Based on empirical study, designed to capture the views of students in a leading Indian university on diverse types of dietary choices, this article specifically examines the extent of acceptability of beef and pork in hostel menus. The study found that while only widely accepted vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items like chicken and mutton featured in mess menus, the scale of social tolerance for beef and pork consumption among students is actually much larger, and much more widely spread than hegemonic mainstream claims have been ready to admit. Based on such findings, this sociological study raises wider implications regarding the politics of food choice in India today.
AlthusserL. (2014) On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. London: Verso.
2.
BatraS.M. (1986) ‘The Sacredness of the Cow in India’, Social Compass, 33(2–3): 163–75.
3.
BanerjeeT.P. (2017) ‘The Politics of Religion and Faith in Mumbai’, Society and Culture in South Asia, 3(2): 233–43.
4.
ByrdK.M. & ByrdW.C. (2017) ‘We Eat to Live, We Live to Eat: Thoughts on the Sociological Study of Food, Culture, and Inequality’, Humanity & Society, 41(4): 419–26.
5.
DubeL. (1996) ‘Caste and Women’. In SrinivasM.N. (Ed), Caste. Its Twentieth Century Avatar (pp. 1–27). New Delhi: Penguin Books.
6.
DumontL. (1988) Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on Caste. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
7.
GermovJ. & WilliamsL. (1996) ‘The Sexual Division of Dieting: Women’s Voices’, The Sociological Review, 44(4): 630–47.
8.
GhuryeG.S. (1932) Caste and Race in India. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
9.
GhuryeG.S. (1961) Caste, Class and Occupation. Bombay: Popular Book Depot.
10.
GundimedaS. (2009) ‘Democratisation of the Public Sphere: The Beef Stall Case in Hyderabad’s Sukoon Festival’, South Asia Research, 29(2): 127–49.
11.
GundimedaS. & AshwinV.S. (2018) ‘Cow Protection in India: From Secularising to Legitimating Debates’, South Asia Research, 38(2): 156–76.
12.
HugheyM.W. (2016) ‘You are What You Eat: The Sociology of Food’, Humanity & Society, 40(3): 353–4.
13.
IversenV. & RaghavendraP.S. (2006) ‘What the Signboard Hides: Food, Caste and Employability in Small South Indian Eating Places’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40311–41.
14.
JangamC. (2016) ‘Caste from Below: Memory and Subversion of Caste in Chindu Yakshaganam’, South Asia Research, 36(3): 343–55.
15.
LewisD. (2016) ‘Bodies, Matter and Feminist Freedoms: Revisiting the Politics of Food’, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 30(4): 6–16.
16.
LynchO. (1972) ‘Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Myth and Charisma’. In MaharJ.H. (Ed), The Untouchables in Contemporary India (pp. 97–112). Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
17.
MaharJ.M. (1972a) ‘Agents of Dharma in a North Indian Village’. In MaharJ.M. (Ed), The Untouchables in Contemporary India (pp. 17–35). Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
18.
MaharJ.M. (Ed). (1972b) The Untouchables in Contemporary India. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
19.
MencherJ.P. (1974) ‘The Caste System Upside Down, or the Not-So-Mysterious East’, Current Anthropology, 15(4): 469–93.
20.
MicheluttiL. (2010) ‘“We are Kshatriyas but We Behave like Vaishyas”: Diet and Muscular Politics among a Community of Yadavs in North India’, South Asia, Journal of South Asian Studies, 31(1): 76–95.
21.
MurcottA. (1999) ‘“Not Science but PR”: GM Food and the Makings of a Considered Sociology’, Sociological Research. 4(3): 262–74.
22.
NandyA. (2004) The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food: Preliminary Notes’, South Asia Research, 24(1): 9–19.
23.
PandyaS.P. (2017) ‘Food, Faith, Social Service and Institution Building: The Annamrita Programme of the Hare Krishna Movement in India’, Religion, State and Society, 45(1): 4–22.
24.
PantP.(2015, October 19) ‘There’s No Meat to the Vegetarianism Myth’. Outlook. URL (consulted 15June2020), from https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/theres-no-meat-to-the-vegetarianism-myth/295546
25.
PathaniaG.J. (2016) ‘Food Politics and Counterhegemonic Assertion in Indian University Campuses’, South Asia Research, 36(2): 261–77.
26.
PathaniaG.J. (2018) The University as a Site of Resistance. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
27.
PeloquinL.M. (2010) ‘Of Hungry Minds and Omnivorous Appetites: Teaching the Sociology of Food through Film. Humanity & Society’, 34(4): 396–400.
28.
SatyamalaC. (2018) ‘Meat-Eating in India: Whose Food, Whose Politics, and Whose Rights?’Policy Futures in Education, 17(7): 878–91.
29.
ScanlanS.J. (2009) ‘New Direction and Discovery on the Hunger Front: Toward a Sociology of Food Security/Insecurity’, Humanity & Society, 33(4): 292–316.
30.
ShahA.B. (Ed) (1967) Cow Slaughter: Horns of a Dilemma. Bombay: Lalvani Publishing House.
31.
SimiD. & MatusitzJ. (2015) ‘Glocalization of Subway in India: How a US Giant Has Adapted in the Asian Subcontinent’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 52(5): 573–85.
SrinivasM.N. (1970) The Remembered Village. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
34.
SrinivasM.N. (1995) Social Change in Modern India. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan.
35.
Sukumar (2015, April25) ‘Why Beef Was Banished from My Kitchen: Food and Cultural Selfhood’, Economic & Political Weekly, 50(17). URL (consulted 15June2020), from https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/17/web-exclusives/why-beef-was-banished-my-kitchen.html.
36.
WardP., CoveneyJ. & HendersonJ. (2010) ‘Editorial: A Sociology of Food and Eating. Why now?’Journal of Sociology, 46(4): 347–51.
37.
WoutersJ.J.P. & SubbaT.B. (2013) ‘The “Indian Face”, India’s Northeast, and “The Idea of India”’, Journal of Asian Anthropology, 12(2): 126–40.
38.
ZelliotE. (2012) Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement. New Delhi: Navayana.
