Politics Distracts from the Meat of the Matter in Bihar, Food, Identity, and the Manufacture of Controversy
Some time ago, I was talking to a young man—let’s call him Rakesh—from one of the villages in Gurugram that is now part of the district’s urban spread. Over the past two decades, his family—marginal farmers on poor-quality land—had sold a great deal of their ancestral holdings to global real estate companies. This had provided for a large house, cars, nutritious food and, perhaps most importantly, educational opportunities for the children of the household.
Access to modern education, largely denied to the community to which my interlocutor belongs, means that he was able to secure a job that allows global travel. An important part of our discussion concerned his shift from the vegetarian diet customary in his community to a non-vegetarian one. The road he had travelled from daal-sabzi to omelettes and fried fish was also a story of his transformation—as hesitant as it was—to a cosmopolitan identity.
Food and Identity: A Long History
There is a long history to the relationship between food and identity, such as caste and self-definition. The modern history of the relationship between food and identity, however, is rooted in two other contexts. The more recent of these is the history of aspirations that concerns Rakesh’s culinary adventures. A slightly older one has to do with the rise of a nationalist consciousness.
Some of the most striking passages in the autobiography of nationalist Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932) concern his observations about food in Calcutta, the city he had come to for higher education. For Pal, the city’s food cultures defined urban life itself. In both cases, food represents who we are: People make choices about food to represent themselves.
The Bihar Ban
The recent ban on the sale of meat near educational institutions and religious places (that is, temples) by the Bihar government upturns this relationship: Dead meat now has the capacity to influence how the living react.
Bihar Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha has said that selling meat near temples and educational institutions would lead to “social disharmony” and aggression among children, respectively. Did dead flesh ever have the capacity to influence social relations and emotions? And are vegetarians inherently peaceful?
The questions answer themselves. Violence is a human characteristic, not a dietary one. The causes of aggression lie in social circumstances, not in the presence or absence of meat.
The Real Causes of Violence
Violent tendencies in children are the result of social circumstances. Male children might be socialised to be aggressive to meet generally accepted norms of masculinity, or they might be reared in an environment where violence against a different religious community is promoted as a normal activity. Neither vegetables nor meat has any role in the making of the social life of humans. Only humans do.
Buddhism is frequently represented as a religion of peace, but meat-eating is common among Buddhists. And, even though it seems almost redundant to say this, Adolf Hitler greatly favoured vegetarianism. If vegetarianism were a guarantee of peaceful behaviour, Hitler would have been the most peaceful leader in history. He was not.
The Intellectual Cover
Sinha also noted that the ban followed consultations with “intellectuals during public outreach programmes”. It is most likely that the intellectual nowadays is unaware of the different ways in which eating has been interpreted in recent history.
Swami Vivekananda’s suggestion that humans choose to be vegetarian or meat-eating rather than vegetables and meat exercising influence upon humans is something that still holds true. The agency lies with the eater, not the eaten. To invert this relationship is to deny human autonomy and responsibility.
The Real Purpose
However, and much more importantly, the new regulations regarding meat should be seen for what they are: An excuse for the lack of serious action to improve social and public welfare. Social harmony is best promoted through better public welfare measures—a good education system, measures to ensure gender equity, public parks, for example—rather than the fake politics of dead flesh.
When a government cannot deliver quality education, when it cannot ensure healthcare, when it cannot create jobs, when it cannot build infrastructure, it reaches for symbolic issues that divide rather than unite. The politics of meat is a politics of distraction.
Rakesh and Bipin Chandra Pal
Separated by decades and social background, both Rakesh and Bipin Chandra Pal describe the capacities of human beings to determine their futures through the choices they make. Both would be aghast at being told that lifeless objects—food items—choose them and make them what they are.
Rakesh chose to change his diet as part of a broader transformation. Pal chose to embrace urban food cultures as part of his engagement with modernity. Both exercised agency. Both would reject the notion that food determines identity rather than the other way around.
The Manufacture of a Lifeless Public
But perhaps that is what this latest meat episode is about: The continuing effort to produce a lifeless public. A public that is told what to eat, where to eat, and how to eat. A public that is denied the capacity to choose. A public that is reduced to passive consumers of political narratives rather than active shapers of their own lives.
When the state decides where meat can be sold, it is not just regulating commerce; it is regulating identity, aspiration, and autonomy. It is telling citizens that they cannot be trusted to make their own choices. It is treating adults like children.
Conclusion: The Meat of the Matter
The meat of the matter in Bihar is not meat. It is the politics of distraction, the manufacture of controversy, the denial of agency, and the failure of governance. It is the substitution of symbolic issues for substantive action.
A government serious about social harmony would invest in schools, hospitals, parks, and jobs. A government serious about public welfare would address the real causes of violence and disharmony. A government serious about its citizens would trust them to make their own choices.
Instead, we get bans and regulations and pronouncements about the dangers of dead flesh. It is a politics of the absurd, and it distracts from the real work that needs to be done.
Q&A: Unpacking the Bihar Meat Ban
Q1: What does the Bihar government’s meat ban entail?
The Bihar government banned the sale of meat near educational institutions and religious places (temples). Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha argued that selling meat near temples would cause “social disharmony” and near schools would lead to “aggression among children.” The ban assumes meat has inherent properties that influence human behaviour.
Q2: What is the historical relationship between food and identity?
Food has long been tied to identity—caste, community, self-definition. Bipin Chandra Pal saw Calcutta’s food cultures as defining urban modernity. Rakesh’s shift from vegetarianism to non-vegetarianism marked his transformation into a cosmopolitan identity. In both cases, people make choices about food to represent themselves.
Q3: Is there evidence linking vegetarianism to peaceful behaviour?
No. Violence is a human characteristic, not a dietary one. Buddhism is often considered peaceful but many Buddhists eat meat. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. The causes of aggression lie in social circumstances—socialisation into masculinity, promotion of communal violence—not in the presence or absence of meat.
Q4: What is the real purpose of such bans according to the article?
The bans are an excuse for lack of serious action to improve social and public welfare. When governments cannot deliver education, healthcare, jobs, or infrastructure, they reach for symbolic issues that divide rather than unite. The politics of meat distracts from governance failures.
Q5: What does the article mean by “producing a lifeless public”?
It refers to denying citizens the capacity to choose for themselves—telling them what, where, and how to eat. This reduces people to passive consumers of political narratives rather than active shapers of their own lives. The ban treats adults like children, denying their agency and autonomy.
