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Comment by vijaybritto | Hacker News Reader

This is simply mind boggling!!

>That question has nothing to do with Caste specifically.

It has everything to do with Caste specifically. This is the question we often get when upper caste folk are not able to figure out our caste from the names.

>So when a group of Indian coworkers go out to eat, they have to know who are hardcore vegetarians and choose a restaurant accordingly.

Do you know why this happens? The vegetarians consider non-vegetarians as 'impure'. They want to follow their tradition of not eating in an 'impure' place. This is one of the main forms of discrimination that lower castes face.

pls read this to understand that not so hidden meaning behind the word 'non-vegetarian'

https://www.dailyo.in/variety/non-veg-food-iit-bombay-vegeta...

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It is absolutely true that some pure vegetarians consider anything that has been in contact with meat to be "impure", though the extent to which they insist upon this varies. Eg if the cook has handled meat, the pure vegetarian might insist the cook washes their hands thoroughly before preparing the vegetarian's food. I've seen pure vegetarians in Subway restaurants ask the cook to change their gloves before making their sandwich.

But it's wrong to assume that by default every pure vegetarian extends this concept of "impure" to the non-vegetarian person, let alone discriminates against non-vegetarians. I don't doubt that some people do it, but it is by no means universal. To ascribe this ulterior motive to every Indian that asks another Indian about their vegetarianism is just silly. It's just a conversation-starter, an ice-breaker, because pure-vegetarianism is so common in India in the first place. And is useful when choosing restaurants for group lunches.

Especially if we're talking about Indians living in the US, treating non-vegetarians like untouchables is going to be a very hard task for them, unless they don't interact with anyone who isn't Indian either. Is it possible? Sure. Is it the norm? Absolutely not.

Not sure if you know, but there are 'Upper Castes' that eat Non-Vegetarian food. Asking someone if they are vegetarian or not, just to ascertain their caste would be a dumb thing to do, especially when you can know someone's caste from their last name (and maybe some googling on top, if you really really wanted to know their caste)

I have a shellfish allergy. I am also high caste Brahmin. Me asking about people’s dietary preferences before going to a restaurant would make me a casteist?

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