outlet in Gachibowli just before I started fieldwork in 2017. Star Hyper is owned by the giant market players Tata and Tesco Enterprise and it employs about 100 people in the outlet in Gachibowli. Compared to SPAR, which is located in the Oasis Centre along with clothing stores, for example, Star Hyper is an independent building located only a few metres from an organic farm and store (as we shall see in Chapter 5) on one side and a smaller Ratnadeep supermarket on the other. Considering that my fieldwork in Hyper City took place right after it opened, surprisingly many customers found their way to this hypermarket. Several shoppers suggested that parking was easy and that they liked the fact that this was a large and brand-new store. Participant observation and discussions with customers and personnel revealed two groups of non-veg shoppers: planned and spontaneous. Planned shoppers were quick and focused, and they often moved straight down to the meat/fish/egg section that was located at the back of the store (Figure 3.12). In super/hypermarkets in countries such as Denmark, it is often the dairy section that is placed at the back of the store because the majority of shoppers will

Figure 3.11  Green toothpaste.

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Figure 3.12  The meat/fish/egg section in a hypermarket.

shop for dairy products, and they are then taken through the entire shop and will often be tempted to buy other stuff spontaneously. In Star Hyper, the meat/fish/ egg section had this function. When the planned shoppers looked for a specific fresh non-veg item and did not find it on display, they would ask for its availability. A planned shopper, a middle-aged woman who works in IT, said: ‘If I don’t find what I have planned to buy, then it is a waste of time and energy. I’d like a website where I can see what meat’s available or not before I go.’ Planned shoppers are often frequent visitors to the hypermarket, and they possessed the relevant information about what items were available at what time in the store: They usually came strictly for a specific item. Spontaneous shoppers come with a broad idea, which will be narrowed down to a specific item until they come to the store and have looked around. Buying non-veg for spontaneous shoppers was often not decided on before leaving home, but instead, they decide after checking the available items in the store. This type of shopper was identified as discussing with their family members or friends (in person or over the phone) after listing the items actually available in the shop, in order to make a decision on what to buy. Spontaneous shoppers can be considered flexible regarding meat or nonmeat. This type of behaviour can also be interpreted as flexibility towards meateating in terms of weekdays: these consumers did not eat meat on specific days or abstain on others, due to rituals/festivals. In sum, meat-eating seemed more frequent among spontaneous shoppers when compared to planned shoppers. Women are generally accompanied by friends or family members, especially children or spouses, or both. Women spent more time at the meat/fish/egg section

76 Markets compared to men. Most women consulted the people who accompany them in terms of price and/or quality of the item they wished to buy. Conversely, men were quicker to decide and often they shopped alone. Some women did not seem to be all that comfortable in front of the meat/fish/egg section: slight and quick changes in expressions on their faces were observable when they stood in front of the fresh meat and fish, but once they were in place, they tended to stay longer than men did. Customers are mostly younger and some in their middle years. From the name tags around their necks, it was clear that many worked in the surrounding IT companies; on the streets of Gachibowli many people wore these name tags. Married customers who shopped at Star Hyper would often bring their children or spouse, and they were mostly planned shoppers. Compared to SPAR, clothing was available and often women assisted children and spouses in the fitting room. Women often became spontaneous shoppers when their children or spouse encouraged them to buy a specific item. For example, a family that came to shop for lamb ended up buying salmon due to the insistence of their teenage daughter, who was told in high school that fish was healthy. Single customers were more likely to be impulsive rather than sticking to a strict timetable, plan or budget. Star Hyper is a good example of a new multinational player in the broader context of the retailing revolution and changing consumer culture in India. Hypercity is a hypermarket located in the basement of the massive Inorbit Mall outside Hyderabad. Almost 400 people were employed at this outlet. The manager held degrees in marketing, sales management and law. He recently joined Hypercity and had work experience at retailers such as Big Bazaar, SPAR and Walmart across India. Hypercity in Hyderabad opened in 2009 and meat, fish and eggs have been sold in a secluded and clearly marked Meat & Fish area. Inside the area, signs stated that ‘We sell only halal meat products.’ Most of the meat was from local vendors and the meat section employed a team of 10, including six butchers, including both Hindus and Muslims. The manager clarified that it was a profession anybody can take. Employees would undergo a separate training programme on how to cut meat and handle it. Expertise included the preference for different kinds of cuts across India, also jhatka and South Indians wanted 20–30 smaller pieces. Goat meat was the most popular meat among consumers, so Hypercity makes sure that availability and quality were up to standard. When we discussed Hypercity’s choice to design the outlet so that meat, fish and eggs were offered in a secluded area, the manager argued that this was to brand the store vis-à-vis other hypermarkets that generally do not designate such a secluded area to meat, fish and eggs, that is, a specialized business with a focus on quality, range and service on the one hand and to avoid any cross contamination: the meat and fish are in one corner whereas the fruits and vegetables were in the other. Figure 3.13 shows a comparable and secluded non-veg area in a Hyderabad mall. It was important to maintain this separation spatially, as over the last ten years, the perception as well as customer expectations have gone up in India. Customers were not looking at the price and they did not mind paying more if they got what

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Figure 3.13  The non-veg section in a Hyderabad mall.

they wanted. ‘First thing is availability, second is quality and the third thing is service’, the managed suggested. Food authorities inspect the store and, more generally, the manager suggested that The green and brown labels made it easier for us to sell the products because it is easy for a customer to identify veg and non-veg. In India we have FSSAI, we follow these regulations. Products with green labels are arranged in one rack and products with brown labels are arranged in another rack. This point reflects not only the power of standardization but also an aestheticization, in that it is not strictly a requirement to separate products with green and brown labels. When we discussed the fact that when a head of garlic is peeled and wrapped/packed it must carry a label, the manager made clear that was the case with all wrapped/packed foods/drinks, and resources were there to address this requirement. At the same time, meat consumption was increasing among certain age groups, such as customers below 35 years of age, who were very particular about non-veg:’They may have five days of non-veg a week, but when they grow older, around 50 or 55, they will reduce meat consumption. It’s all individual choice’, the manager maintained. It is clear from the above discussions of shops that the relationship between veg and non-veg is changing: firstly, all wrapped/packed foods in standardized shops such as super/hypermarkets, but also smaller convenience/grocery stores

78 Markets (that are harder and harder to find in Hyderabad due to competition from super/ hypermarkets) carried green/brown labels. Not once did I find a wrapped product that was unmarked. At the same time, meat and non-veg were ubiquitous and the empirical data suggests that strict veg/non-veg regulation and the whole audit culture that surround these things has led to a new type of non-veg qualification as modern, powerful and healthy, and an ‘individual choice’ among middle classes. More and more meat/non-veg is sold in impersonal and standardized shopping spaces in which the importance of religion, ethnicity and caste fades while class predominates. Moreover, my fieldwork in super/hypermarkets demonstrates that these are truly what has been called ‘cathedrals of consumption’, that is, they are structured to have an enchanted, sometimes even sacred/religious character (Ritzer 2010) – not only in terms of green regulation but also especially in the context of countless religious festivals that are celebrated here, each entailing elaborate sets of paraphernalia and festive foods. During my almost two decades of research in super/hypermarkets around the world, the Indian ones seem to be the most nationalized (Indianized): not only in terms of green regulation and religious festivals but also particularly in terms of the ready availability of quintessential local products such as pulses and lentils. All this suggests a post-liberalization aesthetics in which green ideology, Hindu nationalism and state power have merged as an Indianized social framework that resignifies natural frameworks as either veg or non-veg, even if middle-class consumers and managers increasingly turn brown. In all three hypermarkets, veg and non-veg are handled differently: a glass wall surrounding the non-veg area; part of the main shopping area; and a secluded room. But in all hypermarkets there are takeaway counters selling veg and nonveg dishes and snacks; in Star Hyper this counter is called Quick Bites. It is to restaurants I will now turn.

Restaurants In many Telangana restaurants/cafes, the FSSAI has a framed notice with the heading ‘With Us You Will Get Safe Food. We follow these 12 Golden Rules.’ Among these rules about general hygiene, the third Hygiene Rule Code reads: ‘Store veg and non-veg food, raw and cooked food in separate containers’. This section explores veg and non-veg in restaurants, as more and more food is being ‘eaten out’ in urban India. During my fieldwork, ‘spatial trajectories’ (de Certeau 1984, 115), that is, stories that traverse and organize places and link them together, were prominent in veg/non-veg narratives of my informants, as we shall see in subsequent chapters in which I explore how my informants understand and practise these veg/non-veg spaces and offer a ‘sense’ of these divergent spaces around Hyderabad/Gachibowli. There is a large body of literature on public eating in metropolises such as Mumbai (Anjaria 2016) where the cultural politics of pizza, for example, appealed to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians (Solomon 2014). The history of public eating in Delhi demonstrates the sociocultural and economic changes that have significantly reshaped residents’ expectations of public spaces and

Markets  79 practices; in other words, economic and cultural liberalization during the last two decades has allowed for a flourishing cosmopolitan restaurant culture. ‘Gastropolitics’ is how beliefs about food encode complex sets of social and moral propositions when tracing the formation of ‘the national cuisine’ and middleclass and public food consumption. Specifically, there is heightened importance of institutional, large-scale, global, multi-ethnic and public food consumption in urban India (Appadurai 1981, 1988). Similarly, capital-intensive agricultural practices, the rapid growth of the agri-food industry and expanding circuits of global supply impact Indian food markets. Moreover, new modes of provisioning as well as eating out among the cosmopolitan middle class represent major changes (Bruckert 2015). The transformation of multinational chain restaurants in the Indian post-liberalization context can be discussed as ‘McDonaldization’, that is, processes by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of the world and how this affects education, work, politics, religion and many other aspects of society. Arguably, McDonald’s has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability and control (Ritzer 2006). Globally, McDonald’s underwent rigorous inspections by Muslim and Jewish clerics to ensure ritual cleanliness and these restaurants are fully halal certified (Fischer 2015, 2022). The key to the worldwide success of McDonald’s may be that people everywhere know what to expect when they pass through the Golden Arches: ‘MacDonald’s restaurants in India serve vegetable McNuggets and a mutton-based Maharaja Mac, innovations that are necessary in a country where Hindus do not eat beef’ (Watson 2006, 359). In the context of post-liberalization India, treats aimed at children are essential to the middle-class (Bhatia 2018). Adapting to veg requirements was clearly visible on McDonald’s India’s website (http://mcdonaldsblog​.in​/our​-food​-your​-questions/) (accessed 2 February 2020). A heading reads: ‘Good Food Stories: Our Food. Your Questions’. Quite a number of questions and answers focus on halal issues, but here I focus on veg/non-veg: Amit: Are your buns vegan? Yes, our burger buns are vegan. Arpit: Does the buns in McAloo Tikki burger contain egg? No, the buns used to make our McAloo Tikki burgers do not contain egg. Snesh: Does the sauce in the McAloo Tikki burger have any milk in it? Is it Vegan? Yes, the sauce used in McAloo Tikki burger is vegan. Amit: Are your burgers vegan? Not at the moment. Our buns are vegan, but the burgers as a whole have milk products in them. But we will make sure to consider your suggestions for the future. Amar: I am Jain. I do not eat potatoes. I have heard that all your burger patty contains potatoes like in Veg Maharaja Mac, Cheesy Italiano Veg, McVeggie Burger, Veg McMuffins, American Cheese Supreme-Veg. Is it true that all of them contains potato in one or the other form? You are right, most of our vegetarian burgers contain potatoes, except for our McSpicy Paneer Burger.

80 Markets Prakash: Is the McVeggie meal pure vegan? A McVeggie meal consists of a McVeggie burger, fries and coke. It is 100% vegetarian, however, it is not vegan as it contains traces of milk solids and whey protein extracts. Anusha: Does the McDonald’s French fries contains any animal extract? Are they separately cooked in pure 100% vegetable only? French fries at McDonald’s India are 100% vegetarian and do not contain any animal extract. All the vegetarian and non-vegetarian products are fried separately. Only 100% vegetable oil is used to prepare the French fries. Aruna: Does your tomato mayonnaise in McAloo tikki burger and the regular mayonnaise in Mc veggie burger contain egg? No, the mayonnaise used in McAloo Tikki and McVeggie burgers are 100% vegetarian. Purvi: Do your burger bread contain egg or egg white? Are veg patties and nonveg patties fried in same oil? No. None of our buns contains eggs. No, we have separate kitchen areas for veg and non-veg menu items. The veg patties are never fried at the same station as no-veg patties. Nikhil: Are McDonald’s French fries in India free from natural beef flavour? We do not add any beef flavouring to our fries. We would also like to highlight that our fries are fried in 100% vegetable oil and there are separate frying stations for our veg and non-veg menu items. Nia: Are there any animal enzymes or derivatives present in your buns, shakes, veg burgers, ice creams? No. None of our buns or shakes or soft serves contain animal enzymes or derivatives. RK: Do you have separate counter, cutlery, buns, vegetables, oil etc for veg & non-veg, or do u use it as per your convenience? Thanks for your query. In line with respect for local culture, India is the first country in the world where McDonald’s does not offer any beef or pork items. McDonald’s has also reengineered its operations to address the special requirements of vegetarians. Vegetable products are kept separate throughout the various stages of procurement, cooking and serving. You can request for a restaurant tour/kitchen tour at any of the McDonald’s restaurants. It is clear from the above that McDonald’s takes questions related to vegetarianism/veganism very seriously and does its best to comply with these sentiments in different national/cultural contexts (Fischer 2015). As we shall see in Chapter 5, veganism also has an increasing presence in India as does, more generally, animal protection – not only cows; animality is a relatively new and powerful notion in India. Before discussing how one of the global fast-food chains addressed veg and non-veg, I wish to pay attention to visual aspects of restaurants regarding veg/ non-veg in central Hyderabad. A short walk made it clear that veg and non-veg had a major presence in public life in urban India, even though about 90% of the population is non-veg, according to my survey, which I will examine in Chapter 4. As we saw in Chapter 2, green, and sometimes brown, labels are ubiquitous in marking veg/non-veg public space in restaurants. The same trend is visible inside these restaurants, and Figure 3.14 shows a menu in one of the global food chains.

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Figure 3.14  Green and brown dishes on a menu.

During fieldwork, I often ate at one of the multinational restaurant chains in Hyderabad and I got to know the personnel and discuss things with them. An employee told me that this restaurant was good business. Many customers found their way to the outlet and veg orders were more frequent than non-veg orders in the restaurant. He speculated that customers avoid eating meat at the restaurant because the meat had been frozen and they preferred fresh veg instead. The younger generation ate comparatively more meat than the older generation. On the restaurant’s menu, all food items were marked green or brown, so it was easy for customers to see. However, the restaurant did not have a specific Jain or halal menu as did some other restaurants/hotels and customers would often ask about this. Conversely, Hindu groups did not really inquire about the menu. So, while green and brown were clearly marked on the menu, that was not the case with halal. It rarely happens that the FSSAI or other authorities did inspections or audits of the restaurant to check quality or hygiene. In this restaurant, meat was stored in freezers, while most other ingredients were not. On the wall, a large sign read ‘vegetable oil used for cooking’ to emphasize that no lard was used. The times I checked the menu, I could only find chicken and no other types of meat. Popular appetizers are mainly veg. Raw materials and ingredients are delivered by the same company and often these come from Maharashtra. In sum, international food chains have been subjected to legislation and fully adapted to veg sensibilities in India and they have become very popular outlets for younger people in particular. At the same time, their menus reflect the chicken revolution that is taking place in India, that is, chicken is the only available kind of meat on the menu. My fieldwork shows that even if the vast majority of customers prefer fresh meat, this is not available in many international food chains

82 Markets and, according to personnel, customers then choose veg instead. At the same time, the FSSAI does not seem to be too particular about international food chains and perhaps the reason is that the chicken is kept in freezers and thus automatically separated from veg. I did fieldwork in an exclusive restaurant designed in classic style, with photos from the era of the Nizam lining the walls. The restaurant is located inside a luxury hotel and it served both veg and non-veg food. Mainly focusing on Hyderabadi and Andhra cuisines, the restaurant served dishes such as Dal Makhani, Haleem, Kebab Platter, Dahi Ke Kabab and Hyderabadi Biryani. As in all other restaurants, veg and non-veg were clearly separated on the menu card. The manager had been with this restaurant for about a year after completing his hotel education in a western state of India, and he had worked at business-class hotels across India. He explained that in Indian restaurants there were two ‘ranges’: a veg range and a non-veg range. Even when these ranges were kept separate, people were dissatisfied. For example, the restaurant had two tandoors or ovens: one is for veg kebab, roti and bread and another is for non-veg only. He suggests that We could do everything in one tandoor, but we need separate ranges, including cooking pans and pots. This is because of market demands and people demand. You have to have that thing at the back of your mind when you’re planning for a restaurant. This is the kind of client which we are going to get, so we have to plan accordingly. Very tough. In his former workplace in Gujarat, another hotel restaurant, there was only a veg menu, reflecting what he called the ‘demographic profile of the region’. Conversely, the Hyderabad hotel served pan Indian food with Hyderabadi specialities, but it was not multi-cuisine like the restaurants discussed above. The major concern was to promote Hyderabadi taste. There is nothing like [a] veg or non-veg restaurant. It is veg-restaurant and restaurant. It is so tough to cook both veg and non-veg foods in the same restaurant; there are certain communities in India who don’t prefer [sic] their food to be cooked in a non-veg kitchen. Not only vessels and utensils, they don’t even like their food to be cooked on the same fire. At the same time, Hyderabad was associated with mutton or lamb biryani. It is called katche ghost biryani (literally, raw meat biryani), he explained. Based on his experience from other parts of India where meat and rice were cooked separately before mixing the two, the manager maintained that in Hyderabad rice and meat were cooked together and the difficult part was avoiding the rice/meat being over/undercooked. Hence, it required a careful calculation of time and ingredients to get this right. This biryani is the most popular in Hyderabad and another popular dish is pattar ka ghost (literally, stone meat): marinated meat is cooked on a stone heated by charcoal. These dishes are particularly popular, but the restaurant offers 25 types of biryanis from across India. The meat came from a local

Markets  83 supplier in Telangana. It was mostly mutton and chicken, but quill and beef were also available. Other popular dishes in Hyderabad are kubbani ka meetha (sweet apricots) and double ka meetha (a sweet dish made from bread). Several of the restaurant’s employees were vegetarians, and they served veg as well as non-veg food. Even if the restaurant has a separate Jain menu, it is not in print, but whenever a Jain customer came, they ask about a particular dish. Typically, Jains would ask about dishes such as paneer (fresh cheese) machani, butter paneer or yellow dahl, but had to give the restaurant one day’s notice before arriving at the restaurant. Jain customers were mostly from Gujarat and typically they would ask whether or not the kitchen was safe, but they never checked it for themselves. Brahmins ask similar questions, but it was mainly Jains who enquired. Muslims did ask for halal meat, but they did not ask for the certificate. The manager argued that the confidence customers have when frequenting the restaurant was also due to the fact that the meat was locally sourced, so traceability was ensured. Non-veg was more popular than veg: Hyderabad had ‘a very non-veg based clientele’ and this was very different from other restaurants where the manager has worked – especially those restaurants in which the majority of customers were Jains. Arguably, Hyderabad was becoming more and more nonveg as migrants from around India and beyond working within IT in particular changed the city’s demography. Thus, the flexibility about meat and beef eating was also noticeable among some Hindu groups. The manager asserted that green and brown FSSAI labels could be found ‘everywhere and anywhere’ in Indian restaurants: The FSSAI would check storage and refrigerators and checks were not so much about veg or non-veg, but about contamination: ‘There is a way to store things like fish should be below, brown should be there, green there, chicken above, then vegetables on the top.’, he revealed. So even if the FSSAI’s top priority was not the proper separation of green/brown, both the FSSAI and restaurants use green/brown as a type of practised classification or qualification. In a gourmet restaurant such as this one, it was also clear that affluent and fastidious customers are not only concerned with taste but also very much with veg/non-veg. Customers’ requirements made it challenging to run a gourmet restaurant that specialized in Hyderabadi non-veg dishes, and FSSAI requirements were also more elaborate when non-veg is essential to the menu. During fieldwork, I visited a restaurant in the Oasis Centre that promotes itself as ‘vegetarian fine dining’. The restaurant is one floor up from the SPAR outlet discussed above. The times I visited the restaurant for lunch, groups of mature Hindu women in elegant saris were playing bingo while enjoying the veg buffet. The company that ran this restaurant had outlets across India and menus were adjusted according to local tastes, the restaurant manager told me. He himself and the chef were ‘completely vegetarian’ Hindus, and he said it would be unthinkable that these positions could be occupied by meat-eaters. He believed that being a vegetarian was healthier than eating non-veg. He often bought his groceries in the SPAR hypermarket in the Oasis Centre; as a vegetarian, he was not concerned with the prices there compared to other outlets because, as he suggested, it was

84 Markets cheaper to be a vegetarian. Monday, Friday and Saturday many Hindus did not take non-veg, but many would eat non-veg on the weekends. Raw materials were mostly from Bangalore while carrots, for example, were from local markets. Typical dishes in the restaurant are Thiranga Paneer (tricolour fresh cheese), Paneer Moong Dal Tikki, Kabuli Chana Salt & Pepper, but also westernized dishes such as Gambaza Pasta. Even if this was a strictly veg restaurant, the 60 employees are both veg and non-veg, I am told. FSSAI inspectors accepted at face value that this is a fully veg restaurant. Previously, the manager worked in Dubai and across India, including non-veg restaurants. The main difference between working in veg and non-veg restaurants was that In veg restaurants, customers have more doubt and are keen to know many things: how a particular dish is prepared and what the ingredients are. In non-veg restaurants, nobody asks questions like that. So, working in a nonvegetarian restaurant is easy. He maintained that not all vegetarians consistently avoided meat: sometimes Hindus would want to visit a fully veg establishment such as his own, and at other times they would go to a non-veg restaurant. Quite a number of Jains frequented the restaurant that had a special Jain menu, but the majority of customers were Brahmin and other upper-caste groups. Jain dishes were marked by a red hand with a wheel on the palm that symbolizes ahimsa in Jainism. A dish such as Paneer Tikka emulates Chicken Tikka in terms of taste and texture, and the same was the case for many other dishes. When I was given a tour of the kitchen, the chef told me that storage was much easier in a fully veg restaurant and that he used the same ingredients and masalas as non-veg restaurants, except meat. This glimpse into a fully veg restaurant shows that it was easier to manage a fully veg restaurant compared to a non-veg restaurant, and customers are both veg and non-veg. Building on participant observation, I would say that customers were typically mature upper-caste Hindu women, and this set the restaurant apart from food stalls and global chain restaurants. In this chapter, I have shown why and how the changing relationship between veg/non-veg commodities is essential in the Indian market. The move towards impersonalized shopping, together with standardization and audit culture, dominates in the emerging middle-class universe. The ongoing retail revolution and changing consumer culture are inseparable from the modern aesthetics of ‘the green’ versus the power of ‘healthy’ and ‘brown’ meat, that is, meat modernity in which meat/non-veg sits uneasily as clearly separated by law from veg/green while market actors for the most part themselves are non-veg in a non-veg environment. Multi-sited ethnography in manufacturing companies, shops and restaurants shows that the market is characterized by calculative FSSAI dynamics of power signified by green/brown labels. No market can exist without business organizations and I studied the complex and changing relationship between veg/ non-veg in the histories, cultures, structures, hierarchies and values of these businesses. The strictly vegetarian restaurant discussed in the last part of the chapter

Markets  85 stood out: in this restaurant, the manager and chef made clear to me that you had to be a vegetarian in order to produce veg food. Conversely, the general tendency is that veg production and trade have been impersonalized and lifted out of the ancient social structure of the trade relation in which seller and buyer share not only a mutual trust but in many cases also religion, caste or ethnicity within a framework of Hindu dietary law. This relationship is changing now that meat and non-veg, more generally, are Indianized and embedded in nationalized green/ brown aesthetics enforced by regulation. Thus, a striking conclusion based on fieldwork among businesses is that, in general, veg/non-veg classification/qualification increasingly hinges on regulation and bureaucratic intervention rather than personalized and proper handling. India is one the world’s largest and fastestgrowing producers of meat. Within the last couple of decades, the country has witnessed a chicken revolution as more and more chicken is produced and consumed. However, in local super/hypermarkets such as Ratnadeep and Reliance, there was no fresh meat/fish on sale and only a very narrow selection of frozen meat and fish. Similarly, the manager in one of the international chain restaurants speculated that veg was more popular than non-veg at the restaurant because the chicken sold was frozen and customers would prefer fresh meat. Thus, in terms of supply, the market in India did not seem to fully cater to the increasing demand for fresh meat. Meat is ubiquitous in Telangana and several informants noted that in states such as Gujarat veg is much more important at different levels of society. In Telangana, the introduction of (international) hypermarkets within the last two decades or so has meant that meat/non-veg is sold indoors together with veg for the first time in India. Green/brown regulation can be seen as an Indianized form of a moral economy in which non-veg in all its forms proliferates when matched by regulation, standards/certification, proceduralism and expert knowledge. However, there is a world of difference between the predominantly Muslim butchers in Nampally who slaughter chickens in store and hypermarkets in which the meat is sourced from large abattoirs. The question is how the Hindu middle class understands and practises in the veg/non-veg market, and it is to that question I will turn in the next two chapters.

