Nathuram Godse killed Gandhi. Was he a vegetarian? As per Hindu lore, Parashuram slaughtered generations of Kshatriyas. Was he a vegetarian? As per Jain lore, Akbar and Aurangzeb embraced vegetarianism. Did that make them non-violent? These are questions that need to be asked by the next generation of historians and scientists as politicians proclaim that meat eating makes people violent.
Is the opposite true? Are vegetarians kinder people? Are vegetarians less likely to be murderers? There is no scientific paper that proves that eating vegetarian food makes a person morally superior, gentler, or more compassionate. Yet, in India, the belief that vegetarians are nicer people is deeply rooted and strongly connected to spiritual arrogance.
Vegetarianism has become associated with Jains, Brahmins, Baniyas, Lingayats and with the idea of purity, even though Kashmiri, Maithili, Bengali and Odia Brahmins are meat-eaters. Meat eating became associated with communities considered “untouchable” and “impure”: Tribals, Dalits, Chandalas, Ati Shudras. Over time, diet has become a caste marker. Upper-caste oppressors are viewed as self controlled, spiritual, non-violent. Lower caste meat-eating oppressed groups are seen as aggressive, even dangerous. This binary continues to shape social attitudes. Gandhi promoted this idea by forbidding meat-eating in his ashrams. The RSS, too, has pure-veg canteens in its push to unite Hindu civilisation.
The reality, however, is far more complicated. A vegetarian businessman can approve projects that destroy mangroves along the coast, cut forests in the Andamans, blast mountains in the Aravallis, or push aggressive infrastructure in fragile Himalayan zones. These acts damage ecosystems, displace communities, and wipe out animal life. Yet, they are rarely described as violence. They are called development. While killing a goat for food is condemned, the clearing of thousands of acres of forest is justified. This moral dissonance is striking. Many sincerely believe that maintaining a vegetarian kitchen, building temples, funding rituals, and supporting gurus preserves spiritual merit, even while participating in ecological destruction. The plate becomes pure even if the planet burns.
If we look at early religious texts, the picture changes. Vedic rituals included animal sacrifice. Horse meat, goat meat and other meats are mentioned. Later texts debate these practices, reinterpret them, or move toward symbolic offerings, as an option only. Jain theology argues that animals may be reborn humans, so eating animals resembles cannibalism. In Vedic Satapatha Brahmana, Bhrigu dreams that plants eaten in this life eat us in the next one. Plants are alive too. In folk Islam, there is a saying that eating halal food does not compensate for haram acts. The same logic applies here. A vegetarian diet does not automatically cleanse greed, prejudice or exploitation. Ethical life cannot be reduced to ingredients.
Within Indian history, there are vegetarian bankers and merchants who funded Islamic sultanates and the East India Company. They earned wealth through systems that enabled war and conquest. Their diet did not prevent their participation in power politics.
In the 17th century, certain Vaishnav and Jain groups in Rajput courts began defining Hindu identity through vegetarian spaces. Over time, vegetarianism became a badge of religious authenticity. Today, this logic is slowly dividing Hindus into pure and impure categories, into higher and lower Hindus.
Muslims were excluded from these spaces, as were tribals and so-called “unclean” communities. Today, however, tribals and so-called “lower” communities are called Hindus, taught Hanuman Chalisa, in order to make them part of a Hindu vote bank. If they wish to rise in institutional hierarchies and gain access to higher posts, however, they are encouraged to “purify” themselves by changing diet. This is a veg-canteen social-engineering toolkit, marketed as kindness and compassion by the very people who will brook no opposition to their access to power and wealth.
There is also an economic irony. India is among the largest exporters of beef, and many large export houses are owned by families that identify as vegetarian.
The problem arises when diet becomes a measure of human worth. Violence is not limited to the slaughterhouse. It can hide in boardrooms, policy decisions, and financial deals. Kindness is not guaranteed by what we refuse to eat. It is revealed by how we exercise power.
Pattanaik is a mythologist and author of over 60 books
