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> By admitting to eating meat, the tech worker had exposed himself as a member of an oppressed caste, or a Dalit

This is nonsense. The majority of Indians, upper caste or otherwise eat meat. Vegetarians make up less than 2% of the population of my home state.

I have no trouble believing that Indians abroad act out their casteist bigotry in vile ways. But when I read something that gets the details so wrong, I start to wonder how much of it is just made up.

I am from Punjab, & certainly there are more than 2% of vegetarians in Punjab (maybe more people drink alcohol & but not eat meat). A google search says 33% of Punjabis are vegetarian. Stereotype is typical Punjabi eats chicken, saag, butter, liquor.

Wikipedia links says 20 to 39 percent of Indians are vegetarian. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#Dem...

Another complexity is, different levels of vegetarians. One who eat egg only. One who eat fish only. Or chicken only, no mutton. Or no pork. Or never beef. Or any combination. Or depends on season, day, weather, people. People might be secretly eating meat without telling parents or family.

Although your statement may be completely true, less than 2% vegi, (stereotypes) for South Indian states, Bengal, Orissa etc.

Yes, Punjabis are very caste aware in USA, Jatt & such, and that absolutely come into play here in California while making social connections, gathering, groups. At works, retail locations, hiring, Punjabi owners care less about caste & more about cost.

But diet isn't the only data point here, pretty sure diet plus home state/region (maybe discernable from accent and/or surname) is likely enough to determine it

> pretty sure diet plus home state/region (maybe discernable from accent

You would be wrong. There is absolutely no way to tell a person's caste based on where they come from.

> surname

Surname could be an indicator but that doesn't need questions about diet.

I know people who were raised in vegetarian Hindu households in India who became beef lovers after they moved to the US. I'm skeptical that questions about diet are particularly useful for a would-be caste discriminator.

A lot of non-Dalit people eat meat in India. The only thing eating meat proves is you are not a Brahmin, the priest class, who were long considered the most pure and closer to God. In addition Jains and Gujaratis also do not typically eat meat.

If some Indian were to ask me if I eat meat, I wouldn't immediately associate malice with that enquiry. Talking about food back home, is a common source of connection for a lot of the Indian diaspora.

> The only thing eating meat proves is you are not a Brahmin

Does it? I personally know several exceptions to this "rule" - and they are pretty open about it. It's not some closeted meat-eating thing.

OP is correct by and large. But Hinduism is full of contradictions, for every rule there are are half a dozen exceptions so your observation isn't an anomaly.

The thing is, there's no master text (unlike Indian constitution) that one can consult and conclude "Brahmin == no meat". Someone would cite a scripture from an ancient Hindu text (for example, Rigveda, or Manu Smriti etc.,) and draw a conclusion, however the same text might as well contain a scripture few pages down that says exactly the opposite.

By "exceptions" I meant "people". Not actual rules written in a book.

I was indeed responding to this meaning. I was commenting that it's perfectly possible for a community to be Brahmin and yet be meat eating. Just that it's not mainstream. In India, the very first assumption one makes the moment they hear Brahmin/Jain is that they must be pure vegetarians.

I would still want to connect Jain with no meat. Brahmins & meat eater is almost fifty fifty.

There is a difference in asking whether an Indian eats meat or whether they eat cow. The latter may raise some issues tied to religious beliefs.

Conflating the two is probably where the confusion in this thread stems from.

Eating does not prove anything plenty of brahmins of this generation do eat meat and beef.

Not eating meat however is a strong signal though, which is what typically the questioner wants to know.

> Not eating meat however is a strong signal though

I also personally know several counter-examples to this rule.

If meat/no-meat is the only signal people are using, there must be a lot of false positives and negatives. Or my sample of the population is somehow atypical.

Yes it is not, plenty of soft cues are signals - today's generation isn't good at identifying them ( a good thing!).

Meat/no-meat is the most common signal, certainly not the only one, surname would be another, language (ethnolect or dialect) is sometimes another.

There are no perfect methods short of asking, some older people and more overtly racists (even they aren't aware) straight up do ask.

Also most racists only really care whether you are their caste or not, it doesn't matter what you actually are, so classification into their group or not is easier than do it precisely.

There are a lot of false positives and negatives, which is why this is a broken system in cities and places where you couldn't possibly know their caste from their diet or their surname. Nothing short of explicitly asking for their caste would let you know 100%, people are just really good at generalizing.

Brahmins of Bengal are the biggest fish eaters after Japanese. And they eat mutton like crazy.

The real question Ive heard being asked is "Veg or Non veg?" This in many places is used to ask the caste question without explicitly asking for caste.