Note 1 Parts of this chapter were first published as a paper in Research in Globalization (Fischer 2020). It is reproduced with permission of the journal editor.

4

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food

Following on from the overarching argument of the book, this chapter presents a study of the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg consumption among the Hindu middle class that illuminates broader transformations and challenges that relate to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in South India. The reasons for the popularity of meat/non-veg, that is, meat modernity, among the growing middle-class groups of Telangana in light of the green ideology are not well understood. I argue that forms of veg/non-veg consumption are conditioned by, and themselves condition, meat modernity that signifies health and nutrition, as well as urbanized, individualized and flexible lifestyles in the era of industrialized mass production. As we shall see, the retail revolution and a changing consumer culture, discussed in Chapter 1, are central to the themes of this chapter. Based on quantitative and qualitative fieldwork, this chapter provides a nuanced picture of the relationship between veg and non-veg that can only be understood when explored in the context of wider economic, political and social factors. By empirically studying the complex and changing patterns of veg/non-veg among the urban Hindu middle class, this study contributes to an understanding of dietary trends in India. More specifically, I will continue the discussion of meat modernity started in Chapter 1 with a specific focus on Hindu dietary law, seminal studies of Hindu meat-eating and studies that explore meat production in contemporary India. I then discuss the literature on middle-class consumption and food/memory and present the findings of my survey among 1,000 consumers in the context of existing surveys. I subsequently explore veg/non-veg as being formative of ‘middleclass projects’, of developing local class cultures in India among vegetarians and non-vegetarians (Liechty 2002). My discussion of why and how veg/non-veg is formative of middle-class projects is organized around the themes of healthrelated beliefs; food shopping; social differentiation and eating out; as well as the politics of vegetarianism, including vegetarian regulation. Each theme is organized such that vegetarian informants are discussed first, followed by non-vegetarian informants. I heed the call for more cross-cultural comparisons of meat-eating and vegetarianism (Klein 2008) and my study builds on these insights, but I also move beyond them as I argue that radical transformations have taken place within the last decade, not least the 2011 law, but also regarding institutional, large-scale, DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-4

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  87 global, multi-ethnic, political and public food consumption in India. I end with a glimpse into veg/non-veg in Delhi and thus offers a reflection on a comparative perspective in North India, that is, I contextualize the findings from Telangana by comparing them with those obtained during shorter periods of fieldwork conducted in Delhi to bring out similarities and differences in the data.

Meat Modernity in India This discussion adds to points raised in Chapter 1 on meat modernity or ‘meatification’, that is, rising consumer demands for low-cost meat in the Global South driving Indian exports of water buffalo meat in particular as well the centralization of animal slaughter in abattoirs and meat processing/marketing. The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (Zimmermann 1987) shows that all meats are endowed with pharmaceutical properties. Ahimsa can promote non-violence and abstinence, while meat, considered a therapeutic remedy, coexists with the promotion of vegetarianism, reflecting a compromise between Brahmanic ideals and the demands of therapeutics. With the introduction of a new type of opposition between pure and impure human beings and between castes within a hierarchy of castes, abstention from meat-eating became a criterion of purity. This development provided the context for the overall Hindu tradition based on juridical and religious principles. Ayurveda signifies ‘knowledge’ in the Vedas, and Ayurvedic doctors have superimposed the principle of flesh nourishing flesh onto the religious principles of purity and hierarchy. All animals living in water/marshy lands, such as pigs and buffalos, provide rich nourishment, whereas animals living on dry lands such as quail and partridge provide light nourishment, and a characteristic of animals was being a type of nutritive food, remedy or ‘seasoning’ (Zimmerman 1987, 126). Accordingly, cooking (methods for transforming raw materials) is viewed as the art of combining materials whose properties are complementary, and when mixed and cooked with various additives ‘meat develops new nutritive and fortifying powers: a superconcentrate, a synergy of the savors and virtues peculiar to each ingredient’ (Zimmerman 1987, 128). In Ayurvedic texts, ahimsa means both non-violence and the purity of whoever abstains from all violence. However, a paradox is evident, given that the principle of non-violence can coexist with violence as a therapeutic means. Thus, ahimsa can promote non-violence, abstinence and vegetarianism, and at the same time, under certain circumstances, it prescribes raw blood and the flesh of carnivores. Reasons that sanction meat-eating include emergency circumstances such as famines or diseases. A section of the book entitled ‘Reverence for the Bovine’ discusses various contradictions relating to the ox. The author states that the virtues of the meat of ox include its ability to cure disorders, whereas it is also considered the most unhealthy type of meat compared with the meat of other quadrupeds, thus setting the ox apart and distinguishing it from other animals: ‘It matters little whether the demarcation is positive (purifying) or negative (unhealthy)’ (Zimmerman 1987, 186). On the one hand, consecrated meats exist and, on the

88  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food other hand, prohibitions regarding meat-easting can be raised under distressing circumstances relating to everyday struggles and perils associated with family, politics and ritual responsibilities as well as sacrificial activities. This perspective is important for my argument that a systematic study of the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg understandings and practices must move beyond the dominant perspective that explores meat as an exception irrespective of its spatial/temporal context. Clearly, this discussion shows how ahimsa is more complex and contextual compared to Hindu nationalist ideas and ideals of strict vegetarianism. I consider these points in light of paradoxical meat modernity, showing how the functions of ‘nutrition’ were understood by my informants within a scientific framework as well as a spiritual/ethical framework. Classic studies such as the exploration of meat-eating among the KanyaKubja Brahmans portray meat-eating as exceptional. Traditionally, the majority of Brahmins were vegetarians and believed in and praised the concept of vegetarianism, while others were permitted to eat meat according to different types of religious reasoning and rationalizations used to justify their practice (Khare 1966). Ethnographic studies conducted in a village in northern India, in the 1950s and 1970s, demonstrated that the belief in the sanctity of zebu cows significantly influenced the demography of cattle and water buffalos in this village, that is, the relationship between Hindus and cows/buffalos were determined by beliefs and not so much by a cultural-ecological and functional rationale (Freed et al. 1981). Thus, there are two distinct categories of beef in India: cattle beef and buffalo beef. Existing regulation protects buffalos, but in no way near to the same extent as it protects cows, thus reflecting the significance of cows and their status within Hinduism (Staples 2018, 2020). Ethnographic explorations of Hindu meat-eating include a study of food consumption and friendship among Hindu college youths in Bengaluru (Dragsdahl 2016) as well as a village in Tamil Nadu with a specific focus on Hindu nationalism and violence (Sathyamala 2019). These studies document Hindu meat-eating in different contexts but pay less attention to why meateating is taking place. Examining successful Muslim butcher shops in Delhi, a study sheds light on why and how the meat sector, both domestic and for export, has developed in the last three decades (Ahmad 2018). This sector has witnessed the emergence of new technologies, new geographies and new economies in the post-colonial and especially the post-liberalization period. A study of the visual culture of meatshop signs in Delhi shows how these religious signs are concerned with morality and ethics expressed in a religious idiom. The emergent body of literature on animality in South Asia (Dave 2014; Govindrajan 2018; Narayanan 2018) is a welcome addition, as it provides a more nuanced portrayal compared with the predominant literature that mostly explores microsocial aspects such as everyday consumption among Hindu groups and, to a lesser extent, public vegetarianism/ non-vegetarianism that are central to my study. A study of butcher shops, cattle traders and beef eaters in South India (where most of my fieldwork also took place) among Christians and lower caste groups, in particular, shows that contrary to popular notions, the beef trade also directly

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  89 concerns Hindus. Meat production, trade and consumption have taken on new meanings in light of Hindu nationalism and liberalized markets, thus creating nuances in existing research on cow protectionism and pro-beef activists to capture frequently overlooked ambivalences. The question of vegetarianism is one that is ever-present in the country’s modern history (Staples 2018, 2019, 2020). Hindu meat-eating is often viewed as exceptional and/or generated by certain ritual or religious circumstances rather than as an everyday practice, and in many cases, locations such as Gujarat and Rajasthan, where vegetarianism is widespread among Hindu groups, are seen to be representative of India as a whole. As in historical works that associate vegetarianism with Hindu tradition, asceticism, and purity (e.g., Preece 2008; Spencer 1993), the dominant vegetarian ideology is evidently at work here. For the most part, these studies predate the retail revolution and a changing consumer culture that has gained momentum within the last decades or so and entailed the proliferation of (multinational) super/hypermarkets, and to the best of my knowledge, no systematic studies have explored the green/brown law from 2011 onwards. In short, a new type of meat modernity is being localized in Telangana. Specifically, in light of some of the theories and concepts introduced in Chapter 1, meat evidently plays an aesthetic and therapeutic role as a modern remedy.

Change of Scene: Hyderabad The changing food consumption patterns and dietary transitions among Hyderabad’s middle class reveal increasing consumer demands for greater diversity of food products, which can be attributed to economic growth, liberalized markets, new lifestyle choices and local/multinational super/hypermarkets (Dittrich 2009). The collection of data for the above study most probably took place some years earlier. This point is important because SPAR entered the Hyderabad market in 2007 and was one of the first multinational retailers to sell meat in close proximity to non-meat products. The city’s system of food retailing largely dominated by the informal sector, or the bazaar economy, including butcher shops, does not seem to apply now, as meat is sold both in butcher shops as well as in super/hypermarkets. My findings resonate with the above study’s conclusion regarding the negative effects of corporate retail outlets on established shopkeepers and vendors. Concerns about nutrition and food security are increasing as a result of changing food consumption patterns and dietary transitions among urban middle classes as well as a trend of disappearing traditional dishes and food preparation techniques. Middle-class dietary transformations include preferences for livestock and dairy products, sugar, fats, oils and processed convenience foods and drinks, all of which are readily available in the emerging supermarkets as well as pizzas, burgers, sweets and ice cream in fast-food outlets (Dittrich 2009). Simultaneously, premium foods, health foods, organic produce and dietary supplements are also growing in popularity in Hyderabad. An ethnography that explores diabetes and obesity in Mumbai focuses on the connections that people made between food and urban life, including how food produced by large

90  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food companies is promoted with reference to its ‘healthy’ qualities (Solomon 2016). Of specific relevance to my study are longstanding fears about food adulteration, which the food industry now addresses by producing and marketing branded, packaged and supposedly healthier/safer foods. In 2017, the first Human Development Report of the new state of Telangana Report was published by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies and the Planning Department of the government of Telangana. Positive trends revealed in the report include a decline in inequality among occupational groups, and in relation to gender and caste in rural and urban locations as a result of supportive public policies. However, the report revealed that formidable challenges remain, for example, in the area of health. Consequently, it advocated increased public expenditure on social and economic services. Health institutions, and public health, in particular, were important indicators for assessing the health status of a population. The report clearly drew attention to the inadequate and inefficient utilization of infrastructure, which has adversely affected the health status of the state’s population. Because of the inadequacy and low quality of public health care services, people were compelled to turn to local private health services, which were expensive. On the one hand, Telangana and Hyderabad could be considered quintessentially modern in terms of their social mobility and pluralized markets, but on the other hand, pollution and deteriorating living conditions attributed to urbanization and lifestyle diseases were also evident.

Middle-Class Consumption Arguably, scholarly interest in India’s middle class reveals a shift from the historically excessive stress on the centrality of caste as a key lens for understanding social stratification. I concur with the argument that caste-based analyses that disregard class logics and distinctions seem inadequate, especially when exploring urban ‘Indianness’ as ‘global, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated’ (Staples 2020, 12). Urban settings, such as Hyderabad, are often the sites where middle-class projects promoting social and physical mobility are implemented. New and luxurious housing estates constructed throughout urban India, such as apartments in Mumbai, are reportedly being sold exclusively to vegetarians/Brahmins, generating food-based exclusions that can be conceptualized as sensorial citizenship (Holwitt 2017). Typically, my informants lived in apartments in Hyderabad or in the suburb of Gachibowli, with no evidence to suggest that their residences were for vegetarians only. Controversies over what Hinduism is, or ought to be, are intensifying as more cultures of meat/non-veg consumption and green ideology assert themselves, and urban Hindu middle-class projects are shaped by these controversies. I use middleclass projects as a conceptual framework to capture the diversity involved in the constitution of the Hindu middle class. Focusing on middle-class projects entails assumptions about the performativity of social practices (Bourdieu 1984, 1990). Debates over proper (food) consumption are of particular significance among the Indian middle class; that is to say, Hindu middle-class projects are given shape in

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  91 the interfaces between revivalist Hinduism/Hindu nationalism, consumer culture and the blurred area of everyday respectability. In India, there is often a tension between how the state and civil society organizations, on the one hand, and people in their everyday lives, on the other, want to create and maintain cultural, religious and social cohesion. I capture the radical transformations in the landscapes of food in India by engaging with conceptions of food and memory, that is, historical consciousness related to food production, trade and consumption and identities (Sutton 2001). Food and memory provide a constructive ethnographic space in which to explore how globalization has intensified flows of veg/non-veg food and shaped changing food memory practices, production, commodification of nostalgia, new ecologies, scientific development and agricultural heritage. Closely related to food and memory, I explore how informants understand veg/non-veg ‘nutrition’ to function as both a scientific and a spiritual/ethical discipline. Nutrition serves this dual function by providing a range of scientific knowledge about food and the body as ‘spiritual’ disciplines. Additionally, subjects of modern dietary science are suffused with ethical and ‘spiritual’ problems in the form of government of food (Coveney 2000). I argue that moral status signals/boundaries and national repertoires (history, mass media, state-market nexus, educational system, demographic mobility, stratification systems, as well as ethnic diversity, among other things) are essential to classing projects (Lamont 1992). Class projects are also given substance by everyday practices, and hence class can be conceptualized as something that occurs in human relationships (Thompson 1963). Class happens when people, due to common experiences, ‘feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from and usually opposed to theirs’ (Thompson 1963, 9). My exploration of Indian middle-class projects in Hyderabad and its suburbs is focused on how to make sense of class as personal class experiences to move beyond the blurredness and imprecision of the middle-class concept and its ability to explain the origins of the modern world (Wallerstein 1991). Hence, the middle class occupies a mythical place in the advent of development and modernity, and my analysis is inspired by calls to explore the richness of class analysis by focusing on values, outlook, lifestyles, moral perspectives, perceptions of social change and political choices (King 2008). In India, the middle class has become a mythical national signifier of mental and material development, and it is to this aspect that I now turn. For the most part, the literature on the role of middle-class transformation in India and beyond (Säävälä 2001; Jaffrelot and van der Veer 2008; Baviskar and Ray 2011; Heimane et al. 2012; Brosius 2010) consists of sociological investigations preceding what I called the retail revolution and changing consumer culture in India. More recent studies explore the middle-class as characterized by cosmopolitan sensibilities (Gilbertson 2017). My study feeds into post-liberalization ethnographies of markets/advertising (Mazzarella 2003) and new forms of consumer citizenship (Lukose 2009). Most anthropological studies on India’s middle class explore this topic in terms of state and market, stressing the important

92  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food role that consumption has come to play in the post-liberalization era since 1991 (Fernandes 2000, 2006; Osella and Osella 2000; Mazzarella 2003; Donner 2011). While these studies are important, there is little empirical research on Hindu consumer cultures in the context of state, market and class transformation. Bourgeois environmentalism in Indian metropolises encompasses upper-class concerns around aesthetics, leisure, safety and health and significantly shapes the disposition of urban spaces (Baviskar 2011) – not unlike what I explore as the Second Green Revolution. Over the last two decades or so, the routes to middle-class status have diversified, with new groups and castes joining the ranks (De Neve 2011); at the same time, moral virtues affirm the notion of a middle-class identity (Deshpande 2003). Urban middle classes try to balance social change and global lifestyle modernity with a localized form of nostalgia for the supposedly traditional Indian family and its core values (Uberoi 2011). Food often has to do with love, devotion, sacrificial rituals and devotional rites rather than the sheer individualism of the shopper. Shopping may be directed at two forms of ‘otherness’: firstly, a relationship between the shopper and a significant other and, secondly, ‘a relationship to a more general goal transcending any immediate utility that is cosmological and takes the form of values to which people wish to dedicate themselves’ (Miller 1998, 78). These two aspects of consumption, the significance of others and the cosmological, permeate this chapter.

The Hyderabad Survey A survey I conducted in 2017–2018 among 1,000 respondents above the age of 15 in and around Hyderabad mapped food habits with specific reference to veg and non-veg, but also broader issues that were not included in the existing surveys discussed below. The survey was based on stratified random sampling in locations such as markets, educational institutions, workplaces and residential areas. Respondents were asked to give the following data or their opinions on: gender and age; caste; highest level of education; occupation; household size; annual household income; migration; religion; meat/non-meat; eggs/onion/garlic; shopping habits; (Hindu) dietary practice; health; green/brown labels; and politics. These were also among the questions I discussed with informants during the qualitative part of the fieldwork. Numbers have been rounded off and below I mainly pay attention to statistically significant points. Roughly half of the respondents were aged 30–39 years and about 20% were in each of the categories 20–29 and 40–49 years. The remaining respondents are either under 20 or above 50 years of age. Meat-eating was fairly evenly distributed in terms of age and gender. It should be noted that it was more difficult to have women fill in the questionnaire, but nevertheless the tendency is clear – roughly nine out of ten respondents ate meat. The age distribution also showed that most respondents were old enough to have experienced the major changes in food markets that have taken place over the last two decades or so. In terms of caste and religion, over 80% of respondents identified themselves as Hindus, less than 10% as Muslims and Christians (who were all meat-eaters)

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  93 and the remaining respondents as Buddhists and Jains, in that order. Regarding caste, respondents were asked to indicate the caste they felt they belonged to. Some informants listed specific caste groups such as Brahmin, while others listed broader categories such as the Open Category (OC): a category that includes people of the Varna system including Brahmin (Priest Community), Kshatriya (Ruler Community) and Vaishya (Business Community). In this category, 220 respondents specified their caste as Brahmin (74), Kamma (65), Reddy (46) and Vyshya (35). The Backward Classes (BC) comprised 40%: economically and socially backward classes who are mostly Hindus. In the BC category, more than 90% indicated that they ate meat. The BC-C category is exclusively for groups that converted to Christianity and was not actually a caste group. Respondents in this group were from Scheduled Castes, that is, socially/economically disadvantaged groups. In the OC category, about 75% of respondents were meat-eaters. Brahmins accounted for about 60% of meat-eaters. In terms of occupation and income (business owner​/prof​essio​nal/s​kille​d/sem​i-ski​lled/​house​wife/​stude​nt/un​ emplo​yed),​there was a fairly even distribution of meat-eaters at around 90%. However, among a small group of informants in the highest annual income category (above 1,000,000 Rupees (approx. US$ 12,000)), two tendencies were observed: while half of respondents in this group were meat-eaters, almost 40% chose not to answer this question. Thus, among the relatively small group of respondents with the highest incomes, meat-eating was comparatively lower and may be considered a sensitive issue. To a lesser extent, the issue of meat-eating as sensitive could also be observed among professionals (mostly IT professionals) and students. The lowest number of meat-eaters is found among ‘housewives’. In sum, survey data show that the higher their income, the more likely respondents were to be vegetarians even if the majority remain meat-eaters. Household size and migration (comparing locals and migrants who arrived within the last two years) have an insignificant impact on meat-eating. Respondents were asked about their meat-eating habits, and here we see that 90% of meateaters consumed a complex combination of chicken, mutton, pork, beef and fish. The general trend was that chicken was the most popular meat, followed by mutton and fish. Pork consumption accounted for 2%, while beef accounted for 5%. When it comes to the caste groups, among BCs the most popular meats were chicken, mutton and fish, while the OC preferred mutton. Among Christians, it was chicken, mutton and fish, and among Muslims it was chicken, mutton, beef and fish. Altogether, chicken, mutton and fish were the most popular meats eaten by respondents. Meat was eaten by 80% of respondents on a weekly basis, while about 10% ate meat either on a daily or monthly basis. The general trend was the higher the income, the lower the frequency of meat-eating. Respondents who answered that they ate meat because it was healthy comprised 25%, and 20% said it was because it was healthy and tasty, and another important reason was family, that is, meat-eating together in families. The survey shows that 85% of respondents’ households ate meat, while 15% of households did not and thus not all households of meat-eating respondents ate meat.

94  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food Respondents who reported buying meat at butcher shops comprised 40%, with 15% buying at wet/farmers markets, 10% online and 10% in hypermarkets while the remaining respondents listed markets, supermarkets (frozen meat) and grocery stores. The higher their income, the more likely respondents were to buy meat at hypermarkets and not at farmers’ markets or butcher shops. Eggs can be considered veg as well as non-veg by different Hindu groups, and the survey shows that about 90% ate eggs, including vegetarians. Among respondents who identified themselves as vegetarians, 5%, significant variables were occupation (skilled/semi-skilled labourers are not vegetarians), Hinduism, caste (BC) and earning a middle income, while insignificant variables are age, gender and education. As dominant reasons for vegetarianism/not eating meat, respondents listed family background (30%), health (25%) and religion (10%). Respondents were asked about their familiarity with the green and brown labels issued by the FSSAI, and their answers showed that 75% were not familiar with these labels. Comparatively, meat-eaters had less trust in logos. Wealthier respondents showed more trust in logos than more disadvantaged groups and the reason for this was that they were familiar with the logos in the first place. Respondents were also asked about the relationship between the BJP and vegetarianism, that is, to what extent BJP politicians can be considered vegetarians. Respondents who believed them to be meat-eaters comprised 40%, while 30% were undecided, and 30% believed this not to be the case. Respondents who believed that the BJP promotes vegetarianism comprised 40%, while 35% did not believe this to be the case, and 25% were undecided. To sum up, the vast majority of (Hindu) respondents were meat-eaters who listed reasons such as health, taste and family-related issues for meat-eating. Thus, regardless of age, gender, education/income and caste, the idea that meat, and non-veg more generally, was healthy had become widespread. However, among the small group of vegetarians, health-related beliefs were also motivating factors only surpassed by family concerns. Moreover, eggs, onion and garlic were widely consumed not only among meat-eaters but also among vegetarians. The majority of meat-eaters consumed meat on a weekly basis, and as income levels rise, meat was more frequently bought in hypermarkets, where respondents come into contact with the green and brown labels. However, the vast majority of informants were not familiar with these labels. Many respondents believed that the BJP promotes vegetarianism while BJP politicians were meat-eaters. These findings contrast with the Indian vegetarian ideology – meat-eating was dominant across all social groups. The survey findings reveal that meat modernity or ‘meatification’ dominate across social groups, but, as we shall in the conclusion below, the qualitative data from the Hindu middle class offers a detailed contextualization of the survey findings. Meat production, export and consumption are increasing in India, as in most parts of the Global South (Devi et al. 2014; OECD/FAO 2019). High levels of meat consumption are typically seen in places where the proportions of Muslims, Christians, tribal populations or lower castes are highest. Pork is often seen as

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  95 impure and is avoided by many consumers. Beef avoidance is still strong among middle- and high-caste Hindu families and among some low-caste communities that have given up eating beef as a strategy for achieving upward social mobility. New and more individual forms of ethical vegetarianism are also emerging among the urban middle classes. These new forms of vegetarianism, some of which are purportedly Western-influenced, blend moral, ritual, hygienic and sometimes environmental concerns (Pingali and Khawaja 2004). Medical and dietary laws also account for the low intake of meat in India (Ahmad 2013). While my survey findings resonate with some broader tendencies in these studies it was clear that meat-eating and non-vegetarianism dominate in Telangana. India’s average meat consumption in 2015–2017 was estimated to be 5.1 kilos per person per year, which is expected to grow to 7 kilos in 2027 (OECD/FAO 2019). Driven by the demands of an increasingly urbanized population with higher incomes and changing food habits, India’s poultry meat production has been rising at an annual average of about 5% in recent years. In 2018, the poultry output was estimated at 3.7 million tons, of which over 80% was estimated to have been contributed by the organized sector. In India, beef output growth appears to have slowed down following the introduction of laws restricting cow slaughter that are currently in force in 23 out of 29 states, and because of difficulties transporting animals (OECD/FAO 2019). From 2006 to 2020, the volume of meat produced in India increased from 2.3 to 8.8 metric million tons, and from 2012 to 2021, the sales value of packaged meat and seafood increased from 104.9 to 281 million US$ (Statista 2022b,c). Most of India’s majority Hindu population (about 80% of the population in 2011) does not eat cattle beef (United States Department of Agriculture 2016). The results of a recent survey showed that while less than 1% of Hindus in the Hindi-speaking heartland eat beef/buffalo meat, this number is increasing on a national scale, especially in the southern states (The Hindu, 29 October 2016). Only 30% of the Indian population is strictly vegetarian (Robbins 1999), and meat consumption levels are among the lowest globally. Recent quantitative studies have shown that the extent of overall vegetarianism is much less and the extent of overall meat-eating much more than suggested by the prevailing claims and stereotypes. No more than 30% and, more realistically, closer to 20% of the Indian population are complete vegetarians (Natrajan and Jacob 2018). In India as a whole, Hindu meat-eaters outnumber vegetarians, except in Gujarat, but even in this state, only 69% of Brahmins are vegetarians (Fourat et al. 2018a). In South India, Brahmins are generally known to be lacto-vegetarians (Sen 2004) An article titled ‘The Food Habits of a Nation’ (The Hindu, 14 August 2012), reporting on the findings of the Hindu-CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey, challenged India’s image as a predominantly vegetarian country and confirmed the widespread impression that the popular image of a vegetarian India is off the mark. The findings of the survey showed that only 31% of Indians are vegetarians. Further, census data (Office of Registrar General & Census Commissioner 2014) reveal that Telangana has the highest number of non-vegetarians (99%), while

96  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat top the list for the highest numbers of vegetarians. An article titled ‘70 Per Cent of Hyderabadis are Non-Vegetarians’ revealed that 70% of Hyderabadis are non-vegetarians (The Hindu, 1 March 2014) and that there are nearly 3,000 retail meat shops in the metropolitan area (960 mutton shops, 681 beef shops, 1,077 dressed chicken outlets, and 241 other outlets that sell eggs, pork and fish). The central government has encouraged the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to ‘modernize’ and ‘green’ the state’s slaughterhouses and meat shops. In surveys, Hindu meat-eaters outnumber vegetarians (except in states such as Gujarat), but data do not really offer any detailed insights on why and how this is the case. I will add a qualitative perspective to findings from surveys, that is, how my Hindu middle-class informants understand and practise veg and non-veg.

