Thread by @shrikanth_krish

I see some ferment within H-Right at least on twitter on whether "beef abstinence" should be regarded as a Hindu "litmus" test

My view is - if H-society becomes predominantly "non vegetarian" with high per-capita meat intake, you will find it v v hard to keep people from beef

https://twitter.com/aurvabhrg/status/1190738997699440641

For beef to be taboo, vegetarianism in general has to be strong in society

As vegetarianism declines, I expect beef too to get "normalized"

H-society today is mostly vegetarian. Though 60% of Hindus eat meat, they eat sparingly

Vegetarian diet is the norm for most people

Some exceptions to this - notably Bengal, Kerala

Not surprisingly these are the states where beef has picked up

Now can you have a society which is heavy on meat, and yet regards beef as taboo?

I don't see things shaping up that way.

It isn't sustainable...

As one taboo loosens, others will follow

What we see on twitter among "H-trads" is -

A very aggressive rhetoric against beef

But a rather cool attitude towards "vegetarianism" more generally. Not much talk on it

I dont think that is the right strategy

You have a much better chance of keeping people away from beef, if you can convince them to keep away from meat generally speaking

Not otherwise

Trads will counter this saying -

Hey....My Bengali granny was so devout. She ate fish everyday.

But wouldn't dream of beef even as a possibility

I retort -

That's a different age...

Such "traditionalism" in one's meat consumption is a thing of 19th century...Not in our times...

In our age, you either abstain from meat totally. Or you typically give up all taboos, including beef

Post-script : Maybe my last tweet in this thread was not worded properly. Hence the thread was misunderstood

I don't mean to say taboos don't exist among Indian "non vegetarians"

(Cond..)

Am saying - those taboos won't be very resilient in future as westernization and urbanization proceeds apace.

Especially if no pre-existing aversion to meat exists