[spprashant]

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.

[triceratops]

> 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.

[vishnugupta]

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.

[triceratops]

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

[vishnugupta]

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.

[davchana]

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

[ashwagary]

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.

[manquer]

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.

[triceratops]

> 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.

[manquer]

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.

[thatloststudent]

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.

[la64710]

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