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Eating Beef has become anathema. We saw a spate of meat-related lynchings in the last decade. Yet India is the second largest exporter of beef in the world. In 1948, B.R. Ambedkar undertook a study to unearth the history of untouchability. Beef was at the centre of this conspiracy. Brahmanism turned vegetarian only after the sixth century CE. The Vedic religion sanctioned excessive animal sacrifice, and ‘for the Brahmin every day was beef-steak day’. The latter-day love for the cow is a symptom of disdain for Untouchables and a counter to the anti-caste impulses of the Buddhist revolution. Ambedkar exposes the contradictions and hypocrisies internal to its ideology.
B.R. Ambedkar was born in 1891 into an ?Untouchable? family of modest means. One of India?s most radical thinkers, he transformed the social and political landscape in the struggle against British colonialism. He was a prolific writer who oversaw the drafting of the Indian Constitution and served as India?s first Law Minister. In 1935, he publicly declared that though he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. Ambedkar eventually embraced Buddhism, a few months before his death in 1956. Arundhati Roy is the author of the novels The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and several collections of political writings.
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