How separate entrances and utensils for veg, non-veg students cooked a spoiler for hostel life in IIT Madras
Each one of us has real-life stories to share. This writer remembers one of them in vivid detail. It is not his story, but his late great-grandmother’s. Sitting in an armchair on a sunlit verandah during summers, the progressive Brahmo lady would remember her experience of attending wedding receptions in which guests from lower and upper castes sat separately. “The idea was to make sure that the air that touched the body of a person from a lower caste did not contaminate his upper caste counterpart,” she would say without concealing her disappointment. “Nobody understood that air is like the light. It flows and spreads in all directions.”
The twin vices of discrimination and segregation are deeply rooted in India.
The idea of a society that has removed a million man-made boundaries is a distant dream. It is in this context that the controversy erupting out of the report on a mess in IIT Madras, relating to the segregation of vegetarians and non-vegetarians, must be assessed.
The media reported the story after the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, IIT Madras, a Facebook group, put up a post, saying:
Photographs of posters marking separate basins and entry and exit signs for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students added fuel to the controversy.
A New Indian Express report stated that the system had been selectively implemented only on the second floor of the RR North Indian mess, which serves eggs and chicken. An unnamed professor reasoned that the mess alone serves Jain food, and the decision must have been taken ‘for the comfort of the students’.
Reportage led to outrage, resulting in damage control. The same group put up another post, stating:
Every perspective is an outcome of an individual’s deep-rooted considerations and beliefs. So, there will be those such as the professor who will insist that the decision to segregate was made to ensure comfort for the students while having their meals. Others might believe that it is a reflection of the dominance of Brahminical culture, which looks down upon non-vegetarian food.
The big issue that needs to be addressed is how it can impact a student’s ability to accept and embrace change.
Elite institutions like the IITs have distinctively meritorious students from all parts of the country. They come from diverse cultural backgrounds - which also means that their dietary choices vary.
If born into a family that doesn’t permit the entry of garlic and onion in homes, one may not even know how either smells.
Or, a person can come from a second kind of set-up in which onions and garlic are freely consumed in strictly vegetarian meals.
Some might be used to eating vegetables and eggs without going anywhere near fish and eggs. The student can be familiar with the idea of having chicken, meat and eggs as non-vegetarian foods without touching beef, pork or bacon.
A hostel is a home away from home. Hostel inmates are one big family, united by their objective of academic growth and differentiated by their traditions, religions and castes.
How to coexist with others who have different cultural and dietary preferences is a lesson every student learns while growing up. Creating separate dining areas and having separate utensils, in spite of the apparent promise of comfort, is a significant step backwards.
Getting used to eating in separate dining areas can create other long-term problems. Most students have roommates. What if there comes a day when a student’s decision to have a non-vegetarian pizza in his room irks his fellow vegetarian roommate?
Far-fetched as it might sound, it can be a potentially uncomfortable situation leading to serious differences. The vegetarian student who protests cannot be blamed. Because of the arrangement within the mess, he may not have watched a person having meat in his meal sitting a few feet away.
Having separate dining areas and utensils are ideas that will find the support of those who are reluctant to make adjustments.
Sharing them, however, teaches people how to accept change when they are faced with unfamiliar conditions after their university days come to an end.
Mealtime, finally, is bonding time. A mess without diet-defined boundaries is a place where many friendships are born. Separate tables limit the scope of interaction between students, who need not meet inside classrooms every day. That defeats the purpose of community living - which helps a person understand and appreciate others without having to sacrifice one’s values.