Maharashtra's recent ban on beef and cow slaughter has caused much furore with the discussions on the topic ranging from appreciation to outrage. Kancha Ilaiah is a Professor at Osmania University, currently on deputation as Director of Centre for Studies in Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy. A writer and activist, he has written extensively on caste and Dalit-Bahujan issues. He talks to dna on the ban and its caste implications:

You have spoken about the demand for beef being an important step for the national inclusion of Dalits and the Backward Castes. Can you elaborate?

Large number of tribes, Dalits and Backward Castes have a historical food culture of beef. The anti-beef agenda has been in the Brahmanical fold. It began with the South Indian Brahmins and then spread to the North and became part of the Gandhian movement. My question is, how can the state impose a certain food culture on people? The state has nothing to do with food. They can give certain food to people depending on the market, but cannot impose that you can or cannot eat certain food items. If beef eating is bad for Brahmins or Baniyas or certain upper castes, then the state is imposing that on the rest of the society. So the state is actually becoming a theocratic state. This is how the RSS ideology is being pushed.

Secondly, this will reduce the food availability for people. The lower sections of people survive on beef, even in Maharashtra. Once you ban beef, and say that some animals cannot be eaten, the quantity of food available for the poor is affected.

Third, beef was the source of affordable protein food for the poor. In a certain state of poverty no amount of pulse and grain can replace their protein intake.

Fourthly, this will destroy the cattle economy itself. Who will nurture bulls, cows and buffalos, which are neither useful for agriculture nor useful for meat? Cows and bulls are not being used for agriculture anymore. The only use is their skin for leather. So they will have to be fed from birth to death. Bulls are not tilling the land and cows are not producing lots of calves. Cows are not the major producer of milk now, buffaloes are. Buffaloes are one of the main milk producers in Maharashtra. So they are allowing them to be killed.

Why will peasants rear cows or bulls, spending a lot of money when they are not allowed to sell the meat? If people are not allowed to eat chicken, who will grow chicken?

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said that the ban should not be looked at through a communal lens but in the "interests of the agrarian communities".

Earlier they were buying cattle or selling them either for labour or food. What is the interest of the agrarian community in this ban? One should look at what the beef to meat production in Maharashtra is. How much of it comes from the rural areas? How will the people who are involved in the butchery and sale, who are particularly Muslims and Dalits, live once this is stopped? Will they be allowed to participate in the skin market (part of the leather market)? I don't know. This is a bizarre thing that a state can do. I'm sure in the next decade Maharashtra will be starving of cattle. Why will people look at it if it's not useful in any form? So how will they support the economy? Will they give more benefits to the sheep and goat farmers? I don't think so.

How can you destroy the food choice of people? After all, multiple food choices provide huge quantity of food to people. They are taking away the choice of the oppressed people.

So, it is not merely communal, it is a theocratic decision of the state. Caste is the main issue, otherwise, who else was eating this meat? Maharashtrian Brahmins are vegetarians.

When you spoke at Osmania University's Beef Festival in 2012, you had urged people to question the implication of considering certain food as pure and impure, associating it with untouchability.

There is no such thing as a food item being spiritually impure. Historically, animal sacrifice has been seen as the purest form of dealing with God, like with the Sanathan Hindu dharma. So gods and goddesses were accepting sacrifices. It was the priest who decided what should go into it. At least the Buddhist, Christian and Islamic texts don't ban a food as impure. So where does this notion of meat being impure before god come from?

This is a definition of the Brahmanic forces. When they don't eat, they are imposing their values of food on god. Which god said that? What is the dictum of god, let them prove that. There is a cultural difference between the ancestors of Mohan Bhagwat and mine. Mohan Bhagwat's ancestors never had cattle, they have never grown sheep, goat, buffalo, cow or bull. Maybe they have written the Bhagawat Gita, the Vedas or the Upanishads. We were supplying them meat and milk everyday which they consumed. Today, they say both of us are Hindus. They've never allowed us to learn what their texts were. Let RSS tell us where the Upanishads or the Vedas or the Bhagawat Gita banned meat or beef as impure. This ritual theory of purity and impurity is absolutely subjective, and in the end, upper caste. It is not a universal understanding of food. That's my argument.

Muslims have food restrictions in that they don't eat pork.

We're saying they are also wrong.

But we don't have similar conversations around pork.

If they come to power in India and impose it on the country, then a rational debate will have to start.

Can an argument be made that this ban will lead to a more humane treatment of the animals?

If that is the case, then ban chicken also. What crime has that bird committed? Ban goats and sheep too. In the Bible, God said, "I give you animals, birds and trees as your food." Rig Veda does not say that so clearly, but it also does not ban it. The Quran allows any meat where the animal chews the cud and has split hooves. What is animal friendly about a ban on only beef?

What crime has a buffalo committed? In Gujarat, the buffalo which is black, you drink its milk and kill it.

You think the distinction they make between cows and buffaloes is important?

It's racial because the buffalo is black. They want to kill it like the White Americans did. The Aryan racist idea came into that. They drink the milk because it is white. If a god changes the milk to black I will be very happy because they won't drink it. Why is black bad? It's racism and casteism.

Several states have similar bans on beef and cow slaughter.

It all began with Gandhi. Cow protectionism is in our Constitution. It's an upper caste Brahmanic campaign. Why not other animals? I'm amazed at their cruelty towards the buffalo. It's not justifiable. Protection of cows in the Constitution also does not mean that we cannot eat them.

Do you think this cuts across parties, across states?

It is a sentiment of the upper caste, the Brahmins and Baniyas. They have their stronghold in every party. Tomorrow, if Mayawati becomes Prime Minister or Chief Minister, she will remove it. If this is done across the country, if the north-east is not allowed to eat beef, they will ask for a separate country. For them it is a staple food. This is nation breaking agenda, it's anti-national.

Ambedkar allowed for the inclusion of cow protection in the Constitution.

He allowed it because Gandhi insisted. I don't agree with it. He was pressurised by the Gandhian movement. I don't think he would have done it on his own.

The religious conversion of the lower caste by choice will increase because of this ban. The people who want to continue their cultural tradition will shift to religions that allow them to. This is what happened with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. This is why the north-east has gone to the Christians. If this goes on, in the next 100 years, Hinduism will not survive. This ban will affect the Maharashtra economy a lot. They will realise this soon.