Veg or Non-veg? I selected key informants among Hindu middle-class groups within the complex setting of Telangana/Hyderabad to ensure a good representative spread. Through its focus on health-related beliefs, food shopping, social differentiation and eating out, as well the politics of vegetarianism, including vegetarian regulation, my analysis explores how vegetarianism is conditioned by and itself conditions forms of middle-classness. I explore the consequences of processed and packaged foods that carry green/brown labels, such as the instant noodles depicted in Figure 1.1. Such products reflect the penetration of global capitalism and signify a form of ‘consumer citizenship’ (Baviskar 2018), wherein industrialized foods enable affluent groups of consumers to assert that they belong to the modern world and transform social relations within India. Thus, there is more to vegetarianism than meets the eye; it is not simply a matter of personal choice, and it is also distinct from the Brahmanical rationale of purity. Health-Related Beliefs This section introduces my informants and the theme of health-related beliefs. In studies of Hindu cosmology, food and drink are closely associated with bodily substances, health, well-being and purity/pollution (Malamoud 1996). Concerns about nutrition and food security are increasing as a result of changing food consumption patterns and dietary transitions among urban middle classes as well as a trend of disappearing traditional dishes and food preparation techniques. At the same time, the first Human Development Report of the new state of Telangana discussed above revealed a decline in inequality among occupational groups/gender/caste, that is, social mobility, health and health care services remain challenges. The question is why and how the green ideology and meat modernity condition health-related beliefs in the Hindu middle class. Among the vegetarians, Kalpana, a single woman in her 40s, was originally from a North Indian state. She worked as a teacher in higher education and explained that she belonged to the Rajput caste comprising members of the

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  97 Kshatriya (warrior/ruling) caste. She noted that the state she moved from in North India was an agricultural state, where people consumed mostly vegetables and only a little meat. Although Kalpana was a vegetarian, she ate eggs. Her brother’s family ate meat, and she considered veg and non-veg to be ‘individual choices’. Kalpana believed that in general, Indians eat meat for reasons of taste rather than health and that low meat consumption was the healthiest habit. Her dietary considerations related to sourcing veg produce with reduced quantities of pesticides or chemicals and to the heating/cooling properties of food; for example, kachouri (a spicy snack) was always accompanied by curd because it has heating properties, whereas curd has cooling properties. Sanjay, who was originally from a state in South India, was a single man in his 40s who also worked as a teacher in higher education. Sanjay, a Brahmin, was flexible about foodways and was not ‘brought up’ in a strict vegetarian ‘tradition’ because he had lived in states across India that all had diverse food cultures. Sanjay used to believe that meat-eating would make men muscular, but now he was convinced that vegetarianism/veganism was a better lifestyle for cultivating stamina and avoiding diseases. He noted that there is an Ayurvedic medicine made from goat meat, but the only non-veg remedy he had tried was ‘fish medicine’ that was dispensed annually in Hyderabad against cough and cold. Like Kalpana, Sanjay was aware of the heating and cooling properties of food, so when eating mango (a heating food), he drank milk (cooling). Uma was a married woman in her 50s who lived with her husband and two children in an apartment in HITEC City (the acronym stands for Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy) outside Hyderabad. Uma was originally from a state in eastern India, but she and her husband, who both held degrees in IT, moved to Hyderabad to work in that field. Although Uma was a Brahmin, hailing from a coastal area in eastern India, she also previously consumed fish. ‘However, I had a wish [that I wanted] to be fulfilled. If that wish got fulfilled, then I promised God to give up something that is very dear to me,’ she explained. Consequently, Uma gave up fish two decades back and adhered to strict vegetarianism ever since, but not for health reasons. Uma did not prepare fried foods at home for ‘health reasons’, but that was not the case when she went out. She concluded: ‘I would say probably it is healthier to be a non-vegetarian. You need protein.’ During consultations, her doctor would ask whether she was a vegetarian to check for any nutritional deficiencies. When we discussed heating and cooling food types, Uma explained that she avoided spices and never had biryani, adding that she followed the Ayurveda principles whenever it was necessary. Praveen was a married man in his 40s who lived in an independent house in Gachibowli. He held a degree in computer science and works in the field of IT and computer security. His family was originally from Andhra Pradesh/Telangana. Praveen was a Brahmin and had always been a strict ovo-vegetarian. He wore the traditional black attire associated with Hindu worship and explained that his father followed vegetarianism because he thought it was ‘all about tradition’. Praveen was not sure whether or not it was healthier to be a vegetarian; as long as the required vitamin B12 (important for metabolism and the nervous system) was consumed through, for example, flaxseeds, good health was assured.

98  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food Turning to the non-vegetarians, Ajay was a single man in his early 40s who moved from an eastern state of India to Gachibowli to work in IT. His caste was Kshatriya and, in his own words, he was relaxed about religion. Ajay’s family is non-veg and they ate meat a couple of times a week: family members would eat meat on Wednesdays and Sundays and prepared non-veg food at home only. Ajay was now non-veg but revealed that he kept switching between veg and non-veg. Before one of our talks, he had had chicken biryani as well as mutton curry, but he did not eat beef. He had been vegetarian for the last eight years, but three months back started eating non-veg because of health concerns: his doctor said he was low in B12 and advised him to take meat. So, I am eating meat as a medicine rather than food. I have read it in the scriptures, even Ayurveda has some meat in it, but recently Ayurveda does not give non-veg medicines. I am a vegetarian: not for religious, but nonviolence reasons. In fact, from my childhood I am taking non-vegetarian, but I don’t eat beef for religious reasons. These points reflect many of the multiplicities involved when challenging the veg/ non-veg binary: the uneasy position of meat as medicine/remedy and the greening of Ayurveda as well as the way in which people may switch between veg and non-veg depending on condition and context. Ajay ‘experimented’ with veganism, but gave it up after a couple of months and he could not really feel much of a difference when switching back and forth between veg and non-veg. In general, Ajay did not believe that it could be decided whether veg or non-veg was the healthier choice. Kishan is a single self-employed computer graduate in his 40s, who worked in IT before opening an organic store. He was from the Kamma caste, and the family was originally from a state in south-eastern India, but lived in several Indian states before settling in Hyderabad. His family was farmers and he was compelled to continue that tradition and opened the organic store. He explained that ‘most of the time’ he was a vegetarian, but if there was no option, he would definitely go for non-veg. Similarly, his family was also mostly vegetarians, but for festivals and special occasions, they would eat non-veg. Before starting the business, most of the time Kishan preferred eating non-veg. As a bachelor, Kishan did not generally cook and used to stay in hostels where chicken was consumed a couple of times a week. After he graduated and got a job with a good income, he would go to pubs with colleagues and drink and eat meat almost every day. If cooking at home, it was mostly eggs and vegetables. Now, he only ate meat once a month and did not buy it himself. If meat was served, he would prefer chicken. He explained that he was ‘absolutely’ not a vegan due to his preference for dairy products and was unconvinced by veganism because humans have consumed milk and milk products through the ages for health benefits such as calcium, which was good for the bones. He did not eat processed food and had been used to his mother preparing all meals and snacks such as biscuits from scratch, but now that was changing rapidly with bakeries and general availability. Kishan believed in Ayurveda products but did not know a lot about them. In

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  99 general, he was undecided regarding veg or non-veg being the healthier option. Abhisek and Debasmita were a couple in their 30s with a young son. The family lived in a flat in central Hyderabad. The couple studied in South India and moved from an eastern Indian state to Hyderabad to work in the pharmaceutical industry. Out of passion, Abhisek started his venture to connect with Indian artists and kept travelling across India. He also owned a retail store of artefacts and handlooms in the city of Hyderabad. Abhisek believed that ‘the first and foremost religion is to be a human. I’m God-fearing, but first comes humanity, then my country and my state, deeper down probably you will find at the minute level that I belong to Hinduism, but I’m flexible.’ Abhisek was, in his own words, ‘General caste’ and ‘a hardcore non-vegetarian.’ He would normally consume poultry and sometimes mutton on a daily basis, but not beef. The couple’s entire family and community were non-veg, they asserted. As Abhisek explained, the family took meat because The very existence of humans, every living being for that matter, is nonvegetarian. Even when you were in the womb of your mother, you were fed with the nutrients of your mother, the milk and so on. It is only once you come out due to certain things prevailing in the world you start to distinguish yourself as veg or non-veg. Similarly, Abhisek’s wife, Debasmita, was also a non-vegetarian. Her family was originally from a state in eastern India and she revealed that during Hindu festivals the food served never included onion and garlic, and meat was out of the question. In the family’s home, it was mostly ‘live meat’ that was consumed, that is, the animal was slaughtered and cut at the butchers while the customer waits, but Hindus were not strict about the cutting while Sikhs were particular about jhatka. When we discussed food scares and pollution, Abhisek explained that during monsoon flooding, the family was careful when buying meat to avoid any pollution, and the government would launch campaigns to address these issues. In the eyes of Abhisek, consuming meat in connection with heating and cooling effects was important: ‘Healthy food is balanced food. A balanced meal can consist of cereals, rice, carbohydrates, protein and fat.’ When reflecting on the point that in ancient Ayurveda meat can also have certain medicinal properties, Abhisek argued that there were mixed schools of thought: some would say that meat and beef can help, and others that it cannot. He was not aware of anyone taking meat as medicine. In the eyes of Abhisek and Debasmita, meat and non-veg were essential to everyday nutrition and the aspect of taste was also important. According to Debasmita, a good meal cooked with utmost care and choice of ingredients was always relished. They never had meals with meat/non-veg only, as meals would always include a fair amount of vegetables, pulses and rice. Usha was a higher education teacher and her husband, Arjun, worked as a researcher. In their 60s, the couple had three adult sons and the family lived in a house in Gachibowli. Usha and Arjun were both Brahmins and originally came from North India. Usha considered herself a vegetarian who ate eggs, onion and garlic, but Arjun and their sons were non-vegetarian. She explained that the family was not very strict

100  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food vegetarians: while in India they were ‘mainly’ vegetarian, but when abroad due to lack of choices, they would take non-veg. Arjun liked Western non-veg items like marinated and roasted meat and when Usha travelled to Africa in connection with her husband’s work, she had non-veg food, and in Hyderabad, she also took the famous biryani. Conversely, her mother was a strict vegetarian, and when visiting the family, she would complain about eggs being consumed. Arjun suggested that the men in the family would ‘take anything’, including beef and pork. Usually, Arjun bought the meat and explained that at times, as we shall see below in connection with social differentiation, he felt that there was a kind of double standard relating to ideals/practice among some Brahmins: pretending that you are someone you are not with specific reference to veg ideals that are not always translated into everyday practice. The couple were both ‘high-class Brahmins’, but in North India, where they were from, goats were sacrificed to the Goddess, and to Usha and Arjun this example showed the diversity and ambiguity of the veg/non-veg binary in India. According to Uma, their son was a ‘staunch’ non-vegetarian, but now that he was married, their daughter-in-law decided that on Tuesdays and Saturdays non-veg was strictly prohibited and, in that way, changes in social life conditioned food habits. Usha reasoned that she ate meat because of the taste and not health, but concluded that it was healthier to be a vegetarian. Prashanta was a man in his mid-40s who lived with his wife and son in a flat in Gachibowli. He held a university degree and worked in IT. He was born in a western state of India, where his family still lived. Prashanta’s entire family was ‘strictly non-vegetarian Brahmins’. His father was born in a village and Prashanta considered his father to be orthodox and very religious, but the family had to move around because of his father’s job and that generated an understanding and flexibility about the bigger world beyond their hometown. The only types of food Prashanta avoided were those considered ‘unhealthy’ that would make you put on weight, for example. Today, most of all Prashanta and his wife were, above all, ‘paranoid’ about not putting on weight beyond what it should be. All of my informants are acutely aware of health concerns that are intimately linked to a plethora of food choices available within the urban environment, and the term ‘health’ was generally used within a discourse encompassing scientific ideas about nutrition as well as within a discourse on spiritual/ritual aspects, though not to the same extent. Several informants mentioned that a B12 deficiency could be problematic and strategized on how this issue could be addressed. In general, the topic of veg/non-veg as it relates to health is fraught with a multiplicity of sometimes overlapping arguments and discourses, whereas flexibility about foodways is a finding that runs through veg/non-veg understandings and practices as middle-class projects. Shopping for Food The themes of the retail revolution and a changing consumer culture, the green ideology/Second Green Revolution and meat modernity inform this discussion of shopping for food. These issues are as salient as ever in urban India, and among the

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  101 vegetarians, Kalpana normally ate at home because she preferred her food to be as fresh as possible and typically bought vegetables at a local farmers’ market. Only occasionally did she go to super/hypermarkets, and she still preferred ‘fresh stuff’, from the farmers’ market, thus avoiding the smelly meat section in hypermarkets. Like several other informants, Sanjay did not mind buying meat for friends at butcher shops, but he generally avoided the meat sections in super/hypermarkets because of the smell. Within her household, Uma was mostly responsible for food shopping and went to the farmers’ market and supermarkets (that only sell frozen meat/fish) as well as to Hindu and Muslim butchers to buy meat for her family. As his family’s groceries were mostly home-delivered, Praveen did not go shopping in the nearby super/hypermarkets unless it was ‘very necessary’. When going to the nearby Star Hyper, he did not mind the fact that fresh meat was sold there. When we discussed changes in meat-eating habits and the reasons why meat was becoming more readily available in India, Praveen offered the explanation that it was because of the contact with outsiders and that more and more people were travelling abroad and encountering non-veg lifestyles. Within the non-veg group, Ajay typically bought his food, including meat and fish, at smaller shops, including organic products in Gachibowli. He preferred organic products because he could afford ‘some good food’, but ‘whatever organic we are getting is not really organic. I try to trust the food I buy, but there is no trust.’ These sentiments demonstrate that trust in food regulation, except for the veg/non-veg law as we shall see below, was generally low and food scandals were frequent in the media. Organic production in India is mostly veg, so the lack of trust in organic or green products challenges what I called meat modernity in support of a Second Green Revolution. Unsurprisingly, Kishan preferred nonprocessed organic food from his own store. Abhisek and Debasmita shopped for fish and groceries in SPAR because it was a one-stop shop for a wide variety of fish and even live fish, but for meat they would go to a local butcher shop. Both Abhisek and Debasmita did the shopping. Abhisek noted that in Indian supermarkets only a narrow selection of frozen meat was available, so consumes did not go there for the meat. Conversely, there was a wide selection of fresh meat in SPAR, for example, and that attracted many non-veg customers. For Debasmita, in the wake of super/hypermarkets such as SPAR around the corner that sell meat, Hindus have started eating sausages and also eating beef, that is picking up. Maybe also because they go to Western countries and they come back and continue the same thing and then there’s better availability in Ratnadeep and SPAR. This is ‘the Hyderabad effect’. This quote speaks directly to the three themes that run through this book and below I shall further explore this based on going shopping with informants. Debasmita noted that the price of live fish that was available in SPAR was going up because of higher demand, and this was felt in the family’s budget, as fish was consumed on a daily basis – mostly river fish and prawns. Out of seven days, five days they ate fish and one day it was either egg or meat. Fish and meat are not

102  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food eaten together; it was one or the other. Usually, the family would eat vegetables and lentils as a main course and fish as a side dish. Usha and Arjun both agree that non-veg prices had gone up over the last few decades – especially in super/hypermarkets, where prices were twice those in butcher shops. The family preferred meat from butcher shops because it was ‘fresher’. Arjun had taken ‘a little bit of beef once or twice’. The couple usually cooked meat every third day, mostly chicken and mutton, but also fish. Usha revealed that ‘We have taboo for beef, so we don’t cook it at home.’ Arjun was not impressed by the expensive mutton and chicken that could be found in Star Hyper near their home or Hypercity in Inorbit Mall; he felt more comfortable with more inexpensive meat that he always bought in butcher shops. For vegetables, Prashanta’s family shopped at Ratnadeep, SPAR, Star Hyper or Hypercity. For meat, Prashanta was particular, especially regarding traceability, and he found that the best quality was hard to get and only available in a remote suburb of Hyderabad. Prashanta and his wife often went to the organic shop in Gachibowli – their first time there was to buy a clay pot in which to make curd, and subsequently the shop would send an SMS every Saturday saying: ‘Fresh foods have come – please come and check.’ When we discussed organic meat, Prashanta argued that in India, organic products were ‘abused’: ‘How can we trust the certification?’, he asked and explained that organics had mushroomed because of FSSAI certification, but you could simply pay for a certificate. At the same time, foreign organic products with better certification were unappealing because by the time the product had reached India, they had lost their freshness. In general, my informants frequented bazaars and farmers’ markets as well as super/hypermarkets, demonstrating diverse and flexible shopping practices. Shopping for food often has to do with love or devotion rather than the individual needs of the shopper and several veg informants would not mind buying meat for relatives, for example. Convenience when shopping for food runs through these discussions even if some veg informants note that the smell of meat, for example, discourages them from coming too near the meat counter in hypermarkets. Social Differentiation and Eating Out Many studies challenge the idea that vegetarianism is associated with Brahmins and non-vegetarianism with non-Brahmins, arguing that a more complex and changing array of dietary choices exists within Brahmin and non-Brahmin middle-class populations (Caplan 2008; Donner 2008; Chigateri 2018; Desai 2008; Michelutti 2008). While subaltern groups are normatively non-vegetarian, many dominant groups are normatively vegetarian on the one hand and on the other hand vegetarianism is associated with non-violence, a cornerstone for upper-caste Hindus’ claims to moral, spiritual and personal superiority within a discourse that commonly denigrates Muslims and Dalits, deemed untouchable, as inferior and violent meat-eaters (Osella 2008). Preceding the retail revolution and changing consumer culture, some studies approach food from the aspect of social differentiation such as caste, class, gender and kinship, as well as foreign foods that may

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  103 be particularly susceptible to pollution (Caplan 2001), thus warranting the display of proper labels. Among the veg group of informants, social dimensions that include social differentiation/distinctions and ‘eating out’ prevailed. Kalpana rarely ate out as she would like to be in control of her own cooking ensuring that it was as fresh as possible. She was unsure whether the veg/non-veg relationship was changing in India as she only knew veg people and was therefore unable to make comparisons. She opined that there was now more ‘flexibility’ among Brahmin communities who lived modern lives, particularly non-resident Indians in developed countries. At the same time, top non-Brahmin communities said that they were better than Brahmins because of their non-meat-eating habits. Kalpana revealed that religion and caste identities were unimportant in her life and that she did not believe in or practise them. In general, as noted above, she considered veg and non-veg to be individual choices. To Kalpana, vegetarianism in India was highly diverse in terms of regions and communities; for example, in states like Bengal, vegetarianism also included fish. At Kalpana’s workplace, there were only two vegetarians; the rest of her colleagues consumed non-veg food, but there were non-veg people who only consumed veg meals on certain occasions or on particular days in the week. She explained: ‘We do not call them vegetarians. Even in my family no one calls me a vegetarian; they call me [an] eggetarian.’ Kalpana expressed no preference for products prepared by vegetarians and she did not mind who cooked her food. She would happily go to a Muslim restaurant and eat only vegetarian food. Many of my discussions with veg informants focused on their workplaces and on ‘eating out’ more generally. For example, only two staff members at Sanjay’s workplace were veg, the rest being non-veg. Although Sanjay had been a vegetarian since childhood, he qualified his vegetarianism by saying that once in a while he used to eat meat. His father took meat sometimes. Among his relatives and friends, not eating meat was not a compulsion, while his mother had been vegetarian since childhood. Consequently, Sanjay consumed meat for periods of time because many of his friends were from different communities. Only after reading Tibetan philosophy did he decide not to eat meat: influenced by this philosophy he stopped eating meat in 2009. Sanjay argued that non-veg consumption was becoming more popular for three reasons: the ‘rise’ of dishes, such as biryani; as a practice associated with ‘entertainment’ (for the younger generation); and masculinity: a person who consumed meat was considered a hunter. The term dawat (literally, ‘feast’ in Hindi, which includes liquor as well) was used in this part of Hyderabad. Similarly, Sanjay had no preference for dishes prepared by Hindus; in general, he felt that a cook’s ability to cater to the preferred tastes of other groups was more important than the issue of non-veg contamination. He did not really mind who cooked his food; going to a Chinese restaurant (in South India, Chinese cuisine is considered quintessentially non-veg) as long as there was a veg option, but, as Sanjay explained, this would be problematic for the older generation, who was often more conservative. Today, if two or three people – both veg and non-veg – went to a restaurant and ordered a biryani, the non-veg people would eat pieces of meat and the vegetarians would only eat the

104  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food rice: ‘That flexibility is there now,’ he concluded. Uma had never eaten beef, and her paternal family had always been vegetarian. Conversely, her maternal family was non-veg, as was her husband and son who consumed ‘all kinds of meat; beef too. He finds it tastes best, and I think it’s more of a rebellion. He can’t cook beef at home.’ Similarly, going to a Muslim or non-veg restaurant was not a problem for Uma: she did not care who was cooking the food as long as the non-veg vessel was not used and it was clean. Marwaris [a vegetarian merchant group traditionally from Rajasthan], Jains and Gujaratis wanted chicken and paneer from completely separate sections, she suggested. Uma mentioned an amusing WhatsApp message describing eight kinds of vegetarians in India, including the ones who said, ‘I eat vegetarian at home, but I eat non-veg outside,’ and ‘I eat it [veg] on certain days.’ Additionally, the definition of non-veg was changing, and, according to Uma, a lot of people considered fish and eggs as vegetarian. Even though Praveen was a strict vegetarian, he was very flexible about who cooked his food when he ate out and also when he travelled around India in connection with his work. In other words, Praveen did not mind going to a non-veg restaurant to enjoy a veg dish. Thus, the link between high social status and vegetarianism was being challenged, and now Brahmins ate non-veg ‘even at marriages,’ Praveen revealed. He observed that India was ‘God-fearing’, and Hindu non-vegetarians would give up eating meat on particular days. Praveen identified two categories of vegetarians: the first category consisted of vegetarians by choice and the second consisted of vegetarians by religion/caste. The second category, Praveen argued, was related to the type of work that people did. As a Brahmin or priest, it was important to utter certain words quickly and fluently, and these words are not easy to pronounce. Meat-eating made pronunciation as well as fluency difficult. Hence, Brahmins denounced meat-eating. Other caste groups did not eat meat because of mythological reasons, and some business communities believed that eating meat made the mind ‘dumb or less functional.’ He concluded that it is the call of individuals whether to follow vegetarianism or not. In the non-veg group, Ajay would go to any restaurant while Kishan never went to the nearby hypermarket (that had a takeaway counter), but he did frequent nonveg as well as veg restaurants with Brahmin friends. Veg Brahmin friends would also go to a non-veg restaurant and order veg. For both informants, social differentiation linked to veg/non-veg food preferences played minor roles. Abhisek’s family mostly ate in, but they also went to non-veg restaurants sometimes. The family tried to avoid processed foods and believed in home cooking, but often frequented fast-food outlets such as KFC. Similarly, Usha and her husband often went out for breakfast, for example, and many years of travelling had made them pragmatic and flexible. Often, the family would go to restaurants for mutton or chicken biryani and Usha noted that ‘it is very funny the way we are brought up to avoid any non-veg’: the veg/non-binary seemed paradoxical in today’s rapidly changing India. At Prashanta’s workplace, several of his colleagues were vegetarians, but most of them were vegetarians by choice: well-to-do people who had been consuming non-veg but decided to be veg. There were also people who were vegetarians because of religion or because of the place they came from. Along