The other question I've heard being asked of Indians is "what is your full name?" as most upper caste Indians indicate their caste in their surname/family name. If your surname isn't upper caste, you are likely to be silently dropped in many social situations.

So someone who eats meat and doesn't have an uppercaste name is a lower caste. However since some upper castes do eat meat the surname question gets them through.

The color of your skin is the third SELECT. At some point all of it seems like a DB query.

In many localities and apartment complexes across India you will find it difficult to get houses because of these simple questions. A brief stint in Bangalore was eye opening with real estate agents being super frank about caste specificity.

Veg or non veg will get different answers from my family. Dad eats meat because liquor. Mum doesn't because she never did. We siblings are split half & half.

This question may get different answers based on season, day, time, or even people around, or even meat options. Navratre no mean, no meat on sundays, Tuesday, Saturday, or such. No meat in front of parents or relatives. No meat if preparing for some big exam. No meat if it is pork or beef. Chicken, egg, fish ok.

I'm guessing the journalist made the wrong simplifying assumption. A lot of people from the brahmin caste don't eat meat, so maybe the anecdote is about a brahmin and not-a-brahmin interaction. There's plenty of people who're not dalits and eat meat.

The journalist may have attempted to "simplify" the anecdote instead of explaining all these details, but ended up screwing it up. To anyone who's Indian this comes across like it's "fake news", whatever their intention maybe.

Americans already have enough damaging stereotypes of Indians, it would be nice if reporters were careful reporting subtle problems instead of editorializing everything to fit their audience.

While many will share your hanger, it’s important to keep cold head while comparing to others countries and culture.

Negative caste discrimination is banned by law since 1948 in India while US was in a sad era regarding Human egality, even legally.

Edit:typo

Facts. Quite a few ignorant comments on this post follow the classic "discrimination has nO pLaCe iN tHiS cOuNtrY!!!" by amnesiacs who need to be reminded that just 6 decades ago it was a COMMON & POPULAR American cultural practice to hog-tie pregnant black women upside down on tree branches and burn them alive for fun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States.

Should we talk about how equally they treated Native Americans? (they've slaughtered 99% of them and stolen their land which they continue to live on and enjoy as their own).

And remember, they're going to teach the world about human rights and equality!

This is laughable and absurd. Eating meat has nothing to do with caste. Please don't make assumptions based on some shitty article. It clearly has an agenda.

Now, let me tell you what Indians do make fun of. If you are a hardcore vegetarian, meat eating Indians will make fun of you calling you "Grass Eater" as a joke among friends. But that is not too different than American culture as well. Even the legendary Arnold Schewarnegger in the movie "Escape Plan" said "You hit like a vegetarian".

>Eating meat has nothing to do with caste

That's simply incorrect. Meat consumption correlates strongly with caste and the traditional reason is that it's a signifier of high social and religious purity. The American equivalent to this is teetotalling which is more prevalent among high social status Protestants. (essentially the US Brahmin class).

And even today of course vegetarianism has the same function. Vegetarians in the WWest as well as India are still more affluent and educated and it's a sign of civilized behavior, self-discipline, moral status etc. Arnold, as a bodybuilder (derogatory term "meathead" is no accident) may be rich but as an actor isn't a traditional upper class member.

I've always associated religious teetotalism more with low church/Evangelical protestantism (e.g. Baptists and Methodists) rather than 'high church' denominations in, say, Anglican/Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or some Lutheran sects. The former doesn't exactly seem like high social status to me.

Uh, there are a lot of supposedly upper caste people who eat meat. Maybe in the old days but I thought the caste stuff was no longer a thing. It’s really the wokeism / sjw finding their next supposed cause.

Pretty much all Brahmins I know eat meat at their households. But this isn't the first time I have heard such a tale.

I stay in India, and in a metro city. This is NOT my experience.

Sure, fewer Brahmins have reservations about eating meat as compared to a few decades ago, but they are nowhere near the majority of all Brahmins.

And "all Brahmins eat meat at their household" is categorically false!

> And "all Brahmins eat meat at their household" is categorically false!

And this is not what the OP claimed.

Will edit the post to remove the quotes.

EDIT: Nope can't edit that. HN doesn't let me.

But I agree with you. By putting that statement in quotes, I implied that the OP had said that. And they didn't. Wasn't fair of me to do that. Apologies.

> This is an unacceptable behavior, and it should be banned as a condition of entry to the country.

Or, we could embrace everyone, establish equal rules for participation in our society and show them a better way. I think this “Jesus Christ” you invoke would agree.