At the end of March some students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi under the banner of a recently formed group called the New Materialists (NM) organised a public meeting to debate the issue of (dis)allowing certain kinds of food – beef and pork in particular – on the campus. The group, as one of its members Suraj Beri said, intended to petition the university administration to allow the sale of beef and pork in the canteen(s), and fight for inclusion of the same in the hostels’ menus. It was a struggle, as the NM declared, against the brahmanical dietary impositions on dalits and other minority community students of JNU.
A fortnight later – on 14-15 April – violent clashes broke out at Osmania University (OU), Hyderabad over a beef-eating festival organised by dalit and left leaning student activists on the campus to protest against brahmanical food restrictions.