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  105 the same lines, Prashanta explained that the large number of veg restaurants was a kind of branding to avoid competing with the non-veg majority of restaurants. Personally, Prashanta frequented ‘any’ restaurant according to his cravings. Before one of our meetings, he had had red meat and explained that tomorrow he wanted to give meat ‘a break’ and have veg such as ‘simple curd’. Discussions on veg/non-veg social differentiation and ‘eating out’ with veg informants revealed a large degree of flexibility: none of my informants expressed a preference for food that was produced or sold by a member of their own ethnic/class/caste/gender/occupational group. This finding distinguishes my study from many other studies, seemingly indicating the full impact of standardized and impersonal consumption that is disconnected from individuals’ age-old social relationships of trade and trust within their own social groups. In other words, these points mark a transition from Hindu dietary law to law as culture in Telangana. Most of my informants were from mobile families comprising both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, so veg/non-veg was characterized by choice and arguments rather than by social orthodoxy. The purity/pollution binary was most of all related to vessels, for example, in restaurants and not so much to the ‘other’. The Politics of Green and Brown Meat-eating and vegetarianism play important roles in the violence inflicted in the context of extreme Hindu nationalism against Muslims in the state of Gujarat in 2002 (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). This ethnography explores the deployment of the concept of ahimsa within the media and in contexts of violence and of everyday life, demonstrating how ethnic and religious differences between Hindus and Muslims were constructed through diet, animal slaughter and religious sacrifice. Rage against stereotypically bloodthirsty and violent Muslims was fuelled among stereotypically pious, vegetarian Hindus. At the time of fieldwork for this study, restaurants, including McDonald’s, had started to cater to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, and when the author returned to Ahmedabad in 2008, new malls and supermarkets had appeared. Defence of the practice of vegetarianism appeared to be less vigorous, as the younger generation of the new middle class seemed to be inclined toward eating meat, even though national interest in vegetarian politics had not dwindled. I consider this pivotal moment, entailing both new and sanitized forms of meat-eating and vegetarianism, as the starting point for my own study. A mere three years later in 2011, the green/brown labels were introduced at the national scale, adding a new layer of significance to the existing veg/cow politics leveraged within electoral strategies that have induced communal tensions and violence (Bruckert 2019). In the context of the politics of green/brown in the veg group of informants, Kalpana pointed to a disjuncture between the image of India as a predominantly vegetarian country and the observable reality. When we discussed the introduction of the green/brown labels, Kalpana argued that with the exception of products containing eggs, she chose products with the green mark. In the eyes of Sanjay, the image of a vegetarian India had been created by the Brahmin elites on the

106  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food one hand, even if they themselves were non-veg, and by Western fascination with vegetarianism and yoga as quintessential Hindu practices on the other hand. Consequently, this was also why Dalits arranging beef festivals and eating beef was so problematic in Hindu debates. Sanjay first noticed the green/brown labels about five years back when his friend drew attention to their existence. Sanjay, however, did not consume bakery products made with eggs and asserted that he only ate products with green labels on them. He was aware that the labels were issued by the FSSAI, but never noticed labels on personal care products such as toothpaste. These labels changed his shopping habits because before these labels, he did not do shopping in supermarkets. Earlier Sanjay used to buy food in traditional shops where there is no packaging. However, once he was in a shop where the green label was put on a product he considered to be non-veg. Similarly, when he was at a non-veg restaurant, he was unsure whether the same vessel was used to prepare both veg and non-veg dishes or whether different vessels are used. Sanjay speculated that the labels were introduced to avoid contamination: many conspiracy theories emerged after the liberalization of Indian markets in the early 1990s. These included ‘infiltrations’ such as McDonaldization, tainting food and challenging the whole idea of purity. Hindu nationalism pushed for veg regulation based on electoral politics but not on ideology. When we discussed India’s projected image as a vegetarian country, Uma argued that it was ‘totally untrue’. In her entire circle of friends, she was probably the only vegetarian. Everybody else ate meat and that was their choice. Some of Uma’s friends were veg on Tuesdays, some on Thursdays, and others on Saturdays. Echoing these sentiments, Uma argued that most of the abattoirs were illegal and that their regulation, based on licenses, was necessary. She did not believe that there was any relationship between BJP-dominated states and the number of vegetarians: this image was created, above all, by the media and ‘politics’. Conjecturing, she suggested that in Telangana, hardly 10% of the population were veg, and this figure matches my survey data. She noted that it was not only because Hyderabad was historically a Muslim state but also the rigidity was not there anymore. For example, her friends ate meat and it was not a problem as long as it was not cooked at home. People were changing and perceptions were changing in the context of increased meat/ non-veg availability, she concluded. Uma noticed when the green/brown labels were introduced and she was aware of the labels when shopping and would not buy a product with a brown mark. She did not realize that it is the FSSAI that put the labels on products. Praveen argued that India was a God-fearing country and that a politics of vegetarianism was prominent. He was aware that PM Modi was a vegetarian and politically there was a ban on eating beef in some places because the cow was a holy animal discouraging beef eating beef that should be respected regardless of religion and region. While being aware that Modi was a vegetarian, Praveen disagreed that a politics of vegetarianism was prominent across India. Politically, there was a ban on eating beef in some places, but not nationally. When we discussed the green and brown labels, Praveen argued that there was confusion about their meaning when they were first introduced, but now people were more ‘educated’ about them. In general, these labels have made his

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  107 shopping, as a vegetarian, easier. For example, a specific brand of chewing gum that contained pig gelatine now carried a brown mark and after the labels were introduced, people were shocked to learn about it. Praveen was not aware that personal care products also carry these labels. In the eyes of non-veg informants, the image of India as a veg country is important and contested. To Ajay, you had to abstain from eating meat for about three to six months to qualify as a vegetarian and he argued that India was not a vegetarian country and Indians did not have ‘vegetarianism in their DNA’. In the state in eastern India he moved from, about 80% of Hindus were non-vegetarians, he estimated. Some people were now converting to veg because of health but not religion, and even the Brahmins would take non-vegetarian food, he concluded. More and more people in India were non-veg, but not many Hindus ate beef. Ajay was aware of the green and brown labels, but he did not look for them. He explained that the labels were there for veg people only, but more generally multinationals entering India provided better availability of a wider range of foods. Kishan explained that statistics show that about 40% of Indians are vegetarians, but in Telangana if there was a religious festival, Hindus prefer to eat non-veg. When visiting Muslim friends who are ‘completely’ non-veg there was no choice whereas Jains were pure vegetarians. The BJP government asked for cow protection for a reason, he argued: all the cows give milk and we drink it. The cow was holy to Hindus and that was why the government was asking for cow protection, which was disrupted by provocative Dalit beef festivals (as we shall see in the next chapter). Kishan argued that Dalits did not regularly eat beef – they only used beef for provocation. Personally, he believed that local BJP party leaders were all non-veg. In general, eating meat and drinking alcohol were very accepted in Telangana. When we discussed the green and brown labels, Kishan was aware of their meanings on food and care products such as toothpaste and he found these labels to be helpful when, for example, buying chewing gum that might contain gelatine. The introduction of green/brown labels was not the only major change in Indian food markets: Kishan explained that his mother cooked all the food and used earthenware and bell metal plate that killed bacteria to preserve the nutritional value of the food. Now, no one was using these and that was why he was promoting these kinds of items in his shop. Abhisek argued that India was not a vegetarian country, but rather a conservative and superstitious country: on certain days like puja [days of prayer] or auspicious days, we should ideally avoid nonveg, he maintained. On an auspicious day, he would consider not eating meat for which an animal might not have been killed. Abhisek explained that as Telangana was part of the Nizam empire during this rule non-vegetarian foods were practised, but if you looked at Hyderabad now, it was a metropolitan city with a mix of vegetarians, non-vegetarians and vegans. When we discussed why India was often presented as a vegetarian country, irrespective of statistics showing that more than 70% of the population in India were non-vegetarians, Abhisek argued that vegetarian agriculture traditionally and historically had been the biggest sector, but in reality, the scenario was different. Even if Abhisek tried to avoid ‘the political’ in our discussions, he did not believe that BJP vegetarian politics played

108  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food a large role, but that the central government was imposing laws against beef consumption for reasons of hygiene. Regarding the green/brown labels, Abhisek was not aware who was responsible for the labels, perhaps international standards or compliance with these norms. As a non-vegetarian, labels were unimportant to him. Abhisek maintained that there had been a move from home-cooked local specialities to a multitude of options. For example, his son would clearly state what he selected, homemade or fast food, and meat could be delivered to one’s home. Usha agreed that Telangana was the state with the largest number of nonvegetarians, while Arjun explained that Muslims were supposed by default to be non-vegetarians. Usha believed that the labels were introduced because there were many types of vegetarians in India and ‘the rise of fundamentalism’: the BJP was aggressive in promoting vegetarianism even if Hindus and Muslims in India were flexible, but if you went to Himachal Pradesh there were Hindus who did not go to Muslim shops and vice versa. The green/brown labels did not make any difference to Usha and Arjun and they did not know the authority behind the labels. Usha drew attention to flexibility as the major change in Indian markets for food: as children, they had not had as much flexibility as their own children had, and many people were turning to non-vegetarian food. Second, the availability of fast foods and street foods had exploded. Arjun added that, for example, idli can be eaten outside and it was also prepared at home. During our discussions of veg/non-veg, Prashanta asked: ‘What is the definition of Hindu?’ In history, he would argue, there were mountains called Hindu Kush, so the land which was on the other side of the mountain was called Hindustan and the inhabitants of that place were called Hindus. So, it was an indication of habitation rather than a religious marker. Later on, it was translated and confused as religion, he pointed out. He read the Koran and Hindu scriptures, went to churches and had travelled the globe. Therefore, whatever was necessary for him to survive on, he ate: I can eat pork and beef, but by choice I don’t. I have friends and colleagues who are also Hindus who eat pork and beef and I eat with them at the same table. I have no such feelings. I go to the temple for my own spirituality, but not for practising or something. Similarly, Prashanta referred to the history of the caste system when we discussed caste and food preferences: the system of caste was formed based on your profession. You can divide the human body into the head, the middle part and the lower part. People who worked with the lower part were called Shudras [the lowest social classification according to classic Hindu texts]. The people who were warriors were called Kshatriya. People who worked with the head to read scriptures giving gyaan [wisdom] to others were called Brahmins, but the world had changed now: ‘I don’t believe in caste. The old practices and rules are changing now,’ he made clear. Thus, to Prashanta the notion that Brahmins are vegetarians and Dalits ate meat was a shallow and functional way of looking at things that overlooked that religion only plays one part while region, availability, quality, convenience and cost are equally important. When we discussed India’s image as a vegetarian

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  109 country, to Prashanta this was a misrepresentation: he speculated that people who were fully vegetarian their entire life in the entire country would be maximum of 10% and most of them would like to switch. The image of India being vegetarian was also promoted by BJP and Modi, but probably 95% of Modi’s cabinet was non-veg, while PM Modi was a vegetarian by choice, Prashanta contended. Besides, most BJP-ruled states were offering licenses for beef and pork. Thus, this suggested vegetarianism as a carefully crafted political strategy, on the one hand, and catering to commercial interests on the other. Prashanta was aware of the green/brown labels, and even though he did not mind the labels, he could see their importance for veg groups. For example, a traditional practice was that a widow should be vegetarian – even regarding toothpaste. Prashanta argued that the labels were introduced by companies to compete with Baba Ramdev’s highly successful brand name Patanjali, which promoted vegetarianism and Ayurveda. At the same time, he explained that of course there was ‘nothing without politics in India.’ The government needed some way to explain to the public that there were different types of certification and different processes that a company had to go through before selling veg and non-veg. However, it may not be implemented in reality: that’s the politics. Prashanta pointed to the commercialization of Indian food as a reason for making the food less fresh and people care less about what they ate. Almost all of my informants perceived a disconnect between the ideologically based perception that India is or should be ‘green’. However, most informants were also aware of the green/brown labels, and for vegetarians in particular, these labels were invaluable in guiding everyday food consumption. Thus, the state (FSSAI) has been successful in creating both a market and an ideological aesthetic. Given that veg and non-veg are now sold together within standardized shopping spaces, this visual logic produces and imposes categories of thought that consumers across India apply to all packaged products, be they Indian or imported. Thus, FSSAI standardization of vegetarian production, trade and consumption has achieved legibility as demonstrated in my informants’ daily lives. Irrespective of how critical they may be of the vegetarian ideology, they did not in any way challenge the green/brown binary or question the extent to which products were actually green/brown. Interestingly, while many informants are sceptical about the government and institutions’ ability to regulate foods such as organics properly, the state/government is seen as an expert broken in enforcing veg/non-veg regulation. Thus, while most informants critique the idea of India being ‘a veg country’ populated by veg elites, the trust in authorities’ veg/non-veg regulation and their enforcement are intact.

A Final Example The informant Satish, a vegetarian, discussed in Chapter 3 in connection with shopping at the farmers’ market, in several ways reflected some broader trends among my informants. Satish and his wife Sushmita shopped for groceries in different places but rarely in the nearby Ratnadeep, which they find artificial – not unlike what were called artificial ‘showrooms’ (Anjaria 2016). In Ratnadeep,

110  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food Satish typically bought bread, juice, biscuits, pastries and ice creams. When buying food products for his wife who was a non-vegetarian, these would often carry the brown mark, which was acceptable to both of them, that is, many vegetarians would buy or cook non-veg for relatives or friends and this shows that social groups are often composed of vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians. When we discussed the political image of a vegetarian India, Satish argued that the BJP and RSS promoted vegetarianism and religious texts like Bhagavad Gita supported it. Satish was passionate about preaching Bhagavad Gita on Sundays to children and their parents in his house. He started reading Bhagavad Gita at the age of 16 and there found scriptures saying vegetarian food was good. The types of food consumed by different people could be classified as saatvic foods and people who ate vegetarian are the saatvic, which means ‘soft people’, he explained. The rajasic, meaning kings and rulers, ate a mix of veg and non-veg food and the tamasic people were the people who were fond of meat, that is, generally lower caste people. The scripture said that your temper and behaviour with family, friends and others depend upon the type of food you eat. As we saw in the case of Hindu nationalist discourse in Chapter 1, more devout Hindus often equate the three types of foods with specific social groups and behaviour. However, while Hindu nationalism insists on this relationship, everyday practices are far more complex and social in nature: Satish was flexible and accommodating about buying fish for his wife even though he was a devout Hindu and strict vegetarian, and this point reflects not only the tension between Hindu nationalist discourse and everyday practice, but also that shopping for food often has to do with love, devotion, sacrificial rituals and devotional rites rather than the sheer individualism of the shopper. When travelling to Europe with his son, Satish found that there were plenty of vegetarian options. Conversely, he recalled that during his decades of Air Force service, the dining table was dominated by non-vegetarian food and as a pure vegetarian it was not always easy. While in the service, Satish recalled, many Brahmins switched to non-veg because they could not manage the pressure. Satish had many Muslim friends and even though they were ‘hardcore non-vegetarians’, they could cook veg meals for him. In general, Satish was flexible about who cooked his food, as long as it was veg. Veganism had never appealed to him as he was very fond of milk and milk products. To Satish, vastly increased availability was not really the reason why people ate more meat in India. Rather, according to scriptures, Brahmins were supposed to do only four jobs: teaching, begging for raw food, performing puja [worship to God] and doing Yajna or Homa [Hindu rituals in which a prepared fire is fed by pure ghee and it is believed that it pleases God]. This was only possible for a Brahmin to sustain maybe 200 years ago, when Brahmins were respected by the other communities. Over a period of time, this situation changed. Brahmins started earning money from whatever they do, whether it is teaching or performing puja or Yajna. And they found begging for alms was a disgrace. Consequently, they were running short of food and started going for the food that was cheap and easily available. This was when they started switching to non-veg because it was cheap and available at the time. The other reason was when they started mingling

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  111 with the general crowd, they started developing a taste that comes from their earlier births and switched to non-veg food, Satish argued. He estimated that in today’s Telangana, about 5% of the Hindus are vegetarians and the number was declining. When eating out, Satish was flexible about going to a non-veg restaurant, as long as he could have veg food. A favourite restaurant of Satish’s was Paradise in Gachibowli, which I often frequented with informants. This non-veg restaurant specializes in biryani and kebabs, but like most other restaurants as we saw it in Chapter 3, also offered a large veg selection. In terms of food that Satish preferred or avoided, he was flexible because of the job culture in the service – everybody had to eat wherever and whatever. To Satish, meat can be as healthy as vegetarian food, but people who followed their own food habits embodied a spiritual way of thinking, behaviour and attitude that were different from non-veg. For breakfast, Satish ‘invariably’ had idli (steam cake), dosa (Indian pancake) or chapati (un-leavened bread), and for lunch, scriptures said that the amount of food that you can catch with your hand was the amount you needed for living, and he strictly adhered to this principle: that much rice and one to two cups of dal [a soup prepared from dried split pulses], for example. Satish’s wife Sushmita added that for breakfast she would prepare dosa, chutney or bread cutlets. Whatever it was, it was veg. Never non-veg for breakfast. For lunch sometimes she would prepare fish separately for herself, but never for supper. Whatever she prepared at night should be eaten by both of them together. When Sushmita cooked Western food such as pasta or Chinese noodles, Satish reluctantly ate it, but he would not cook this kind of food himself. When we discussed green/brown labels, Satish revealed that he was never aware of these. This law and the labels must have started after 2000, he reflected, so vegetarians would not accidentally eat non-vegetarian food – a ‘disaster’ that happened to himself: there was a restaurant in Goa where the waiter accidentally served him fish. It was the smell of fish he could not take. Conversely, the labels were very helpful in Satish’s everyday life and before he ate ice cream, he would first look at the label. However, he never looked for labels on non-food products such as toothpaste. As a non-vegetarian, Sushmita did not look for labels. Satish estimated that in his own neighbourhood/condo, about 80% are vegetarians. As most of them were Brahmins, it was also rarer that families were mixed in terms of veg and non-veg. At home, they only ate veg, but sometimes they would go out for non-veg. Satish revealed that he could tell if someone was veg or nonveg because Brahmins wore a thread across the shoulder, and seeing it, one could be sure that they were a pure veg person. Actually, the thread was a religious marker, he explained, and it could only be worn by a Brahmin born to a Brahmin couple. The sacred thread was received during the ceremony of Upanayana marking the acceptance of a student by a guru [teacher]. At the age of six or seven, in a religious ceremony, the boy would receive the thread, and he continued to wear it until he died. There were certain rules and laws that he had to follow once he started wearing the thread. Besides that, they would put labels on their forehead as another indicator. A man with a U mark on his forehead would definitely be a

112  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food vegetarian and called Vaishnavait [a Lord Vishnu worshipper]. During fieldwork, I noticed that several neighbours in the couple’s condo, and the neighbourhood more broadly, fitted this description. Satish was not born to a Brahmin couple, but you can acquire the thread if you go through certain practices, such as learning Vedas and Upanishads, to attain the position of Brahmin. He had done this but chose not to take the thread. As he clarified: ‘I cannot do all the customs sincerely; it is very orthodox. That is the reason why I did not take it.’ Thus, there is a marked social difference between being born into Brahmin vegetarianism and adopting vegetarianism as an individual choice – especially when your spouse was non-veg. Sushmita kept a few pieces of fish in the freezer, as it was only for her use because both Satish and their son were vegetarians. Sushmita’s parents took fish, and, in fact, fish was a must for them and they felt that without fish, it is like you are at a ‘“lower level”. They don’t think it is veg or non-veg, but important in their diet.’ Sushmita’s parents were from Kolkata, where many species of fresh fish were widely available. Sushmita reasoned that almost all Bengalis would take fish, but not chicken or meat. From childhood, people were told that if you did not eat fish, you cannot be intelligent or healthy. When her father passed away, her mother turned to veg because in Hindu dharma [signifying duty, virtue, morality or religion], a widowed woman was not supposed to eat non-veg. Sushmita did believe that fish in itself provided a healthy diet – but only if vegetables accompanied it. All Sushmita’s colleagues were vegetarians from Brahmin families, but other groups who were a ‘little lower than Brahmins’ likewise did not eat meat due to spirituality, she said. Sushmita noticed the green/brown labels in Ratnadeep, but she was not aware of their FSSAI origin. The labels helped a lot in terms of everyday shopping: not so much for herself as a non-veg person, but Satish wanted to pick pure veg items, the labels helped her to find ‘quality and guaranteed products’, as she put it. At school, Sushmita was taught that if you take non-veg, your growth and memory will be good. Taking only veg, the saying was: ‘poor veg’ instead of ‘pure veg’. However, students could not take non-veg to schools. Books and nonveg could never go together, that was the rule: books belong to Sarawathi [the Goddess of Knowledge]. Satish’s schools and colleges in South India were managed by Jains that were very strict about veg. The couple noted that in schools and workplaces it was only ‘very orthodox’ Brahmins who would insist on having food prepared by another Brahmin and not others, while they themselves were flexible. In the 1970s, Satish recalled, the scenario with the Brahmins was that you were welcomed into their house, but they would serve you tea or water in a glass, which was not used by themselves. However, these sentiments had vanished. Satish and Sushmita mirrored the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg, that is, the influence of vastly increased availability of different types of foods; flexibility inseparable from everyday social life in families and workplaces, for example, as well as how geographical diversity across India and migration condition foodways – all in the context of very deep knowledge of the

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  113 who/what/where/when/why of veg/non-veg as a social organizing principle, but one that is constantly changing and redefined across the social scale.

