Vegetarian Vigilantism By Vidya Bhushan Rawat Vegetarianism is basically considered to be a ‘nonviolent’ approach towards nature and our food habits. People who did not like ‘animal slaughtering’ and ‘cruelty’ on them would often turn vegetarians. Many people are vegetarians because of their taste for the food others are because of basic cultural values they inherited but it is a fact that a majority of India is not vegetarian and that vegetarianism is basically belong to the values of caste Hindus in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan regions. Mostly vegetarians in India are becoming highly illiberal and contemptuous towards those who are ‘different’ than them in food habits. It was not true several years back. My mother was a devout vegetarian but she did not stop us eating meat. Many of my friends even today may not eat non‐veg but they are cook non veg and perhaps delicious than others. The war in India is not just being vegetarian and non‐vegetarian but gone further. It is a well thought action to isolate Muslims and Christians on the basis of their food habits even when the facts are that not all of them eat it. Contrary to this, a very large number of caste Hindus eats beef. It was never a taboo with communities of Dalits and Aadivasis. But the politics behind the whole debate actually intend to communalize the matter further for ulterior political profits. The debate now is not between vegetarianism verses non veg loving people but it further aim to divide the non‐veg lovers and hence those who eat beef are sought to be isolated in this entire game plan. Frankly speaking cow slaughter was banned in India since 1947 and various states too had enacted different laws towards cow protection hence raking up that issue is nothing but purely political. Fact right now is that they have further expanded the ‘cow family’ and hence decided that they are not just contend with cow slaughtering but even beyond that and hence the slaughtering of buffaloes and others animals of cow family is legally prohibited in Maharastra and other states. The hidden agenda of the Sangh Parivar and its various offshoots is visible with state after state amending their laws and including more ‘progenies’ of the cow family, which was not there earlier. So, it is not merely that you are satisfied with Cow but now the Maharastra act has extended the ‘protection’ to the progenies of cow. In fact, India’s home minister openly said that he would ‘starve’ Dhaka of its basic diet, as police would be more vigilant to stop smuggling of cows and its progenies. So the distortion of the news is that we are talking against cow slaughtering, which is already prohibited under the law, but its progenies, which was never, and no religious sanctity was given to them at any point of time. In fact,