New Delhi: “Vegetarians only” posters on the walls of a dining hall in the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) have sparked a furious debate online on food discrimination and casteism.
The posters, which came up in the eating area of hostel 12 in the prestigious institute, have also been decried by student groups which pointed out that denoting separate space for eating vegetarian and non-vegetarian food had no institutional backing.
The IIT-B student collective Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) tweeted on Saturday that no segregation policies existed at IIT-B for food. It cited evidence from an RTI filed three months ago, which revealed there was no separate place to eat “Jain” (vegetarian) food in the institute, nor was there any punishment for students bringing non-vegetarian food to vegetarian spaces.
APPSC also posted a screenshot of an email sent by the hostel 12 general secretary on 15 July, which clarified that while there was a separate counter for the distribution of vegetarian food, there was no separate seating designated for eating it.
The general secretary’s email also noted that several individuals had forced non-vegetarians from sitting in certain areas that were deemed “vegetarian”. It reiterated the commitment the institute had for mutual respect and tolerance and warned of strict action if rules were broken again.
In the tweet, the APPSC claimed the “need to demarcate separate eating spaces with an idea of purity is to reinforce the superiority of Savarnas (Brahmins) on campus”.
The debate around vegetarianism and its association with purity and casteism has taken the Internet by storm for a while now. Last week, philanthropist Sudha Murty set social media abuzz with a comment on a YouTube show, where she told the host “one of my biggest fears is that the same spoon may have been used for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes”.
In the show “Khaane Mein Kya Hai?”, the wife of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy described herself as a “a pure vegetarian” who doesn’t even eat eggs.
“So when I travel, I look for a pure vegetarian restaurant. And I carry an entire bag full of food. I used to tease my grannies decades ago when they would carry their own food. I used to ask them why can’t you eat the food that’s available there. But now I behave like them,” the mother-in-law of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.
Twitter users were quick to point out that the concept of “purity” associated with vegetarianism was prejudicial and criticized the inability of Indian vegetarians to differentiate their choice of food from casteism.
Some put forward the counter-argument that being vegetarian was not connected to being casteist, and that food was a personal choice that should be respected.