Is Delhi Different? In the introduction to this book, I discussed Prime Minister Modi’s speech at the World Food India event held in central Delhi. During my stay in Delhi, I had the opportunity to discuss veg/non-veg issues with two Hindu couples and one Hindu/Jain couple. I do not in any way consider the findings of this brief study to be comparable to my Telangana findings; rather, they provide contextualization. The results of a survey conducted in 2015–2016 showed that the proportion of vegetarians in Delhi is somewhere between 10% and 40% and that the city has evidenced the highest increase in meat-eating within the country (The Hindu, 29 October 2016). A survey conducted in 2018 found that about 40% of Delhi’s inhabitants were vegetarians, while just about 1% of Telangana’s population was vegetarian (Registrar General of India 2018). Studies have shown that meat-eating among Hindus is widespread in Delhi (Fourat 2018b). The SPAR Hypermarket opened at the Oasis Centre in central Hyderabad in 2007, and as previously noted, the meat/fish section remained enclosed behind a glass wall that clearly sets it off from the main shopping area. The side of the glass wall that faces the main shopping area was lined with vegetarian or ‘green’ products from Organic India. The SPAR Hypermarket in New Delhi opened in 2011 at the massive Pacific Mall, and its fish/meat section was also enclosed behind a glass wall. However, in the Delhi outlet, the side of the glass wall that faced the main shopping area was lined with frozen meat and fish, and alcohol was sold behind another glass wall next to the meat/fish area. Thus, four years after SPAR opened an outlet in Hyderabad selling fresh/frozen meat and fish, the same type of outlet opened in Delhi. Therefore, I will now consider the following question: to what extent does this arrangement resonate with the consumer behaviour of Hindus and Jains? I selected three retired middle-class couples in their 60s, who could provide a glimpse into historical perspectives on vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism in Delhi as an example of an important location in the northern part of the country. The first couple is Hindu. Sanjib was educated as an engineer and worked for a government ministry. His wife, Vineeta, worked as a teacher. The couple moved from western India to their apartment in Delhi in 2003. They were both Kayasth (a literate scribe caste, members of whom were historically keepers of records and public accounts, writers and administrators of the state). Until recently, they were both non-veg, but then Vineeta turned veg. She explained that one day she saw that blood was coming out of the meat when preparing it, and she did not feel good about it, so she stopped eating it from that moment. As a vegetarian, she did not take meat/fish or eggs. The family was generally non-veg, but Vineeta did not mind cooking for them. Sanjib was non-veg, and his mother was a vegetarian, while his father and sister were both non-vegetarians. Most of their friends were non-veg. He explained that he mainly ate meat because he liked the taste and that

114  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food was the way he was brought up. Sanjib mostly ate chicken and fish, but previously he used to eat mutton and goat, but not beef. Vineeta followed the same pattern until she turned vegetarian and added that on a trip to America they ate beef burgers and did not mind it was beef: ‘We are not hardcore Hindus. We liked the taste, but in India we haven’t cooked beef so far.’ They mostly bought vegetables at a nearby market and meat for relatives at a local butcher shop. In the eyes of Sanjib and Vineeta, politicians in India falsely portrayed the country as vegetarian and that although upper castes were supposed to be vegetarian, they were not. More specifically, most of the ‘rich and famous’ were non-vegetarian and they may harbour issues about beef, but other types of meat were fine. Pork was eaten mostly by Hindus, but not by Muslims and the couple used to eat pork, they recalled. They indicated that in India, meat was often recommended if someone was not keeping well. It was recommended to have chicken or mutton soup, for example. This qualified as a psychological issue stemming from the warrior class. Most of these people were meat-eaters the logic being that if you want to retain your strength, you should eat meat. The couple was aware of the green/brown labels, but they were not really sure about their institutional origin. As a vegetarian, Vineeta looked for these labels, but only for food and not personal care products. For Sanjib and Vineeta, major changes in Indian food markets included the ‘processed food revolution’, and they also felt that ‘non-veg is picking up’. The second couple was also Hindu. Rita was a retired teacher, and her husband, Kunal, worked as a civil servant. They belonged to the Bania caste that was associated with trade and the couple moved from an eastern state to work in Delhi three decades ago. Rita explained that she was 100% vegetarian but took eggs at times. While her parents were veg, her elder sister would take chicken, for example. Kunal used to be non-veg before they were married, but when he saw a chicken being cut, he decided to go veg. While the couple was flexible about who cooked their food, when eating out they avoided Muslim restaurants because there you would only find non-vegetarian food. Conversely, a friend of theirs was a Muslim and a vegetarian, and in his house only veg food was cooked. That was a personal choice, they commented. The couple agreed that the image of India as a vegetarian country was a false one projected by politicians with a particular agenda. Kunal also argued that there were lots of varieties of vegetarians also. They normally shopped for groceries and food in a nearby market, but they also occasionally went to a super/hypermarket in which they did not mind that meat and fish were on sale there: when people have veg and non-veg dishes on the same table, as it was happening in modern India, then passing the meat section was not a problem. Therefore, when they ate out with non-veg friends, veg and non-veg dishes would be consumed at the same table. Rita clarified that nowadays the situation was changing. Sometimes they would go to a pure vegetarian restaurant, like South Indian, and sometimes to fast-food restaurants, which served both veg and non-veg. Both Rita and Kunal maintained that more and more people are becoming non-veg, and there was more flexibility about food now than ever before. According to the couple, in certain parts of India, Brahmins were still vegetarians, but mostly they were not. When discussing the politics of vegetarianism, Rita

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  115 revealed that Modi’s life was ‘very regulated’: he was a vegetarian, while his cabinet was not and this reasoning was in line with the tension between the green ideology and meat modernity. They both believe that a non-veg diet was healthier than a veg diet and to compensate for any nutritional deficiencies as vegetarians, they would ensure that they ate foods such as dairy products and lentils. When we discussed eating beef and meat for medicinal purposes, Rita told me that beef can be taken as medicine: ‘I am old and I was advised to eat beef for medicinal purposes.’ Both Rita and Kunal were aware of relatives and friends who had been advised to take meat to counter various ailments – for example, a relative was advised to take some sort of bird soup as a treatment for paralysis. The couple was aware of green/brown labels placed on food and personal care products and that they have been introduced by the FSSAI. Rita explained that when they noticed the brown label, then they did not buy the item. The couple would identify as a ‘middle-class family’ and were not buying processed foods earlier. Now, they bought non-veg Maggi noodles, but only for the grandchildren, not for themselves. This point fitted with what Rita and Kunal perceived as a broader trend within Indian food markets of increased production and consumption of non-veg food. Now, everybody wanted to be educated and they wanted to be independent. That led to people having their own choices in food, and when vegetarians interacted with non-vegetarians at work, for example, vegetarians also started eating more non-veg foods. Moreover, they pointed to an increase in the ‘eating out culture’, illustrated by their two daughters. The elder daughter consumed chicken while the younger one was a vegetarian but took eggs for health purposes. The last couple was of mixed religions: Rashmi, was Jain and Raj was Hindu. For a more detailed exploration of Jain dietary law see for example the work of James Laidlaw (2015). They both worked for Indian state institutions before retirement. Both of their grown-up children were veg. When their children turned 18 years old, they could choose whether to be veg or non-veg. They lived in an apartment in South Delhi. Rashmi explained that she grew up in a family which was very strongly rooted in vegetarianism: her grandmother was very devoted; she never ate any vegetable that grew underground, and often fasted. She never ate or drank anything after sunset. Raj was non-veg when they married, but then he turned veg. Rashmi stated that they did not mind going out with ‘total’ nonvegetarians because her husband was non-vegetarian and he was the first non-vegetarian in her family. Since the times of their grandparents, things have changed, and Raj remembered that his brother was advised to take eggs to supplement his protein intake, so eggs started coming into the house. Rashmi noted that the family used to have a separate vessel for boiling eggs and nobody used or touched that vessel. Over the years, many children in the family have turned non-veg, but the couple continued to be vegetarian, apart from their consumption of eggs, onions and garlic. When we discussed the powerful idea that India was or should be a vegetarian country, they argued that more people would want to eat meat for nutrition if they could afford it. As Rashmi explained, they would consider meat

116  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food a good food and take pride in eating it. At the same time, India was exporting increasing quantities of beef and earning a lot of revenue from these exports. The couple shopped for food online as well as in nearby shops, but during their occasional visits to a hypermarket, they did not mind passing the fresh meat/ fish section. Before we ended our discussion, Rashmi explained that because of the availability of meat and fish in hypermarkets, more people were becoming non-veg: her brother and his sons were Jain and they started eating meat, so it was a personal choice. In sum, compared with Telangana/Hyderabad, it is clear that a larger proportion of Delhi’s population is vegetarian, but this glimpse into the lives of these three couples revealed that it is reasonable to posit that meat modernity has become nationalized so that it is also pervasive in the capital of India. Even among some Jains, there was an increasing flexibility about veg/nonveg food and the recognition that to a large extent, food choices were or should be based on personal choices rather than on religious dogmas or family norms. In sum, when discussing veg/non-veg in the lives of my informants, the (rhetorical) similarities were striking: informants would explain that breakfast would typically consist of parathas (flatbread), dosa (Indian pancake), idli (steamed cake), curd-rice, poha, pulses, chutney, fruits, nuts and coffee/juice. For lunch, it would be chapati, rice, roti, dal, rasam (a type of soup made of mostly water and masala) or sambar, curd, dal, veg curry or yoghurt. Dinner was in many ways comparable to lunch. Based on participant observation and specific discussions of veg/non-veg in the lives of my informants, I was surprised that, when discussing diets in general, non-veg was hardly given any significance as morally problematic or even taboo among Hindu groups. This finding was different from the conclusions of many surveys on veg/non-veg that report a surprisingly high number of vegetarians. At the same time, most informants stressed the value of quintessentially Indian dishes and not so much Western or other types of food that were readily available. I take these discourses to signify the protection of Indian food cultures in the wake of meat modernity, the retail revolution and a changing consumer culture. All these informants were acutely aware of veg or non-veg as middle-class projects, but not in a judgemental or dogmatic way. This sets these informants apart from the dominant green ideology – not only in terms of food practices but also rhetorically. Almost all informants believed that there was a disconnect between the image painted by the green ideology that India is or should be ‘green’ and practice – real or imagined. However, most informants were aware of the green/brown labels, and for vegetarians in particular, this proved to be an invaluable guide to everyday food consumption. My survey demonstrated that most respondents were not aware of green/brown labels while middle and upper classes are aware of and appreciate the labels. Thus, the state (FSSAI) has been successful in creating a green economy that is also an ideological aesthetic of the state. At the same time, spatial and social mobility – that is, middle-class projects – in modern Telangana allow for elaborate and conscious choices in terms of everyday food consumption. Quantitative and qualitatively, I have shown how many different things are happening simultaneously and the ways in which the organization of veg/non-veg

Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food  117 experience takes place. Three themes help us understand what is going on in these rapidly changing landscapes of food that are conditioned by ‘brown’ meat modernity, on the one hand, and green ideology on the other. The first theme in the narratives of informants was how veg/non-veg was about the complex and changing relationship between self and other: none of my informants had a preference for food produced, sold or regulated by a member of their own ethnic/class/caste/gender/occupation group, and this set my study apart from most other studies in that this seemed to indicate the full effect of standardized and impersonal shopping that was lifted out of the age-old social relationship of trade and trust within one’s own social group. In short, Hindu middle-class groups did not have a preference for their food being sold or produced by their ‘own group’, and many informants still bought their meat (for themselves or for a significant other) at a Muslim butcher and this was quite unproblematic. Most of my informants came from families that were mixed in terms of veg/non-veg. The informant Prashanta was an example of a Brahmin whose identity was inseparable from meat/non-veg, and he was highly critical of what he considered the false image of a veg India. That said, green/brown labels were ubiquitous in urban India as a form of qualification or classification. In terms of gender, more men than women are non-veg, but the couple Satish and Sushmita proved the point that there were many exceptions to generally held ideas about veg/non-veg. The second theme is all about health and spirituality. My study shows that, on the one hand, meat can be medicine among non-veg informants such as Ajay, but also veg informants who were recommended to take meat/non-veg by their doctors. At the same time, food and spirituality were intertwined and Ayurveda was important in the narratives of many informants. Among my informants, ‘health’ was generally used in a discourse encompassing Western scientific ideas about nutrition and not to the same extent spiritual/ritual pollution/purity. Several veg informants mentioned that B12 deficiency can be a problem and they strategize how to go about that issue without consuming meat/non-veg. In general, the question of veg/non-veg and health was fraught with a multiplicity of sometimes overlapping arguments and discourses; for instance, if meat was medicine, it was surely acceptable to consume it as a vegetarian middle-class Hindu. The third theme has to do with veg/non-veg classification and qualification through bureaucratic means, that is, the FSSAI federally and at the state level. The green/brown law and labels worked as ‘informational capital’ that the state imposed on mental structures and common principles of vision and division. Now that veg and non-veg were mixed in standardized shopping spaces, this visual logic produced and imposed categories of thought that Hindu middle-class groups across India apply to all packaged products, be they Indian or imported. The power concentrated within the state in the form of green regulation or informational capital, as it were, was a state effect: the modern state was materializing out of the powerful and metaphysical effect of practices. Thus, FSSAI standardization of vegetarian production, trade and consumption achieved legibility and simplification and this was apparent in the lives of informants: no matter how critical they may be of the green ideology, they did not in any way challenge the green/

118  Consuming Veg and Non-veg Food brown binary or question the extent to which products were actually green or brown. This brings me to an important question: while green/brown was highly regulated and patrolled in the wake of Hindu nationalism, it was common knowledge in India and among my informants that constant food scandals questioned food safety and standards, and the dilemma here was that the state legislates on and enforces the green ideology in a state such as Telangana, where about 90% of the Hindu population are non-veg. In sum, the green ideology may be a sign of the Indianization of markets in post-reform India, but it also exposed a general lack of trust in bureaucratic systems’ ability to ensure food security, while the visual world of labels played an important role for informants, especially veg informants. When discussing ‘beef’ with informants, I was surprised to learn that the issue of cows versus water buffalos was not essential – at least, not as important as the powerful green ideology would have it, and this testifies to the general flexibility about foodways. The findings of my study reveal that the relationship between veg and non-veg was being redefined in contemporary Hyderabad, and this redefinition was important because it challenged the food hierarchy and lent nuance to the prevalent stereotypical image of social groups defined by veg or non-veg preferences. Being vegetarian or non-vegetarian was increasingly a middle-class lifestyle choice that was determined by arguments rather than by religious orthodoxy or a vegetarian ideology. Important changes in liberalized and pluralized Indian food markets have influenced the everyday food consumption patterns of my informants.

5

Good Life Clubs Of Students, Dalits and Vegans between Meat Modernity and the Second Green Revolution

Scholarly explorations of Indian youth cultures have shown that they entail a sense of waiting, described as ‘timepass’ (Jeffrey 2010) or ‘wandering’ (Lukose 2009). In this chapter, I conceptualize this ‘waiting’ as middle-class projects in the making. During my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to participate in The Good Life Club organized by philosophy students at a Telangana university. Topics discussed within The Good Life Club seminar series included moral constraints on career choices; privilege and obligations relating to money spending after graduation; ethics relating to others; ethics of the self, with a specific focus on the body and its role in aesthetic appreciation and creative self-fashioning; and vegetarianism versus meat-eating. The Good Life Club centres on the anticipation of what a good post-graduation middle-class life is or should be. The students who were its members were to a large extent comparable with my middle-class informants, discussed in the previous chapter, but, unsurprisingly, they were younger and enjoyed less financial security at this juncture in their lives. Universities are important ‘clubs’ when it comes to middle-class projects that relate to social mobility and the making of local class cultures in contemporary India. Subsequently, I was able to discuss vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism in more depth with these students and accompany them on shopping trips. Telangana has a contentious history when it comes to Dalit students, who arrange beef festivals on campuses to celebrate their tradition of beef consumption. I had the opportunity to conduct fieldwork with a group of Dalit students at the University of Hyderabad, whose ideas about what the ‘good life’ entails differed considerably from those of the members of The Good Life Club. I used the controversy over beef festivals as a lens through which to examine Dalit perceptions of what the ‘good life’ in India is or should be in relation to veg/non-veg consumption. In this chapter, I begin by focusing on Dalits before moving on to examine views within The Good Life Club. I next explore organics, with a special focus on a popular organic farm and shop in suburban Hyderabad, where I met several of my informants. Like other informants introduced in this chapter, the owner is university-educated. I discuss the topic of organics because it highlights many of the central themes raised in the book, not just the veg/non-veg issue but also health and sustainability, which have entered national agendas in the last decade as a Second Green Revolution. Given that organic production in India is DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-5

120  Good Life Clubs mostly green or veg, I wanted to explore the consequences of this bias. Lastly, I explore another ‘club’, the Hyderabad Vegans, as veganism is growing in popularity in South India as a reaction to meat modernity. Specifically, I focus on the views on veganism among recent university graduates, who each, in their own ways, associates veganism with a good life that is related to the future of humanity as well as animals. Thus, this chapter explores the veg/non-veg polarity and contextualizes my previous findings by eliciting views within ‘good life clubs’ whose young and well-educated members are respectively Dalits (mostly nonvegetarians), philosophy students (both vegetarians and non-vegetarians), members of the organic movement (mostly vegetarians) and vegans (strict vegetarians) to obtain wider perspectives that help to contextualize the previous discussions.

Dalits and Beef Festivals on Campus: Are You Veg or Non-veg? Dalits were traditionally tasked with disposing animal carcasses and, in doing so, claimed the right to dead cows/buffalos, for example. As we shall see below, while scholars have explored Dalit resistance to the hegemony of upper castes through beef, Dalits’ responses to the 2011 law and the regulation of veg/non-veg food remain poorly understood. Evidently, caste is still of relevance in explorations of food systems in India, but social mobility is changing the scenario at this point in time. The classic study Homo Hierarchichus (Dumont 1966, 150) argues that vegetarianism is by its nature ‘easily integrated into the ideas about pure and impure’. Here, vegetarianism was equated with the dominant caste in the Hindu worldview and underpinned hierarchy as a cohesive principle within Hindu society. The ‘vegetarian’ status was conventionally ascribed to the Indian upper-middle class as well as upper-caste Hindus/Brahmins, who take pride in their higher religious status and distinguish themselves from lower castes on the basis of their vegetarian eating habits (Sadana 2007). Meat-eating, by contrast, signifies a radical manifestation of political liberation or a counteraction against the symbolic subordination of meat consumers by powerful upper-caste Hindus (Dolphijn 2006). To be vegetarian may convey high status while animal sacrifice is ideologically devalued (Fuller 1992). However, Dalit opposition to this entrenched hierarchy has never been stronger. Caste groups ensure their durability in an era of multiculturalism by officially framing caste in terms of cultural differences or ethnicity rather than as unequal descent-based relations. Arguably, a new casteism is emerging built on purported cultural differences and Dalits’ right to exist. In recent years, growing antagonism between Dalits and non-Dalits has prompted an increase in caste-based violence inflicted on Dalits (Natrajan 2012), and often meat and beef in particular are at the centre of these conflicts. Ambedkar’s classic work titled Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men: An Annotated Critical Selection from the Untouchables (2020 [1948]) is a modern classic, updated in 2020, that reflects the author’s lifelong struggle against untouchability. The introduction to the 2020 edition argues that incidences involving the harming and lynching of Dalits and Muslims for consuming/possessing beef, slaughtering cows that are past their prime or skinning cow carcasses are as frequent

Good Life Clubs  121 as ever. This situation confirms Ambedkar’s argument that political elites (selfproclaimed vegetarians) in India have ignored or even supported these acts. Even Gandhi believed that vegetarianism was morally and nutritionally superior and appealed to Dalits to give up meat-eating. The central issue is the association between beef-eating and untouchability, and Ambedkar advocates mobilizing around Dalitization in opposition to Sanskritization (the desire for upward mobility through the imitation of superior castes, such as Brahmins). Dalitization is about eating beef, but also inseparable from the necessity to change attitudes to dignity, food culture and labour, as well as the democratization of society by ignoring the false divisions of sacred/high and the profane/low: ‘It [is] about challenging those who question the right of others (often Dalits and Muslims) to eat beef or any food of their choice; it is about challenging the false and unnatural consensus around vegetarianism imposed unjustly and violently’ (Shepherd 2020, 33–34). As noted in the previous chapter, it is common knowledge that many Hindu groups in India eat meat and beef, but this fact has been suppressed by political elites and Brahmanical scholars. Building on Ambedkar’s standpoint, it is concluded that ‘if vegetarianism has been forced down our throats for centuries, it is time we reclaimed beefarianism’ (Shepherd 2020, 41). Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism (2019) argued against spiritual fascism in India that disallows equality or freedom for Dalits and called for a resignification of the buffalo as a productive animal to symbolize the Dalit struggle for a more just society. Telangana is an example of a state in which a vibrant Dalit movement, mobilized around Dalitization/beefarianism, has flourished on university campuses and has also raised the ire of the authorities and Hindu nationalist groups, with severe repercussions. Dalit beef-eating and beef festivals signify that while Dalits are subject to subordination based on external definitions (caste/class and so on), this does not mean that the identities generated by Dalits themselves are absent from contemporary caste politics. There has been an expansion of Dalit cultural politics outside of mainstream political processes, illustrated by Dalit movements articulating non-Sanskritic identities and beef-eating/festivals (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1998; Mosse 1994; Omvedt 1994). What is noteworthy is that Dalit activism has forged an agenda that is now beginning to focus on caste in the modern economy and reframe the caste and development debate beyond reservations (Mosse 2018). In light of what I refer to as the retail revolution and changing consumer culture, well-educated middle-class Dalit groups are now not only consumers with rights and taste preferences, but also opinion formers. More specifically, a controversy raged in 2005 when the Dalit Students Union opened a beef stall at Hyderabad University’s cultural festival, thereby asserting a Dalit identity through food/beef (Bhushi 2018). At a beef festival held on the same campus in 2012, clashes took place between participants and Hindu nationalists (Staples 2018, 2019; Shepherd 2020), which were repeated in other Telangana universities as well as in universities such as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. At JNU a group called The New Materialists arranged an event titled ‘Why Beef and Pork Festival in JNU?’ Dalits and Adivasis constituted the major

122  Good Life Clubs proportion of the pro-Telangana students at Osmania University, which has been at the epicentre of the agitation in Hyderabad. Their anger is often directed at rich migrants belonging to the dominant Kamma caste from the coastal region. Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, women, small peasants and other deprived groups within society seemingly have not benefited from the creation of Telangana (Benbabaali 2016). In this section, I explore the role of beef and veg/non-veg foods more broadly among a group of Dalit students at the University of Hyderabad. Telangana universities have been centres of Dalit beef activism, and this is also reflected in the popular media in India and beyond. An article titled ‘Osmania “Beef Festival” Row: Police Raid Hostels, Detain 30 Students, BJP MLA Raja Singh’ (The Indian Express, 11 December 2015) reported a curfew-like situation on the campus, with heavy police security being deployed to prevent any untoward incident. The article stated that ‘at least 100 students from unions attached to Students’ Federation of India cooked and consumed beef in their rooms.’ It further reported that ‘hundreds of policemen in riot gear surrounded the campus and prevented anyone from outside from participating in the “beef festival”’. The hostels were subsequently raided by the police, and 30 students were detained for displaying and consuming beef in public. Another article titled ‘Telangana Collector Blames it on Dirty Brahminical Culture for Ban on Beef’ (Hindustan Times, 25 March 2017) reported that a collector complained that the ban on the consumption of beef, which is the staple food of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, was affecting their health. He was quoted as saying that the eating of beef has been our culture for centuries. But later, because of daridrapu (dirty) Brahminical culture, our people were told not to eat beef because it was sin. This is trash. We can eat whatever we had been eating for several centuries to be healthy and fit. One more article titled ‘A Violence No Autopsy Can Reveal: The Deadly Cost of India’s Campus Prejudice’ that was published in The Guardian (2 July 2017) reported that many Dalit students regard universities as places of humiliation and abuse. The food Dalits eat has resulted in unfair treatment. Dalits have traditionally eaten beef because it was their job to remove dead cows; hence it was, and continues to be, the cheapest source of protein for them. Yet high-caste groups within the Hyderabad University campus and in other university campuses have tried to stop Dalit students from eating beef on campus by getting it removed from the refectory menu and stopping Dalits from cooking it in their hostels. The Dalit Students Union demanded the provision of a beef stall at a festival held at Hyderabad Central University (Gundimeda 2009). Every year at the end of March or in early April, the University Student Union, which is the representative body of all students at Hyderabad Central University, organizes a three-day cultural festival called Sukoon, and as part of this festival, stalls mostly sell veg food, but meat, mostly chicken, is also served, and these two varieties of food are consumed by members of all social groups within the campus. The rejection of the

Good Life Clubs  123 culture of any community injures the human agency of that community and calls for the democratization of the public sphere by according respectful representation to marginalized cultures (Gundimeda 2009). The taboos at the root of the food hierarchy in caste Hindu society, employed as markers of caste and community identities, have created divisions and differences among different communities. Similarly, beef festivals are a form of protest against the Indian government’s ban on beef. These festivals are popularly framed as an assertion of Dalit identity and ‘cultural rights’, with beef represented as the cultural food of Dalits. Accordingly, the beef ban, based on a Brahmanical food hierarchy, is casteist. Cow protection discourses render bovines vulnerable because they reinforce two forms of oppression: ‘casteism’ and ‘speciesism’ (as we shall see below). They privilege uppercaste Hindu nationalists, whose identity politics are intertwined with sacralizing native cows and their milk, thereby producing ‘casteized speciesism’ (Narayanan 2018). The punitive aspects of this identity politics are evident in laws enacted in Maharashtra and Haryana in 2015 that made the sale and possession of beef a crime punishable by a fine and up to five years in jail and in the mob lynching and rapes of Muslims and Dalits in September 2015 (Jaffrelot 2017; Govindrajan 2018). During my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to discuss vegetarianism and meat-eating with a group of Dalit doctoral students in political science at the University of Hyderabad. Several students focused on caste and Dalits in their theses. Students came from across India, including Kerala and Maharashtra, and the majority were Christians and non-veg, while Prashanth was a Buddhist (veg). He revealed that to his friends he could not be a Dalit without eating meat, yet he remained a vegetarian. In Prashanth’s home state of Maharashtra, his family followed the Mahanubhava tradition, a religious/social movement that accepts followers irrespective of caste. This tradition forbids not only eating meat but even eggs and consuming alcohol, as well as using abusive language. His family had been vegetarian from his grandfather’s time and in Prashanth’s village of about 250 households, only a minority was vegetarian. In public mainstream discourse, the concept of Dalits as vegetarians is as unthinkable as that of Muslims as vegetarians, and Prashanth’s case illustrated the blurred everyday reality that extended beyond essentialist labels of beef-eating Dalits. When we met, students were all active in the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA). They explained that the ASA was the strongest group in the university and that it had been active on the campus since 1993. The majority of the Dalits on campus are part of this association that ‘propagated’ Ambedkar ideology and simultaneously monitored the allocation of reserved seats for Dalits. Moreover, this was the only group that organized beef festivals on Telangana campuses annually. No other groups could do it, students argued. Consequently, the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad], a student organization affiliated with the right-wing Hindu nationalist RSS could not confront the ASA on this campus. Students were active in holding beef festivals across Telangana universities and often they would take place on Ambedkar’s day of birth. The High Court allowed the beef festival to take place at Osmania University.

124  Good Life Clubs Noting that Telangana had a significant Dalit population, students argued that Dalit history was nothing but the struggle of untouchability. Due to this, they had limited access to foods like grains or vegetables, so they survived by eating dead cows, chickens or goats. Historically, Dalit food culture was non-veg and not veg focusing on beef, making the political ban on beef consumption controversial and sensitive in the entire region of South India. In some parts of India, including Maharashtra where one student was from, Dalits still consumed beef, whereas in other parts, due to interactions with other (Hindu) groups, they stopped eating beef. According to these informants, even in Gujarat and Rajasthan where vegetarianism is widespread, Dalits would still eat beef. Prashanth was the only vegetarian and other non-veg informants would maintain that their beef-eating was based on social aspects relating to families and communities in which everybody was non-veg and would eat beef. One student revealed that as a MA student in Gujarat together with his fellow students they were searching for a room for rent and people asked whether they were veg; if they were not vegetarians, most likely they would not get a room. In Gujarat, students recalled, non-veg shops were not part of the main market. Students maintained that vegetarianism was not about religion, but about caste: people who ate non-veg were considered as the lower strata of the caste hierarchy. So, if someone wanted to know your caste, the first question you were asked was: ‘Are you veg or non-veg?’ These ideas contrasted with what I explored as meat modernity in the previous chapters, that is, most Hindu middle-class informants would challenge the association of vegetarianism and high social status. Students explained that sometimes chicken and mutton were available at the university mess, but not beef, so beef was purchased at the many butcher shops that were conveniently located around campus. Students preferred fresh meat so they would never frequent expensive super/hypermarkets that did not sell beef. In general, they were flexible when it came to the types of meat they consumed. They would argue that compared with their parents’ generation, their patterns of meat consumption were relatively stable; they consumed meat about twice a week and throughout the year. When we began to discuss the green/brown labels, Prashanth stated that he was aware of these labels but had no interest in them: he used to be conscious about whether food was veg or non-veg, but not anymore as he socialized with non-veg (Dalit) groups on campus. Similarly, the ubiquity of green/brown labels on all packaged food and drink items had made Prashanth considerably more indifferent to them. Conversely, at the time of a friend’s birthday, they cut a cake and it contained egg; even though there was no flesh or blood here, he was reluctant to eat it. Non-veg students were not aware of the labels: ‘We don’t know and don’t care’, as they put it and added that it was surprising and unnecessary that toothpaste had a green label on it. This discussion shows that the main focus of Dalits was still on meat and beef. In the eyes of these Dalits, the introduction of green/brown labels in 2011 went by relatively unnoticed. More specifically, students believed that the introduction of the green/brown labels in 2011 under a Congress government reflected

Good Life Clubs  125 an ideology in which veg was promoted as natural and healthier and Congress did this because it was populated by caste Hindus, as one student argued. Even if the number of Dalits in the BJP was sizeable, they were discouraged from active opposition by the right wing. ‘I don’t know how we can call them Dalits at all.’, a student argued. Another student recalled that his grandmother said that Dalits belong to a community who ate cow meat only and not buffalo, but according to Hindus, Dalits were eating their mother. We discussed the contradiction between the image of India as a vegetarian country and the reality that many Hindus eat meat. Students pointed out that since the 19th century, India had presented a different image to the world and the emergence of the middle class since that time meant that India started projecting itself as a non-violent country and adopted a vegetarian ‘symbol’ of non-violence. Paradoxically, in the modern world, ‘We are rich in knowledge and civilization, but India is violent in everyday life.’, as one student put it. The upper castes butchered so-called lower castes and caste lines were to a large extent intact, students concluded. For these Dalits, upper-caste vegetarianism, ahimsa and yoga were nothing more than repressive politics to maintain the caste system, irrespective of whether the BJP or Congress was in power, India was in the hands of Brahmins, who invented the caste system and wanted to control everything under one instrument: religion. Hinduism was used as a tool or an instrument to control society, that is, elites wanted to project that they were unique, and vegetarianism served that purpose very well, especially in the context of meat/beef laws and violence, but also what I called the subtle, but ubiquitous Second Green Revolution. On the subject of whether vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism was healthier, students offered the view that non-veg was healthier because protein was essential to stay fit and healthy and beef was the cheapest option, but nutritional aspects were always casteized into a pure/impure binary: a student argued that if you were veg, you were seen to be pure, and if you were non-veg you are impure according to Brahminical ideology and this is captured by Sanskritization, that is, the politics around this was that if you were considered to be part of the main society, then you followed the habits of the upper-caste or dominant community. Prashanth added that beef was the most affordable source of protein. If you check the prices of pulses, you cannot really afford that, which was a valid point among relatively disadvantaged students. All of the (non-veg) students preferred beef/cow to other types of meat, but, as they explained, after the ban on beef, prices had gone up and were now equal to those of chicken. A student noted that in Hyderabad there was a beef biryani shop that was owned by a caste Hindu. Although Dalits and Muslims ate meat and beef, according to Prashanth, there was very little co-operation between Dalits and Muslims in general and co-operation was only observed on campus. Outside of the campus, both groups were suffering after the beef ban, but so far, they have not come together and raised their voices collectively against the beef ban. Dalits did not really observe any food taboos arguing that historically they were suffering and struggling to find food for survival. Conversely, those conscious about health would eat meat because it supplied protein and one student

126  Good Life Clubs noted that Dalits did not have a health-based food culture in sharp contrast to the major middle-class focus on health we saw in the previous chapter. To say that ‘I am a pure veg’ was becoming fashionable and more caste-based, as one student argued and this point contrasted with my analysis of meat modernity on the one hand and a gradual move from caste to class on the other. In sum, meat and beef were at the core of Dalits’ activism to a much greater extent than the laws and enforcement surrounding veg/non-veg foods that from within the campus appeared abstract and distant. My discussions with the abovementioned Dalit students at the Hyderabad University campus revealed that while Dalits were united around ‘beefarianism’, vegetarians such as Prasanth were also part of that struggle. Telangana campuses were still hotbeds for socially mobile and well-organized Dalit groups that in their own way sought to become part of ‘the good life club’ in contemporary India. At the centre of their struggle is the revolt against ‘the good life club’ of Sanskritized and caste-based Hindu society and the veg/non-veg binary is essential in that respect.

The Good Life Club I now turn to The Good Life Club organized by philosophy students at a Telangana university. The philosophy students’ curriculum included both Western and Indian philosophy. For example, students read Peter Singer’s (1994) edited volume titled Ethics, which included discussions on food and ethics as well as the Bhagavad Gita’s discussions of sattvic, rajasic and tamasic foods. Seven students took part in organized debates for and against the eating of meat and veg/non-veg food more generally. The two organizers posed the following question: are there any moral concerns meat-eating should raise, or is it merely a matter of choice? Before I discuss The Good Life Club, I will summarize the central arguments contained in readings circulated within this seminar. The first is Singer’s argument that ‘I am a utilitarian. I am also a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I am a utilitarian’ (1980, 325). Applying the principle of utility to how animals are reared for food leads to a conclusion in favour of vegetarianism. He discussed arguments first raised in Animal Liberation (1975), considered a classic in the vegetarian/vegan literature and revered by animal rights activists. In this book, Singer argued that the basic principle of equality did not require equal or identical treatment; it required equal consideration. Singer further argued that the principle of utility was the sole basis of morality, and no other principle would limit the application of the principle of utility or affect the way in which it operated. Singer used the term ‘speciesism’ as a parallel to racism. He stated that slavery, for example, ignored the fact that Africans shared the same morally relevant characteristics as Europeans and was justified on the basis of what were considered morally irrelevant characteristics, such as looks and culture. Animals shared the same morally relevant characteristics as people do, and those who ate them justify their behaviour by appealing to morally irrelevant characteristics. Tom Regan’s (1986) article ‘The Case for Animal Rights’, which argued along similar lines, was also a key reading.

Good Life Clubs  127 Diamond (1978) provided a broad critique of the above ethical arguments in support of vegetarianism and animal rights. A vegetarian herself, Diamond’s argument was directed at the proponents of animals’ rights, especially Peter Singer and Tom Regan. More specifically, Diamond refuted the use of analogy to make a moral case against meat-eating. This moral case was premised on the argument that people do not eat, enslave or exploit other people because they possess certain characteristics that were held to be morally relevant, such as the capacity to experience pain and pleasure. Because animals had these morally relevant characteristics, we should not eat, enslave or exploit them. Diamond argued that the reason for not eating other people was not that they meet some set of criteria; rather, concepts like ‘person’, ‘friend’ and ‘neighbour’ are morally ‘thick’ and entail a whole range of associated sentiments, imperatives and duties. Vegetarians who are driven by ethics are persons who saw all animals as some people saw pets (not to be eaten). This perception can manifest in multiple ways that differed according to the time and place, but it did not arise by virtue of the ethical vegetarian’s consideration that the animal in question had certain morally relevant characteristics, leading to the conclusion that it must be inviolable. Moreover, this view was hardly something that could be prescribed for others, which is why Diamond argued that there was often a ‘nagging moralistic tone’ (Diamond 1978, 469) to pro-vegetarian arguments. These two opposing arguments set the scene for the students’ discussions. The discussion on vegetarianism versus meat-eating that took place at The Good Life Club was initiated by a student who presented the two opposing arguments as a warm-up to a general discussion. He began his presentation with a prelude: ‘This is not a very pleasant topic: I do take medicines derived from animals. I don’t know what to think of these things.’ He explained that the readings for this session were chosen because they presented arguments for vegetarianism that differed from the conventional arguments given for vegetarianism, namely Indian arguments supporting vegetarianism based on ahimsa and vegetarian politics. Summarizing Regan’s arguments, he noted that its central thesis was that animals were not resources for people. It did not make sense to argue that animals should be treated fairly and then consume them. He reasoned that even if a person raised their own animals and treated them well, eating them was fundamentally wrong, as this entailed treating animals as resources. He suggested that the response of non-vegetarians was usually that animals do not have any rights. Humans and animals alike should have rights; if not, the most severe social, economic and political consequences could be sanctioned. This argument was illustrated by the following example: India’s caste system entailed the view that ‘might makes right’, and this view had so little to offer human beings: slavery and the caste system can be defended according to this view. Utilitarianism represented lessening the suffering in this world and took the individual’s position. Even evil for the greater good was not justified. Singer argued for the rights view when he said that everything, irrespective of differences, had inherent value, and this was the most satisfactory moral theory of all. It explained the foundation of our duty to one another and extended it to animals.

128  Good Life Clubs Another student then spoke, conveying his agreement with Singer’s position in which utilitarianism played a central role. He observed that the well-being of all sentient beings must be respected in order to avoid speciesism. As examples, he mentioned factory farming and the use of animals in scientific research. According to Singer, utilitarianism was the best moral theory because essentially there was no difference between animals and humans. Yet another student intervened and asked how Singer could arrive at the argument that there was no difference in pain and suffering between humans and animals. Yet another student replied that according to the principle of utility, it was pleasure and not pain you wanted to maximize – that was what was morally relevant – and continued to say that one good reason for eating meat was the taste. So, that was a kind of interest and there was a pleasure you derived from the food you consumed, but there was also a pig’s interest, pleading for its life, which had been curtailed. Hence, there was a clash of interests, but here it did not make a difference whether it was human interest or that of the pig. Several students contended that as consumers, they were fuelling the demands for animal flesh, thus contributing to an unjust system. A student argued that of course there was the issue of how much my individual role played a part if I stopped eating meat. He was in agreement with Singer’s view that it would still make sense to stop eating meat and that would affect the market. The student then addressed the non-vegetarians in the room, which was a majority, asking them what their position on this argument was. Before presenting the responses of the non-veg students, I would like to emphasize that all students were aware of which students were veg or non-veg. A student joined in the discussion, stating that as a vegetarian she was ‘sort of sold’ on this idea that we should not produce to kill. Some students argued that agreeing with the animal rights movement that there was animal suffering, especially in factory farming, would end it at some point. Consequently, as one student argued, one should not eat meat and further suggested that if production was the problem, improving the standards of production was a potential solution instead of assuming that everybody should or would stop eating meat. Some students then suggested that to poorer people, not unlike what we saw in the previous section in connection with Dalits, meat was an important source of nutrition. Moreover, if meat-eating was banned it would create deficiencies of iron and calcium, which may be fine in Western countries, but when it comes to the ‘Third World or developing countries, this will be like a death sentence’, as one student put it. Another student considered this an ‘empirical enigma’: he was not sure about iron and calcium deficiencies and how much impact they had. Two female students made the case that rearing animals caused global warming. Non-vegetarian students basically agreed with Regan and Singer’s arguments but made the case that the main problem was modern and impersonalized mass killing/production and not hunting for one’s own meat. The discussion now turned to the distinction between cows and buffalos and a student noted that this buffalo/beef distinction interestingly only came into existence after the BJP government assumed office and they started making it a

Good Life Clubs  129 problem. Before that, cows were sold to a butcher after they stopped producing milk. He argued: And you don’t ask when you go to the market to buy meat whether it comes from a cow or a buffalo. We should legislate that we can’t kill animals for meat, like I can’t kill the wild boars on campus. Several students nodded in agreement to these points and this example illustrates the multiplicity evoked by the veg/non-veg binary in the ‘good lives’ of students. Similarly, several students revealed that every time they consumed meat, they would feel the conflict between ethics and cravings. A non-veg student added that she always reduced the amount of meat consumed, but non-veg people they ‘cannot suddenly stop’, as she put it. Moreover, among children and more disadvantaged groups in the ‘Third World’, it may not be sufficient for them physically to derive that kind of energy from just a vegetarian diet. For example, Vitamin B12 was only derived from animal sources, but another student intervened by saying that the amount of B12 that humans needed was so low that you do not really need to have a staple diet like meat. Several students concluded that humans should not eat meat because we have alternatives. However, poor people have no alternative but to eat beef but are punished for it, as one student put it. Diamond’s view helped him see all this in a more logical way. I later had an opportunity to continue this discussion with three students: Kavitha was a female student whose family was located in a state in western India. Her caste was Sudra (ranked the lowest among the varna ranks), and she was a non-vegetarian. Kavitha explained that she had always been non-veg, but then she developed an allergy to red meat, such as beef, pork and mutton. Before the allergy, she used to consume ‘lots’ of beef and pork. She considered herself to be ‘a semi-non-vegetarian’ in the sense that she could only have fish and white meat, but except for that she did not have any problems with meat-eating and her family consumed beef and were ‘not so religious’. In the neighbourhood where Kavitha’s family lived in east India, there were other families that were also nonvegetarians, but they did not eat beef. Her grandmother was a vegetarian, but she cooked meat for her grandfather. Pooja migrated to Hyderabad from a city in north India. She was a Hindu but was not aware of her caste. She was now a vegetarian but used to eat eggs until she stopped liking the taste. Pooja never craved meat even though the rest of the family was non-vegetarian until they turned to vegetarianism in their 30s for religious reasons. The family’s urban neighbourhood in north India was predominantly non-vegetarian and there was no ‘taboo’ about consuming meat. The family had never cooked non-veg food at home. Rohan is from a state in east India. In his own words, he was a Hindu Brahmin, and that label was ‘very political’ and offered a guideline to acceptable and prohibited food irrespective of Rohan being a non-vegetarian and growing up eating meat. His neighbourhood in the state he moved from had a mix of vegetarian and

130  Good Life Clubs non-vegetarian families. While Rohan’s grandparents were Vaishnavas (a Hindu group that considers the god Vishnu the supreme deity and adheres to a strict lacto-vegetarian diet), his parents consumed mutton, chicken and fish. However, they would not think about having beef whereas his own generation had a flexible attitude about meat consumption. In multicultural Hyderabad, a wide variety of foods/meats were available and accessible and Rohan would like to eat every type of meat available, but in the Indian context, everything turned political: what you ate and where you ate it. Conversely, to Rohan consumption of food was just pleasure and the taste of it. None of the non-veg students with whom I spoke followed practices of eating meat on particular days and abstaining on others. Moreover, Kavitha explained that although the Durga Puja, a major festival held in Kolkata, was supposed to be a vegetarian festival, migrants from Bangladesh consumed fish while West Bengalis ate mutton on the last day: this dichotomy was always there, she argued. However, Hindu festivals usually were vegetarian in nature and Pooja explained that during the festivals of Navaratri and Shradh, she would not eat non-veg, not even eggs, as it was ‘sort of prohibited.’ Similarly, thinking back to their school days, all of the students recalled bringing their own food to school, and a strict prohibition on meat was maintained. Pooja felt that it was fine to go to a Muslim restaurant, for example, to have vegetarian food, that is, any restaurant in a ‘metropolitan city’ would do. Critically describing her family traditions, when Muslim friends came to visit, Kavitha’s grandparents would give them a separate table and utensils. At the university canteen, chicken and fish were available, but not beef or pork. Rohan suggested that any kind of meat could be brought into the campus and cooked. During the annual Sukoon festival, there would be beef and pork food stalls. During weekends, students bought meat that was not served on campus, that is, beef and pork. This meat, Rohan explained, was bought at local butcher shops and supermarkets. For beef, students went to local butcher shops. When we discussed the perception of India being essentially a vegetarian county, Kavitha argued that India was dominantly a Hindu country, but it was never a vegetarian country. In general, Hindu diets were not strict vegetarian diets. Pooja added that in the Brahmin Lawbook of Manu, it was written that Hindus were allowed to eat meat only when there was nothing else to eat and it was in that way the Indian image as a vegetarian country started, she speculated. Pooja was undecided regarding the question of whether a veg or non-veg diet was healthier, explaining that her mother quit eating meat because of her health issues, but then started consuming eggs on a regular basis. She referred to scientific studies that found being vegetarian was healthier, but she was not convinced. Rohan opined that health did not depend on food habits alone; there were many other issues involved. In general, the students were flexible, accepting all the kinds of foods available inside as well as outside the campus. They also acknowledged that the campus was a very different space and the food was less varied compared with that in their childhood homes, which was why they often consumed food outside the campus.

Good Life Clubs  131 During our discussion on green and brown food labels, Pooja stated that she was aware of their meaning and, as a vegetarian, looked for these labels. Kavitha was also aware of the labels, but she was not really concerned about them, as she was a non-vegetarian. Rohan noticed the labels when he was shopping for food with a vegetarian friend. They were all aware that the FSSAI mandated the labelling of products, but they were not aware that labels were also placed on personal care products such as toothpaste. Pooja suggested that the presence of labels facilitated shopping because the customer could look at the label instead of at the contents. When we discussed the main changes in Indian food markets, the students pointed to the co-existence between Hindu nationalists’ insistence on vegetarianism propagated by PM Modi and the ‘free flows’ of a multitude of food products in a cosmopolitan city such as Hyderabad. When I was shopping for food with the students at one of the hypermarkets discussed in Chapter 3, they explained that they would typically go there to buy milk in Tetra Pak that did not require refrigeration, which was important in everyday campus life. They also bought dry fruits, instant noodles, biscuits and utensils, for example. However, because of online availability, they were not frequent customers at the hypermarket. Standing in front of the meat counter, Pooja was not at all tempted by the meat and fish on display. Rohan suggested that being a non-vegetarian in India was the most feasible option. Being vegetarian was a bit more difficult and being a vegan was completely out of the question if you are not financially sound. They all agreed that it would be expensive to skip meat and obtain nutrition from other sources. Students did not go shopping for meat or fish at hypermarkets; rather, they visited affordable butcher shops in the vicinity of the campus. Comparing the meat at the hypermarkets with that available at local butcher shops, Rohan concluded that the meat quality, freshness and prices were better at the butcher shops. Moreover, in the butcher shops, the butcher was an expert and here they use machines. Much of the meat looks dead and stale, they noted. Pooja added that if you go to the local store, the fish will not smell this much. In sum, these discussions with and observations among students contribute significantly to an understanding of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism as part of middle-class projects. All of these Hindu students, who for the most part were non-vegetarian, were acutely aware of a wide range of dilemmas and multiplicities involved in being veg or non-veg and of the processes of meat production, certification, marketing and consumption. Unlike older generations, they were constantly faced with powerful Indian as well as Western discourses on rights and inequality in an era of global climate change. While Dalits were primarily focused on human rights entailed in ‘beefarianism’, many of the students could relate to the concept of ahimsa as well as move beyond it. As one of the students explained, the papers discussed at The Good Life Club debate were selected because they provided arguments for vegetarianism that differed from the conventional Indian arguments given for vegetarianism. Paradoxically, this critical attitude towards what students see as Hindu nationalist and elite politics drove their flexibility in relation to meat-eating. Finally, experimentation with beef-eating, for example,

132  Good Life Clubs was part of the campus lifestyle, far removed from the gaze of parents in homes dispersed across India from where these students moved. It is safe to say that these students are in the midst of a retail revolution and a changing consumer culture as well as a transition to meat modernity, but they are also immersed in India’s Second Green Revolution, which I shall discuss next.

The Second Green Revolution: Suburban Organics During the Green Revolution that began in the 1960s, the state introduced fertilizers and pesticides that caused massive environmental problems, not least in the domain of green food security, that is, access to and availability of healthy and nutritious organic food that ensures environmental sustainability (Richardson 2010; Pritchard et al. 2014; Seshia Galvin 2018). In 2018, the Indian government identified key barriers to and requirements for the transition towards a green economy. They include the need for businesses and policy-makers to realize that environmental protection is not achieved at the cost of economic growth and development, inadequate funding for green and responsible investments, the perception that green technology is unreliable and not cost-competitive, a lack of acceptance of the view that India cannot afford to pollute now and clean up later, and the lack of recognition that greening the economy is a means of achieving social prosperity and environmental sustainability (Development Alternatives 2018). In this paper, special attention is on green food security, but it is not clear how governance strategies supporting green food security policies will be implemented. Paradoxically, while India has the highest number of farmers engaged in organic farming and ranks ninth in the world in terms of its total area under organic cultivation, the market share of organics is less than 1% in the country, and exports are low (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry India 2018; Research Institute on Organic Agriculture 2018). Thus, while the extent of organic/green production is significant in India, levels of trust in its regulation are generally low. These insights should be considered in the context of food scandals relating to food security that have resulted in green food security becoming a critical economic, political and social issue in India (Jalpa and Shukul 2012; Nickow 2015; Parvathi and Waibel 2016; Food Safety and Standards Authority of India 2017). At the same time, this issue is characterized by multiplicity and contestation among state agencies, producers/farmers and retailers/consumers. The green economy in India has mostly been explored in relation to the requirement for better food security advocated by consumer groups (Jalpa and Shukul 2012) or private/local/community certification initiatives (Thottathil 2014; Nickow 2015; Parvathi and Waibel 2016). In Chapter 4, I explored the organics section in the SPAR Hypermarket. As I noted, the fish/meat section was enclosed behind a glass panel that clearly demarcated it from the main shopping area, with the vegetable section located on the other side of the wall. The side of the glass wall that faces the main shopping area is lined with Organic India products. Organic India is the country’s largest producer of organic products, such as teas, that are also marketed internationally.

Good Life Clubs  133 Here, I examine organics ‘from below’. Not far from the Hyderabad University campus and Star Hypermarket is a popular organic shop and urban farm located in suburban Hyderabad. It was here where I met with several of my informants, including the owner, while conducting fieldwork. I have included organics in my discussion because it foregrounds many of the central topics raised in this book. ‘The green’ is a powerful discourse or ideology that is not only about vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism; it is also critically about food as an economy centring on middle-class consumers in which standards and certification feature prominently, but also relative affluence that allows for buying relatively expensive organic products. Thus, organics signify a fascination with ‘the green’, that is, green discourses, practices and commodities, including green labels. Moreover, organic production in India is overwhelmingly vegetarian, and the shop was one of the few urban outlets for organic meat. Moreover, the shop not only sold food, but wat also produces a range of ‘traditional’ cow products that strengthens its claim to authenticity vis-à-vis Organic India, for example. The owner of the organic farm and shop was an IT graduate in his 40s, who formerly worked in that field. Currently, he ran two stores and the company had eight employees. He is a Hindu from the Kamma caste, and the family were agriculturalists cultivating large plots of land. He explained that ‘most of the time’ he was a vegetarian. The term ‘organic meat’ had only been used in India for about five years. In villages, meat had always been organic, whereas meat had never been organic in the cities or in hypermarkets. Evidently then, the demand for organic meat was expanding in urban contexts, and during the period of my fieldwork in the farm/shop, I was unable to procure meat there. Food habits were rapidly changing in India and the owner recounted how his mother cooked all of the family’s food using earthen pottery and a bell metal plate that killed bacteria and preserved the nutritional value of the food. He explained that organics was a way of living: after the Green Revolution hybrid varieties, pesticides and fertilizers were widely used and environmental damage was extensive. To his knowledge, the Green Revolution started in Europe and was relevant there because of the harsher climate, but not so much in India because due to a more generous climate no fertilizers or chemicals were needed. Indeed, organics was not a Second Green Revolution in that sense, but rather ‘moving back to basics’. In India, two types of farming can be identified: natural farming and organic farming. In natural farming cow dung and urine were used as fertilizers while in organic farming vermicompost, earthworms and bio-pesticides were used as a fertilizer. People who did natural farming such as himself did not need certification and only organic farming was certified. He fully supported natural farming as it was affordable and superior. The owner followed Subhas Palekar, an Indian agriculturalist who coined the term ‘zero budget natural farming’. He advised not to follow organic farming but to do natural farming. The owner clarified that Palekar believed that ‘vegetarian human urine is more powerful than cow urine [as fertilizer]. He is against non-vegetarian production.’ Almost all of the products in the shop are made in India, including meat when available. The meat was not stored in the shop because the owner did not want

134  Good Life Clubs it to be frozen, given that most customers preferred fresh meat. He received orders over the phone and customers picked up their orders at the shop. The shop also sold country eggs laid by free-range and cage-free birds as well as milk. On Saturdays, vegetables arrived from his farm: almost 40 varieties of vegetables and 12 varieties of fruit. There was a network of organic farmers; altogether 84 farmers produced vegetables, fruits, milk, meat, eggs and pulses. The owner served as an inspector or auditor. He explained that organics was a challenging field: customers paid a premium price and then it was his responsibility to deliver a good product. Inspections at farmers were always unannounced and if a customer complained, the owner would know exactly from where these ladyfingers, for example, came and would go to that farm and carry out soil for testing. Because credibility was critical, he visited all farmers to oversee their practices. In India, getting the certification was a difficult task and some farmers did not apply for the certification due to economic reasons. First of all, you have to apply for certification at the state level. Agents would come to your farm and take samples and do soil testing. For four years, they will inspect you every three months and if they were satisfied, then they will issue the certificate. We have spoiled the entire land by using chemicals and pesticides and now people were moving towards organic, but certification was expensive, and the process is long, he argued. The prices of organic products were higher than those of conventional products, as these products were picked up from remote small farms, whose owners were paid premium prices. Typical customers were ‘health conscious’, as we saw in Chapter 3. More women than men came to the store, and teenagers went there to buy cosmetics that are chemical-free. Many different types of organic labels were visible in the shop, including those of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that can be found on products manufactured by Organic India, which is India’s largest producer of organic products. The owner explained that USDA representatives did not actually go to farmers themselves; instead, they collected random samples. The company label, which depicted nature, a farmer and a cow, was designed by the owner himself. He revealed that agriculture was in his farming family’s blood. We used to see what my grandfather and my parents did in the field, and we did not need any courses or training. At times, he has consulted with researchers at universities and research centres, whom he has found to be helpful. He did so by sending a picture depicting the problem to the researchers, who then suggest an organic solution. The testing of soil samples and products is done at universities as well as private testing centres, especially in connection with pest attacks, which were the main challenge he faced. At the farm/shop, I met a man in his 40s who was a scholar in the field of public health. We discussed the question of why the cow itself was sacred and, thus, the taboo against its consumption, whereas many products were based on cows’ excreta, considered as a strategy for saving cows. A gaushala (cow shelter) was the place where products made from cow excreta were produced. For example, cow dung was used in agricultural vermicomposting. Poorer farmers cannot afford to maintain unproductive cows, and thus cows end up being sent to these

Good Life Clubs  135 shelters, where their excreta were used in vermicomposting. This informant had a small coffee farm and was looking for organic manure; he found a supply in a gaushala maintained by Jains. Other products derived from cow excreta include, for example, floor cleaner. My informant and I speculated about the extent to which untested products, like these ones, were effective. A striking example of such a product is Sampradaayam Bath Powder, produced in Telangana, which in addition to herbs and fruits, contained ‘cow pats powder’ and could be used instead of shampoo and soap. The label stated: ‘Save Cow Save Nation.’ This product also carried a green label. Another product carrying the green label is gomutra, which is distilled ‘desi’ (Indian) cow urine, used in the manufacture of Ayurvedic medicines. The description on the label stated that according to ‘ancient Hindu wisdom’, it could ‘boost up the immune system’ and worked to ‘detoxify’ the body and ‘enhance intelligence and the circulatory system’. These ‘cowmodities’ are normally found in bazaars, but they add ‘original’ or ‘authentic’ qualities to a new and relatively small suburban outlet, such as this one. The informant argued that Pathanjali, a very successful Indian company that specialized in the manufacture of herbal Ayurvedic products, illustrated the Indianizing of the market competing against global brands, such as Néstle and Maggi that allegedly contained unwanted chemicals. He bought organic products at the shop for several years, but he was not entirely convinced about the organicness of production. He suggested that proper organics required regulation and community participation to achieve the sustainability of organic farming. Ayurveda was regulated, but many Ayurvedic products could still contain lead and mercury, he revealed. Several customers shared this opinion. More widely, organics was an important, but also highly contested issue in India. There were many different types of organic certification available at different levels, thus presenting a paradox. Many consumers were attracted to local organic initiatives, such as this one, which provided an alternative to the many organic products on sale in the nearby hypermarket. Constant food scandals and general caution about food regulation/regulators generate scepticism: customers were not always convinced about the organicness of products, but they hope for the best, which contrasted the widespread trust in the FSSAI’s ability to label products as veg/ non-veg. In sum, my fieldwork in the organic farm/shop highlighted some of the key aspects of the themes examined in this book. Most important, perhaps, was its confirmation that organic non-veg/meat was now available in India. During my fieldwork, this was the only place where I came across organic meat. Of course, organic raw vegetables and meat did not need green/brown labels, but processed foods/drinks and some of the ‘cowmodities’, discussed above, did. At the same time, my study has revealed the subjection of ‘the green’ in the urban farm/shop to several overlapping ideologies or logics that related to green/brown labels and divergent understandings of organics and their implications. Thus, in the eyes of the owner, organic products, such as those produced by Organic India, are organic but not ‘natural’, thereby warranting a return to traditional farming skills and methods in accordance with the Second Green Revolution. The shop and its

136  Good Life Clubs owner also embodied the personal ethos of traditional trade relations between sellers and buyers. Moreover, it was here that middle-class aesthetics were foregrounded, as the shop was frequented by relatively affluent consumers who hoped that organics could resolve the ambivalence of modern life. The farm/shop itself reflected this trend: the small plot of land with its organic produce, small shop and solar panels set amidst high-rise buildings and major roads in suburbia indicated that it was an alternative space. This farm/shop was also a reaction to what is seen as excessive state bureaucracy entailed in the certification of organics in India.

Hyderabad Vegans Several of the ‘cowmodities’ discussed above are produced in gaushalas. There is an emerging critical literature on gaushalas, conceived as primary sites for the promotion of extremist Hindu nationalism. Much of this literature suggests that viewed from a Hindu nationalistic perspective, gaushalas signify a vulnerable Hindu Indian nation or a Hindu cow that represents ‘Mother India’ and requires protection from Muslim males in particular. More broadly, an engagement with feminist theory illustrates how bovine bodies are used to advance Hindu extremism, with eco/vegan feminism providing a constructive field of resistance. In India, vegans (eschewing all animal products) are often seen as liminal or ‘mixed devotees’ because of their rejection of dairy products (Narayanan 2018). Such studies are part of emergent bodies of literature on animality in South Asia (Dave 2014; Govindrajan 2018) and on the linkages between feminism and veganism (Adams 1990, 1991, 2010). This section explores veganism as a reaction to meat modernity. The emergence of a vegan movement at the beginning of 21st century India was a response to environmental degradation caused by growing livestock farming coupled with the notion of ahimsa. At the same time, vegan cookbooks, restaurants and e-commerce have supported this trend. Thus, ahimsa fused with global concerns over animal agriculture in the degradation of the environment (Kumar 2021). Obviously, there is a large and growing literature on veganism globally, but studies of vegetarianism have overshadowed those of veganism in the Indian context. An article titled ‘Hyderabad Goes the Vegan Way!’ (Times of India, 19 August 2019) reported that as in the West, more and more Hyderabadis are adopting a vegan diet. Some restaurants and cafes in the city have realized the business potential of this diet choice and have introduced vegan food on their menus. A Facebook page called ‘Hyderabad Vegans’ had a wide following of around 2,000 members, comprising established as well as aspiring vegans. The sentiments conveyed in the article resonate with the emerging body of literature, discussed above, including Peter Singer’s arguments that have been a key motivating influence for the Hyderabad Vegans. Increasingly, humanism and the rationales of animal rights activists who work with and for urban and working animals play an important role (Dave 2014) and nowhere is this as salient as in Telangana, which could be considered one of the most meat-eating states of India.

Good Life Clubs  137 I had the opportunity to discuss and shop with a group of vegans in Hyderabad. Raga was a Brahmin woman in her mid-30s who worked in the IT field in HITEC City. She lived with her young son in a new condominium in Gachibowli. Her son was not a vegan, and Raga left the decision to him. Her family members lived in Hyderabad and had always been vegetarians for religious reasons. Raga became a vegan when she learned about this dietary choice four years ago: she told herself that she could do less damage to other beings and the environment by moving beyond vegetarianism. It took a while for Raga to realize that being a vegetarian was not enough in ethical terms. Raga was happy that India had the highest number of vegetarians globally, and she believed that most people were either veg or non-veg depending on their parents’ preferences, so choices and preferences in families were important to understand when you were engaged in the difficult task of convincing people to change their orientation towards food. Raga was also clearly aware that veganism can be considered extremist in India and beyond, especially in connection with the nagging moralism and ‘lecturing’ some people find in pro-ve(getari)an arguments discussed above. Raga was the only vegan in a family of vegetarians, and she described this decision as not being able to ‘hold back from veganism’. Her family being vegetarian, ghee and paneer were very important foods. Conversely, butter and cheese were considered ‘Western’ products that only became popular in India some 20 years ago among the well-educated and affluent upper-middle class in particular, and her family never ate them. There was no specific incident that motivated Raga to become a vegan, but she explained that she was an animal lover and wanted to do what was best for the animals, ‘an animal thing’. That was her main ‘perspective’ while other vegans had scientific or health perspectives, for example. Now fully vegan, over the last two years she reduced her dairy consumption because every time she had milk or curd, she thought, ‘Oh, I am starting it again, I have to reduce.’ Apart from animals’ rights, Raga argued that sustainability-wise, veganism was the way to go. Raga was part of Hyderabad Vegans; she found their Facebook group and website inspiring when she wanted to become a vegan. Hyderabad Vegans was started around 2013, and the caption on the website was ‘Why Vegan?’ The website presented a detailed explanation, inspired by Peter Singer and others, of the reasons why veganism was preferable, elucidating the meaning of speciesism, that is, raising animals for meat, and highlighted the misery experienced by animals as a result of humans eating meat, dairy and eggs. It pointed out that veganism, which included the avoidance of honey, leather, wool and silk, was the healthiest choice, and was good for the environment and food security. It also offered a wide range of practical tips for becoming a vegan and living a vegan. Raga joined Hyderabad Vegans before she became a vegan to learn about veganism and she remained in touch with them after she completely converted to veganism, especially to get in touch with other vegans physically so that she did not relapse: Raga did not want to go back to being a vegetarian, but it was not easy if people sitting in front of you were having the stuff that you so like, she revealed. Raga explained that it was mostly younger Hindus who were part of Hyderabad Vegans because they are mostly vegetarians to start with. A smaller group of

138  Good Life Clubs members were Christians, and the number of Muslims was the smallest in the group. My research assistant was surprised to learn that Christians were active in Hyderabad Vegans but even more so that its membership included Muslims. When we discussed the powerful image of India as an overwhelmingly vegetarian country, Raga made the case that Telangana was another story because it was ruled by non-vegetarian Nizams. If it had been ruled by Hindu Brahmin kings, then there would be better chances of vegetarianism. As part of their vegan programme, Hyderabad Vegans conduct public outreach efforts in parks. For example, they showed videos and explained what veganism was. The idea was to have that seed planted in people’s minds. Even if India may be one of the easiest countries in which to be a vegan because there are so many vegan options, in the eyes of Raga this decision depended on the level of personal motivation. At Raga’s workplace, most of her colleagues were non-vegetarians, with fewer being vegetarians and only a couple being vegans. Lunch was available at the canteen, and vegan food was not an issue there. Raga stated that she did not mind who prepared the food at the work canteen or elsewhere as long as the food was vegan; in most cases, it would be Hindu staff who prepared it because they were more likely to be vegetarians. When the discussion turned to dairy products in India, such as milk and ghee, which are considered to be essential religious and cultural items, and the perception that veganism was often seen to be extreme, Raga felt that this was an ignorant conclusion because, in her opinion, a cow’s milk was of little value to any being other than the cow itself. No other species in the world would drink the milk of another species. Veganism could seem extreme for some people who believed that protein requirements were difficult to meet in a vegan diet, but according to Raga that was not true. A central concept in veganism is that animal agriculture is entirely controlled by humans. Raga referred to the Holy Bible in which it was stated that God created enough plants and flora for the entire human race to be sustained: God intended us to live a plant-based life and not on other animals, she noted. Somewhere it was all mixed up and exceptions and rules came in to indulge the sacrifice of animals. Conversely, Raga did not refer to any scriptures in support of veganism as she considered herself to be a science-oriented person who was informed by videos like ‘Cowspiracy’ [which argues that animal husbandry is the main reason for environmental degradation] and ‘What the Health’ [which critiques the impact of meat and dairy products on health] on YouTube, for example. These ideas challenged the long-held notion in India that lacto-vegetarianism was a political, social and religious ideal. Raga presented a pragmatic argument for being veg or non-veg: your workplace, friends and family influence your way of eating and ‘I know some Brahmins who are in the hotel business; they need to cook non-vegetarian food and it is necessary for them to taste the food they cook.’ Even some Brahmins who took meat would have this feeling that they have to get married to someone who was a Brahmin. When we discussed the BJP and Modi as proponents of vegetarianism, Raga offered the perspective that the BJP was basically a Hinduized political party

Good Life Clubs  139 and as most vegetarians in India were Hindus that was the reason why they promoted vegetarianism. However, Raga did not support the Hindu nationalist stress on vegetarianism as it resulted in ‘killing people who kill cows because killing shouldn’t be an answer for another killing. I don’t believe that the BJP is pushing vegetarianism forward. It is also speciesism because you are trying to protect cows, but what about other animals?’ This quote encapsulated the uneasy position of not only vegans but also many other informants in paradoxical meat modernity characterized by violence, speciesism and ‘meatification’. Food scandals and scares are frequent in India, but this was not a factor that motivated Raga to become a vegan. The main issue for her was to comply with vegan principles without compromising her health. She did not really support organic products as it was hard to tell whether products were organic or not. Especially cows could never be organic and would always be toxic. Raga mostly shopped at supermarkets like Ratnadeep, but also at the minimarket in the basement of her condominium where I went shopping with her. She was fine with going to hypermarkets that had a fresh meat/fish section. For special vegan products, such as vegan cheese and butter, she went to Lush Glaze, which was featured on the website of the Hyderabad Vegans along with many other businesses. I had the opportunity to taste vegan butter and cheese at Raga’s home, and they left nothing to be desired. There are only a few vegan restaurants in Hyderabad, but Raga was fine with going to non-veg restaurants as long as veg and non-veg dishes/utensils were kept separate. To Raga, veganism was superior to other diets in terms of spirituality and health. Contrary to the widespread idea in India that cow-based dairy products hold special spiritual/religious significance, her view was that it was uplifting spiritually not to contribute to the mistreatment of cows. Even though as a vegan she did not take any health supplements, she had considered taking vitamins B12 and D, which were not there in the vegan diet. In any case, Raga would not take capsules because of their gelatine content; she would only take tablets. She was familiar with the green/brown labels and recalled when they were introduced in 2011. Raga noted that she was fastidious about these labels when she bought toothpaste and other personal care products, and she had taught her son to look for these labels. The introduction of the labels made the family’s shopping easier, but the following rumour was spreading: producers were trying to mask ‘stuff’ showing that their food was vegetarian. For example, casein, an extract from cow milk, was masked as being vegan. Nevertheless, Raga stated that ‘I have to trust these labels; I don’t have a choice’ reflecting the sentiments of most informants that did not in any way challenge the state’s authority or capacity to regulate veg/non-veg. Typically, Raga would prefer South Indian dishes, such as Indian types of bread: idli, dosa and poha (puffed rice). For lunch she would have either rice or rotis, or a combination of both, while for supper, she mostly ate pulkas (flattened, soft bread). To the best of Raga’s knowledge, there were no vegan labels in Hyderabad, only vegetarian ones. Discussing major changes in Indian food markets, she argued that changes in India were comparable to those taking place

140  Good Life Clubs worldwide: the availability of processed food and a multitude of kitchen accessories had come at the cost of good raw materials and cooking skills. When I went shopping with Raga at the minimarket located in the basement of her condominium, it was apparent that as not many fresh vegetables were sold, finding vegan products was not easy. Moreover, the confined shopping space meant that non-veg products, such as frozen chicken, are placed right next to vegetarian/vegan products and Raga confirmed that she was not too happy about this. She had not been able to find vegan chocolate options in the minimarket, so she went to Lush Glaze. When we looked at the section with personal care products, it was apparent that most products, such as toothpaste, carried green marks, making the family’s shopping easier. To Raga, green labels were important, but products should not have dairy in them. Raga also differentiated between products manufactured in India and those made by multinational companies as anything manufactured in India would definitely have a label – Indian companies are very much aware of this, she remarked. For outside products, there may be acceptance of something non-veg. When choosing between two comparable products, one with and one without a green label, Raga would always choose the one with the green label. Moreover, she expressed a preference for ‘herbal stuff’ like Himalaya and Biotique over chemically based ones. Looking around the store, we noticed that many of the personal care products, Indian or foreign, did not carry any green or brown labels. For example, some bottles of mineral water displayed green labels, while others did not carry any label. I now contextualize the above discussion based on fieldwork among other Hindu vegans. Most vegans were younger people who had moved to Hyderabad to study or work. Like Raga, these vegans often worked in the booming IT industry in Telangana. In general, these informants would be relatively relaxed about the caste system and as a young man from the Kamma caste put it, he did not believe in the caste system or religion. Several vegans would see themselves as atheists. Some informants had been vegetarians before they decided to become vegans, but others moved from non-veg to veganism and a young woman described this as ‘a big jump’. As in the case of Raga, documentaries such as ‘Cowspiracy’ or ‘Earthlings’ [a documentary that critiques humans’ abuse of animals] inspired the transition to veganism. Some informants reported that their health would improve after turning to veganism from being a vegetarian or non-vegetarian. These vegans would often come from families that were mixed in terms of veg/ non-veg, but nobody would come from families of vegans only stressing the point that considered their transition to be a personal choice and that organizations such as Hyderabad Vegans and documentaries helped them decide to give up animal products. The main motivations for becoming a vegan were often ethics, but also ahimsa: the realization that animals felt pain just as humans did and thus veganism was a logical step beyond what was often seen as a double standard involved in Hindu vegetarianism. An argument was that eating meat encouraged the killing of animals and violated the right to live. Simultaneously, another realization was that the main purpose of a mother’s milk was to feed its kids and not humans. As a younger man put

Good Life Clubs  141 it: ‘So, if we take a cow’s milk, it is like stealing it from its baby, which is unethical.’ In the eyes of several informants, turning vegan meant socializing more with fellow vegans, as being exposed to non-veg, meat, in particular, and dairy would be problematic. Consequently, at social events and at workplaces vegans would check the availability of vegan options and/or they would bring their own food. Due to the fact that vegetarian options are ubiquitous in Hyderabad, vegans had many choices when eating out and there would also be places like The Vegan Café, which was one of the few vegan restaurants in the area. In general, vegans were flexible about going to even non-vegetarian restaurants as long as roti, for example, was available. Likewise, vegans do not really mind if non-vegetarians/ vegetarians cooked their foods. Of course, vegans can find raw vegetables and fruits in a variety of shops, but hypermarkets provide a wide and convenient selection of labelled foods. Only a few vegans would mind that meat was on sale in super/hypermarkets. As several informants noted, paradoxically, religion helped brand Brahmins as pure vegetarians while meat consumption was in fact conditioned by many factors such as social life and health benefits. Similarly, Hindu nationalists and PM Modi’s promotion of India as a vegetarian country flew in the face of vegans, and an informant argued that in India people were driven by religion. Politicians and the government did not even promote vegetarianism fully but were merely supporting cow protection and thus banned beef-eating. Stressing ethical vegetarianism and minimizing the cruelty against animals would mean banning slaughterhouses, cancelling existing meat licenses and rejecting new applications. To vegans, the hypocrisy surrounding meat modernity is that the government wanted to ‘grab the attention’, as an informant put it, of Hindus who were a majority in terms of numbers in India and use that attention for electoral purposes. Directly related to the retail revolution and a changing consumer culture, powerful discourses similarly promoted meat as healthy in India, while vegans would argue that proper and healthy food for humans was vegan food. That said, green/ brown labels were helpful to vegans, even if some would still check the ingredients listed on the label to make sure that the product met vegan standards. Several informants suspected care products such as toothpaste and shampoo to have been tested on animals; instead, they bought local Ayurvedic products produced by companies such as Himalaya, Dabur or Medimix. More broadly, vegans pointed out that the supermarket culture was taking over, whereby traditional self-sufficiency was being replaced by an artificial form of consumer culture that to a large extent was non-vegetarian or vegetarian. In sum, ‘the good life clubs’ discussed in this chapter provided some wider, divergent perspectives on the changing relationship between vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism. Each of these ‘clubs’ relied on a specific understanding of what vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism were or should be: for Dalits, the project was Dalitization/beefarianism that opposed Sanskritization more than the pervasiveness of vegetarian law and labels. For philosophy students, the endeavour was to balance campus experimentation and meat modernity on the one hand with activist/rights sentiments as well as the relevance of speciesism in an era of global

142  Good Life Clubs mass production and climate change on the other hand. The organic movement as part of the Second Green Revolution was attempting to take up the massive challenges that have arisen in the wake of the Green Revolution, contending with what was perceived to be overly bureaucratic and impersonal forms of federal/ transnational certification, while consumers try to place their trust in organic production. Finally, vegans were in a distinctly liminal position as ‘mixed devotees’, often viewed as radical environmentalists, who were seen as unpatriotic in their rejection of dairy products. Irrespective of these paradoxes and multiplicities, the sentiments and practices of these ‘good life clubs’ revealed why and how the complex and changing relationship between veg and non-veg foods advances our understanding of broader transformations and challenges relating to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in India. All these ideas and ideals can be considered formative of middle-class projects.

6

Conclusions and Broader Perspectives

My study shows that veg/non-veg distinctions and choices were involved in middle-class projects, but not in a judgemental or dogmatic way. This perspective distinguishes my informants from advocates of the vegetarian ideology not only in terms of food practices but also in a rhetorical sense. Notably, none of my vegetarian informants referred directly to ahimsa as a naturalized rationale that alone explained their vegetarianism, indicating that among the Hindu middle class in Telangana, vegetarianism was not explicitly associated with ahimsa. In the eyes of those who are fastidious about living a vegetarian life, green/brown labels are a tangible form of standardization introduced by the state that guides their shopping. For most of my informants, who are non-vegetarians, green/brown labels essentially signify a kind of standardization that allows individuals, as consumers, to make informed choices based on strict state regulations. However, for most of my respondents/informants, the political/religious elite’s insistence on vegetarianism did not make much sense, as it was not considered to be consistently translated into actual practices, and this view may help explain their more flexible middle-class approach. My quantitative data confirmed that while many respondents in the general population are unaware of green/brown labels, these labels are seen as a tangible form of everyday state standardization in the eyes of my middle-class informants who often shop in super/hypermarkets, especially those who are fastidious about living a veg(etari)an life. This point is at the heart of paradoxical meat modernity evoking what Marshall Berman called life’s possibilities and perils: the green/brown binary is highly regulated and patrolled based on what was called law as culture in the wake of Hindu nationalism and liberalized markets, which, firstly, contrasts with ways in which ‘meatification’ or meat modernity characterize not only the Indian market but also exports, as well as, secondly, constant food scandals that cast doubt on food safety and standards. Simultaneously, never before in human history have vegetarianism, veganism, organics and a plant-based economy and the Second Green Revolution been so closely associated with sustainability and the promise of tackling environmental issues and climate change. However, the vegetarian ideology may signal the Indianization of markets in a neoliberal context, and while environmental sustainability is not at the centre of this ideology, it may be the strictest vegetarian or ‘green’ law in existence in a country in which meat consumption is DOI: 10.4324/9781003319825-6

144  Conclusions and Broader Perspectives still very low. However, this law contrasts or exposes a general lack of trust in the ability of bureaucratic systems to ensure food security in general. Most of my informants as well as large parts of middle-class groups in Hyderabad were ‘migrants’, that is, they did not grow up in Telangana/Andhra Pradesh but moved here from elsewhere in India, and they drew on their experiences and understandings of veg/non-veg before moving to Hyderabad, including non-veg food culture outside India. Thus, these middle-class groups are socially and physically mobile and they negotiate, adapt and shape local lifestyles in a national context in which the green ideology is dominant. At the same time, the influence of Muslim historical rule and non-veg dishes such as biryani and haleem is typical to Hyderabad to such an extent that they are registered with Geographical Indications as evidence of Hyderabad’s distinctive ecology – a localized form of meat modernity. Being urban middle-class (migrants) allows for complex and conscious choices in terms of everyday food consumption. Most informants come from or live in families that are mixed in terms of whether they adhere to vegetarian, vegan or non-vegetarian diets and, in fact, many informants would qualify as flexitarians. In the context of health and spirituality, my study shows that meat can be regarded as having therapeutic or medicinal value, and vegetarian informants were sometimes advised to eat meat by their doctors. That said, many different types of veg/ non-veg foods can take on medicinal qualities. Health-related beliefs were often associated with Western scientific ideas about nutrition more often than concepts of spiritual or ritual pollution and purity. For my informant Debasmita, in the wake of super/hypermarkets such as SPAR around the corner that sold fresh meat/ fish and travelling around India and abroad, this was referred to as ‘the Hyderabad effect’: a kind of flexible multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism in which meat or non-veg modernity is manifest. In the eyes of informants, a multitude of reasons and arguments for being veg, non-veg or shifting between the two opposites was presented. Three overarching themes run through this book: the retail revolution and changing consumer culture; green aesthetics/ideology or a Second Green Revolution; and meat modernity. These themes are all entangled with the veg/non-veg binary and give shape to the pluralization of consumers’ everyday narratives, strategies and choices in contemporary Telangana. The following empirical example sheds light on the theme of the ongoing retail revolution and changing consumer culture in light of the green/brown law. The manager of Hypercity, the hypermarket located in the basement of the massive Inorbit Mall outside Hyderabad, revealed that the green/brown labels make it easier for Hypercity to sell products because customers can clearly identify veg/ non-veg products. The FSSAI provided regulations and compliance requirements, and super/hypermarket managers were trained to comply with this kind of standardization. Accordingly, products with green labels were arranged on one rack, and products with brown labels were arranged on another rack. There is a world of difference between this kind of standardized and impersonal regulation, production, trade and consumption and the personalized exchanges of goods and money

Conclusions and Broader Perspectives  145 that have characterized market transactions throughout history, including in meat shops in Nampally, for example. Notwithstanding the fact that India embarked on its journey from import substitution to liberalization just three decades ago, massive changes have and are taking place. In central Hyderabad, there were ever fewer small food outlets left on the high streets, while chain super/hypermarkets and restaurants abound. Yet, despite these massive changes that have occurred over a relatively short time span, strong critiques or even calls to boycott giants, such as SPAR, are rarely heard. Recently, there was a call to boycott McDonald’s because the meat was halal, which can fly in the face of some Hindu groups in particular, but such critiques mostly centre on the practices rather than the presence of multinationals per se. These points resonate with the argument that food is a constructive lens for exploring globalization, development and the circulation of power in postcolonial modernity. My study has shown that standardization is an integral part of middle-class universes. A significant number of my well-educated and relatively affluent informants (regulators, producers, traders and consumers) live in new and more or less gated communities in Hyderabad and increasingly also in suburbs, such as Gachibowli or HITEC City. Historically, the bourgeoisie sought land for achieving their vision of ideal middle-class homes. Consequently, suburbia materialized as an archetypal middle-class invention located at safe distances from urban noise, crime, pleasures, excess and crowds. This is where standardized super/ hypermarkets and restaurants often spring up. Standards are by no means limited to products and their regulation; rather, they are the recipes through which realities are created, and they invoke the linguistic categories that are used to organize the world – material as well as ideal. The veg/non-veg binary qualifies as such as a category. However, as I have shown, farmers’ markets and butcher shops are still very popular outlets within the middle-class universe. Many of my informants shopped for meat at (Muslim) butchers, and they were unconcerned about the owners/sellers being Muslim or belonging to lower castes. This point makes me wonder if the kind of bazaar economy of these butchers produces dark figures in more official surveys of Indian meat production/consumption. The study of violence in Gujarat is both fascinating and disturbing, demonstrating the immense forces evoked by vegetarianism and meat-eating in India and revealing that many previous violent incidents were directly or indirectly related to meat/beef/cows (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). While so-called cow lynchings are frequent in India, I cannot help but speculate on whether the proliferation of standardized, sanitized, impersonal and, in principle, democratic shopping spaces in which more and more groups come into contact with, shop for and consume meat/fish (those that can afford to do so) can somehow neutralize the historically controversial role that meat has played in India. In turn, these processes may lead to new forms of inequalities, as a key aspect of the retail revolution is relatively high prices in super/hypermarkets. Turning to the theme of green aesthetics/ideology or the Second Green Revolution, I have shown that there is a noticeable disconnect or tension between

146  Conclusions and Broader Perspectives green rhetoric and actual practice. In India, the consequences of the Green Revolution as well as urban pollution are experienced in everyday life, leading to acute awareness of these problems among the middle class that seeks environmentalism or a Second Green Revolution, as we saw in the cases of organics and veganism in particular. While a transition towards a green economy in India is considered essential for the environment, and green politics, regulation and markets are favoured, it is often unclear what green ideas, ideals and practices are or should be, especially in the current context of liberalized markets, an expanding economy and the entry of multinational corporations into the Indian market. In other words, there is no shared understanding of what this Second Green Revolution is or should be. The good life clubs, discussed in the previous chapter, each in their own way challenged a one-size-fits-all green ideology, and these younger groups, each in their way, point to various future trends in market transformation in India. Veg and non-veg foods are subject to elaborate forms of regulation within manufacturing companies. Traditionally, companies have tended to manufacture either veg or non-veg food, and this is still the case. Notions of purity have penetrated the context of modern mass production, giving rise to elaborate forms of proceduralism and expert knowledge that are reshaping attitudes and values and interiorizing forms of (self) discipline. Elaborate measures are now in place for classifying veg/non-veg foods in terms of their content (ingredients/products) and context (avoiding cross-contamination, for example). In other words, veg/nonveg foods are subject to and modified by a whole range of (Indianized) notions, ranging from purification associated with nationalism to scientification. In all of this, a nationalized form of green ideology/law permeates corporate understandings and practices. Globally, there is a plethora of vegetarian/vegan certifications and labels in existence, but to my knowledge, India is one of the only countries that has a national labelling system based on law as culture, as it was. I have shown why and how the green/brown regulation is integral to a new form of nationalized standardization in India. This development was given impetus by Hindu revivalist discourses, cow veneration and the banning of cow slaughter on the one hand but also to match and patrol India’s status as a major producer of meat, and especially of water buffalo beef, on the other. Moreover, neoliberal reforms and intensified globalization of food markets have led to the pluralization of shopping desires and choices, and these transformations have direct consequences for local and foreign companies alike, irrespective of size. As increasingly more food, ingredients as well as finished products, is processed and packaged, veg/non-veg labelling represents only one mode of governance for patrolling purity/pollution boundaries that coexist among broader concerns relating, for example, to health and organics. My study has shown that green/brown governmentality extends far beyond meat into areas such as biotech production, as illustrated by the company Novozymes. In general, companies have been ‘disciplined’ by the FSSAI during the last decade. In other words, in India, regulatory institutions are disciplining companies in relation to green/brown understandings and practices, but companies have also

Conclusions and Broader Perspectives  147 become more skilled at negotiating standardized requirements. Paradoxically, while my research among consumers showed that vegetarianism and meat-eating are increasingly flexible and shifting middle-class choices as opposed to being determined by religious orthodoxy or Hindu dietary law, Hindu middle-class groups go about consuming and obtaining their daily food within a highly standardized market for vegetarian products. Focusing on the ‘bigger institutional picture’, including regulation, which now frames everyday consumption, I have presented a multi-sited ethnography of the overlapping technologies and techniques of production, trade and certification/ standards that together warrant a product as veg or non-veg, thereby helping to shape the market. It is important to move beyond concepts of meat/beef/cow veneration/ahimsa to gain a deeper understanding of the bureaucratization/scientification of Indian food markets in relation to the explosion of processed foods, such as instant noodles. Arguably, ‘secular’ law such as green/brown labelling is increasingly competing with Hindu dietary law. Meat modernity signifies a central paradox in contemporary India, namely the idealization of ‘the green’ against the pragmatic backdrop of ‘the brown’. It is evident that meat (and non-veg more generally) production, trade and consumption are prominent in India. However, the level of meat consumption is still very low in India compared to almost all other countries, but one of my main findings is that the idealization of the green associated with Hindu nationalism is a reaction to increasingly flexible and secular lifestyles that rarely involved Hindu vegetarianism as a dominant discourse among middle-class groups. Even if local butcher shops remain popular, the mass production of meat in abattoirs located outside the cities and public gaze is a characteristic of meat modernity. The relocation of centralized animal slaughter and meat processing facilities serves to avert the human gaze from the violence done in them to animals and to address concerns about public hygiene and the dangers of transmitting animal diseases to humans (not least in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic) while fostering economies of scale promoted by large businesses. Abattoirs are quintessential examples of ambivalent sites in modernity. On the one hand, they follow the above meat modernity logics, and on the other hand, they are perceived by Hindu nationalists and fastidious vegetarians/vegans as sites of industrialized and impersonal mass killing (of cows) that are unfit or improper in vegetarian India. Very few, if any, of my informants argued for veg(etari)anism based on first-hand observations of the slaughter of animals, but rather they referred to documentaries such as ‘Cowspiracy’ and others that are widely accessible to large audiences. These documentaries and a plethora of others offer a glimpse into industrialized mass slaughter. However, it is widely acknowledged that meat production and exports, dubbed ‘meatification’, are thriving in India, and critiques of abattoirs often seem unconvincing and mostly rhetorical. This ambivalence was illustrated during my fieldwork conducted in one of India’s largest food manufacturing companies that produced both veg and non-veg foods (meat, poultry and seafood), including readymade meals. This company was frequently accused of slaughtering cows

148  Conclusions and Broader Perspectives illegally. The company stressed that it did not slaughter cows, bulls or oxen, only buffalos. It was located in a secluded rural area from where it distributed its products throughout India and exported them to many countries. The company is controversial because it was a major meat producer, and it also produced veg and non-veg food items at the same facility. However, because it was hidden from the urban gaze, the controversy was relatively minor. Meat has a long history in Telangana/Hyderabad, and the key point here is that history, or, more specifically, the historical authenticity/tradition, of a particular cuisine often overrides vegetarian concerns. The veg/non-veg market was explored as an ensemble of practices and institutions from the perspective of involved actors in India (Schwecke and Gandhi 2020). The book Muslim Piety as Economy (Fischer and Jammes 2019) argued that specific forms of production, trade, regulation, consumption, entrepreneurship and science condition, and are themselves conditioned by, Islamic values, logics and politics in Southeast Asia as a site of significant and diverse integration of Islam and the economy. Hence, the veg/non-veg ensemble of practices and institutions conditions Indian markets with regard to values, logics and politics, but there are also more global aspects to the veg/non-veg market, not least the role of large and growing middle-class groups, and it is that aspect I will now theorize.

Meat Modernity and the Green: Towards a Theory of Human Values and Markets This book marks a continuation of my research into the relationship between religion, human values and markets (Fischer 2008, 2011, 2015, 2022; Lever and Fischer 2018; Fischer and Jammes 2019), with a specific focus on kosher and halal products. These two markets have been explored with reference to production, trade, regulation and consumption with specific reference to middle-class understandings and practices. There are clear parallels between the veg/non-veg markets in India and developments in kosher and halal markets over the last couple of decades, but a number of marked differences also apply. First, there is the question of meat. In kosher and halal food systems, it is overwhelmingly pork and other types of meat/non-veg that are subjected to religious taboos. Other types of meat should be obtained through a ritually dictated slaughter process. Within Hinduism (and even more so in Jainism), food taboos centre on meat avoidance more generally, and cows in particular, which are venerated. Second, while kosher and halal are always religious in nature, this is not the case with vegetarianism, which can be conditioned by a wide variety of religious and/or non-religious sentiments, such as health, spirituality and veganism, as we have seen throughout this book. Third, while kosher and halal have been systematically regulated (standardized and certified) by third-party state and non-state certifiers for decades, the standardization of vegetarianism in India is at best a local type of semi-certification. The green label does not express legal protection and statemandated third-party certification to the same degree as kosher and halal certifications do. While kosher/halal are subject to constant global attention, religious

Conclusions and Broader Perspectives  149 food scandals and lawsuits on a global scale, the place of Indian vegetarianism is more subtle within the public space and discourse, with the exception of beef in connection with vigilantism, Muslims and Dalits. Lastly, and most paradoxically, perhaps, while many Jews and Muslims are fastidious about kosher/halal, the green economy in India is taking shape simultaneously with a rise in meat production and consumption in the context of what I refer to as meat modernity. In spite of these differences, a number of key trends emerge from these studies. Most of the recent scholarship on moral economies or religious/green markets argues for the compatibility of economies/markets and religious practices in particular national or regional contexts. However, much of this scholarship has overlooked the fact that over the last couple of decades, religious/green markets have entered a new phase characterized by new forms of regulation, certification and standardization on a global scale. Building on research on kosher, halal and Hindu veg/non-veg, I propose a theory of global middle-class markets: globally, economies and markets are inseparable from how religions, more generally, are regulated by state institutions, but religious transnational governmentality also extends to secular settings around the globe. In the section on methodology in Chapter 1, I argued for the significance of multi-sited ethnography at different levels of the social scale – what was also referred to as a radical expansion of the horizons of ethnographic methodology involving processes that unfold on an awkward scale to inform an analysis of material/moral conditions animating cultural/religious economies, for example. Comparing my findings in this book to my previous studies of middleclass groups with specific reference to human values and markets in Malaysia and Singapore, the Global South, the UK, the US and Denmark, the Global North, it is striking how multi-sited ethnography at different levels of the global scale reveals comparable reasoning, arguments and contestations among middle-class groups. More specifically, arguments for or against veg or non-veg, for example, constantly straddle these levels among socially and intellectually mobile middle-class groups that draw on and enmesh experiences local, regional, national and global in nature. For example, the Second Green Revolution is inseparable from wider concerns about sustainability and climate change. In effect, this is a kind of global middle-class experience of modernity’s possibilities and perils: meat modernity or ‘meatification’ is integral to expanding meat markets and exports but increasingly poses challenges to sustainability, while the Second Green Revolution seems abstract and hijacked by a powerful green ideology in India that many of my informants found to be paradoxical. I often frequent an Indian grocery shop in central Copenhagen, Denmark, where I live. This is where I first noticed the green labels on Indian products that are popular in Denmark and beyond. I only knew about these labels in connection with my study of veg/non-veg in India. Many studies conclude that meat and dairy production and consumption account for a substantial amount of global CO2 emissions. Never before have plant-based diets figured so prominently in policies to address climate change, including in Denmark. Yet, meat production and consumption levels remain high in Denmark as in most other Western countries, and

150  Conclusions and Broader Perspectives most plant-based food ingredients are imported. The majority of the Danish population would like to eat more plant-based and locally produced foods than they currently do. The paradox here is that middle-class groups are very well aware that meat poses sustainability challenges and that these are only slowly and unevenly translated into practice in everyday life: myself included, I can only count a couple of vegetarians among my family and friends. In spite of what I have called meat modernity among Hindu middle-class groups in Southern India, the tradition, regulation, promotion and availability of vegetarian options in India far exceeds that of Western countries, contributing to an Indianized kind of modernity in which veg(etari)ans, but also flexitarians, are prominent and progressive. Theorizing human values and markets with a specific focus on middle-class projects, as it were, helps focus on the immense potential for change and critique among the global middle class rather than simply focusing on these groups as materialist consumers.

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Index

ahimsa 10–15, 46, 50, 84, 87, 88, 105, 125, 127, 131, 136, 140, 143, 147 alcohol 2, 56, 72, 107, 113, 123 animality 25, 80, 88, 136 audits/audit culture 29, 44, 52, 53, 55, 57, 61, 70, 78, 81, 84, 134 beef 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14–16, 24, 26, 27, 32, 45, 47, 48, 50, 62–66, 68, 79, 80, 83, 88, 89, 93, 95, 96, 98–102, 104, 106–109, 114–116, 118–126, 128–131, 141, 145–147, 149 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 1, 9, 16, 18, 33, 46–49, 55, 94, 106–110, 122, 125, 128, 138, 139 blood 49, 87, 113, 124, 134 Brahmins/Brahminical 3, 11, 12, 19, 43, 48, 49, 67, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 93, 95–97, 99, 100, 102–105, 107, 108, 110–112, 114, 117, 120–123, 125, 129, 130, 137, 138, 141 butchers 7, 17, 18, 29, 32, 42, 45, 51, 62–64, 66, 67, 70–73, 76, 85, 88, 89, 94, 99, 101, 102, 114, 117, 124, 129–131, 145, 147 caste 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14–19, 25, 30, 32, 34, 46, 48, 50, 55, 64, 66, 67, 73, 78, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 92–99, 102–105, 108, 110, 113, 114, 117, 120–127, 129, 133, 140, 145 certifiers/certificates/certification 14, 15, 18, 31, 32, 39, 41, 43, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60–62, 71, 73, 79, 83, 85, 102, 109, 131–136, 142, 146–149 chicken/poultry 5–6, 9, 14, 18, 26, 35, 45, 56, 60, 63, 66, 68, 71, 73, 81–85, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 102, 104, 112, 114, 115, 122, 124, 125, 130, 140, 147

China 27, 52, 56, 59 climate change 2, 49, 131, 142, 143, 149 COVID-19 1, 24, 147 ‘cowmodities’ 135, 136 cows 2, 4, 9, 11, 12, 14–16, 18, 22, 24, 25, 35, 36, 43, 46–50, 61, 80, 88, 89, 95, 105–107, 118, 120, 122–125, 128, 129, 133–136, 138–141, 145–148 dairy (curd, ghee, milk and paneer) 1, 8–10, 31, 45, 56, 58, 74, 75, 79, 80, 83, 84, 89, 97–99, 102, 104, 105, 107, 110, 115, 116, 123, 129, 131, 134, 136–142, 149 Dalits 3, 7, 13, 14, 16, 21, 28–30, 32, 34, 102, 106–108, 119–126, 128, 131, 141, 149 Delhi 1, 2, 5, 15, 16, 18, 27, 29, 30, 39–41, 43–45, 55, 57, 62, 66, 72, 78, 87, 88, 113–116, 121 dietary law 10, 13, 85, 86, 95, 105, 115, 147 enzymes 9, 56, 80 Europe 9, 15, 49, 56, 57, 59, 95, 110, 126, 133 fish/seafood 1–9, 11, 13–15, 43, 49, 58–60, 63, 66, 68–76, 83, 85, 93, 95–97, 101–104, 110–114, 116, 129–132, 139, 144, 145, 147 Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) 2, 25, 26, 31, 36, 40–45, 51, 52, 55–62, 73, 77, 78, 81–84, 94, 102, 106, 109, 112, 115–117, 131, 135, 144, 146 food scandals 25, 26, 55, 101, 118, 132, 135, 139, 143, 149

Index  167 food taboos 8, 10–12, 24, 50, 102, 116, 123, 125, 129, 134, 148 Gandhi, M.K 12, 17, 51, 55, 70, 121, 148 gelatine 43, 56, 107, 139 global(ization) 2, 4, 6, 11, 13, 19, 20, 22–28, 30, 33–36, 38, 40, 41, 45, 47–50, 52, 53, 65, 71, 74, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 90–92, 94–96, 128, 131, 135–137, 141, 145, 146, 148–150 governmentality 52, 53, 146, 149 Gujarat 17, 46, 57, 82, 83, 85, 89, 95, 96, 104, 105, 124, 145 halal/haram 7, 15, 30, 32, 39, 57, 61, 64, 71, 73, 76, 79, 81, 83, 145, 148, 149 health 5–8, 10, 12, 18, 20–22, 25–27, 30, 41, 49, 58, 59, 67, 73, 76, 78, 83, 84, 86–88, 90, 92–94, 96–100, 107, 111, 112, 115, 117, 119, 122, 125, 126, 130, 132, 134, 137–141, 144, 146, 148 Hinduism 2, 9, 12, 13, 17, 19, 22, 24, 48, 88, 90, 91, 94, 99, 125, 148 Hindu nationalism 5, 7, 9, 12, 25, 32, 39, 42, 46–50, 67, 78, 88, 89, 91, 105, 106, 110, 118, 136, 143, 146, 147 Indian National Congress (INC) 2, 22, 31, 33, 47, 124, 125 inspectors/inspections 4, 43–45, 52, 54, 56, 57, 61, 70, 73, 77, 79, 81, 84, 134 Islam/Muslims 1, 7, 11, 13–16, 18, 24, 25, 32, 34, 35, 46, 50, 51, 61–64, 66, 67, 72, 73, 76, 79, 83, 85, 88, 92–94, 101–108, 110, 114, 117, 120–123, 125, 130, 136, 138, 144, 145, 148, 149 Kosher 30, 57, 148, 149 labels 2, 3, 5, 12–14, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 31, 32, 35–37, 39–47, 49, 50, 53–62, 68–71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 92, 94, 96, 103, 105–109, 111, 112, 114–118, 123, 124, 129, 131, 133–135, 139–141, 143, 144, 146–149 lamb/mutton 7, 35, 63, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 79, 82, 83, 93, 96, 98, 99, 102, 104, 114, 124, 129, 130 law 3, 5, 7, 13, 14, 21, 24, 29, 32, 39, 40, 42–48, 50, 52–54, 57, 76, 84–86, 89, 95, 100, 101, 105, 108, 111, 115, 117, 120, 123, 125, 126, 130, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149

liberalization/reforms 5, 6, 14, 16, 18, 25, 27, 41, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54, 62, 69, 78, 79, 88, 89, 91, 92, 106, 118, 143, 145, 146 Malaysia 25, 49, 149 methodology 14, 27–29, 149 middle class 1–3, 5–8, 10, 11, 13–19, 21–30, 33–35, 39, 41–43, 46, 47, 50, 53, 59, 62, 66, 67, 70, 71, 74, 78, 79, 82–86, 89–96, 100, 102, 105, 108, 110, 113–121, 124–126, 131, 133, 136, 137, 142–150 modernity 7, 8, 12, 13, 22–27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 46, 47, 50, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 100, 101, 115, 116, 120, 124, 126, 132, 136, 139, 141, 143–145, 147–150 Modi, N. 1, 5, 18, 22, 26, 46, 47, 55, 106, 109, 113, 115, 131, 138, 141 Mumbai 15, 64, 69, 78, 89, 90 organics 5, 16, 21, 30, 70, 73, 74, 89, 98, 101, 102, 109, 113, 119, 120, 132–136, 139, 142, 143, 146 pigs/pork 7, 11, 26, 32, 45, 50, 59, 60, 63–66, 80, 87, 93, 94, 96, 100, 107–109, 114, 121, 128–130, 148 politics 3, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19–22, 26, 28, 29, 32, 33, 39–43, 46, 47, 50–52, 54, 58, 78, 79, 86–88, 92, 96, 105–107, 109, 110, 114, 120, 121, 123–125, 127, 129–132, 138, 142, 143, 146, 148 post-colonialism 13, 33, 41, 62, 88, 145 purity/pollution 9–13, 19, 34, 38, 43, 48, 56, 57, 61, 62, 67, 80, 87, 89, 90, 95, 96, 99, 105–107, 110–112, 114, 115, 117, 120, 125, 126, 132, 141, 144, 146 quality/qualification 6, 32, 40, 44, 45, 48, 53, 55–57, 59, 61, 62, 64, 70, 72–74, 76–78, 81, 83, 85, 90, 94, 102, 107, 108, 112, 117, 131, 135, 144 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) 9, 110, 123 regulation 2, 6–8, 12–15, 18–22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 35, 39–44, 47–59, 61, 62, 77, 78, 85, 86, 88, 96, 101, 106, 109, 115, 117, 120, 132, 135, 139, 143–150 religion 3, 6, 8, 10, 12–15, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 36, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48, 50, 53–55, 58, 62, 66, 68, 72, 73, 78, 79,

168 Index 85–89, 91, 92, 94, 98–100, 103–108, 110–112, 115, 116, 118, 120, 123–125, 129, 137–143, 147–149 ritual 11, 12, 15, 18, 22, 48, 49, 75, 79, 88, 89, 91, 92, 95, 100, 102, 108, 110–112, 117, 121, 139, 144, 148 Sanskrit(ization) 48, 121, 125, 126, 141 science 14, 16, 19, 22, 26, 39–42, 46, 50, 62, 69, 88, 91, 100, 117, 128, 130, 137, 138, 144, 146–148 Second Green Revolution 14, 21, 23, 30, 92, 100, 101, 119, 125, 132, 133, 135, 142–146, 149 secularists/secularism 17, 33, 147, 149 Southeast Asia 18, 25, 148 spirituality 12, 18, 22, 48, 49, 88, 91, 100, 102, 108, 111, 112, 117, 121, 139, 144, 148 standards/standardization 6, 14, 15, 17, 31, 32, 39–43, 45, 46, 49–57, 60, 61, 69,

70, 73, 76–78, 84, 85, 100, 105, 108, 109, 117, 118, 128, 132, 133, 140, 141, 143–149 state 8, 10, 14, 18, 20–22, 25, 26, 32, 34, 39–42, 46–48, 51, 53, 72, 78, 86, 91, 92, 99, 109, 113, 115–118, 132, 134, 136, 139, 142, 143, 148, 149 super/hypermarkets 4, 6, 16, 21, 23, 25, 29, 45, 46, 50–52, 60, 62, 63, 66, 69–74, 77, 78, 85, 89, 94, 101, 102, 105, 106, 114, 124, 130, 139, 141, 143–145 sustainability 2, 20, 27, 30, 119, 132, 135, 137, 143, 149, 150 Swadeshi 18 training 41, 44, 57, 59, 70, 72, 76, 134, 144 water buffalos 1, 14, 24, 27, 59, 87, 88, 118, 146