Caste and Cost of ‘Pure‘ Vegetarian Hotels

What does a ‘ Pure’ vegetarian hotel offer that a vegetarian hotel doesn’t?

Twenty-five to thirty-nine percent of Indians self-identify as vegetarians. Benefiting from this substantial consumer base are the vegetarian restaurants that exclusively cater to their needs.Statistics show a rising trend in vegetarian and vegan establishments over the past decade, driven by both health and cultural narratives. This number is exponentially higher in the northern states, attributed to a larger vegetarian population. However, most of the vegetarian hotels in India carry an added label – pure- which is not merely for namesake but signals an ideological assertion.  A label that enables a population to reign and leave ’ others’ to remain in vain. The ‘pure’ vegetarian hotels and their caste sanctioned politics should be brought to the public for introspection.

Humans perceive thoughts and knowledge in binaries. It is the easiest way to distinguish, analyse, and make meaning out of what we perceive. The phrase “pure vegetarian” taps into this instinctive binary thinking. Tagging the word ‘pure’ onto ‘vegetarian’ immediately creates a sense of othering by its very phrasing . “pure vegetarian” subconsciously links food to moral and spiritual purity, reinforcing the idea that non-vegetarian food—and by extension, those who eat or prepare it—are impure. This perception of binary creates a good, bad distinction respectively to pure and impure. The pure/good is set as the standard and desirable for a society.

The caste assertion in our social fabric is not limited to overt rituals but also manifests in nuanced quotidian practices. In “Homo Hierarchicus “ sociologist Louis Dumont argues that caste operates fundamentally through the logic of purity and pollution. Vegetarianism, ritual cleanliness, and priesthood were all associated with the upper-caste Brahmins, whereas occupations like manual cleaning, washing were deemed impure and assigned to a lower caste. It is ironically through the labour of these deemed impure that the upper caste maintains its so-called purity. Those who are engaged in impure occupations are separated from the class of sacred/pure occupations. This binary permeates not just food practices but broader social structures.

But, how is this purity constructed?

Is this natural?

French philosopher Roland Barthes would argue this with his concept of ‘Myth’. According to him, Myths are socially and culturally constructed, meaning justified and presented as a universal truth. On the surface level, ‘ Pure vegetarian ‘ may denote no use of meat, no harm to animals, and sanitation preferences. But it is ideologically loaded and connoted with moral purity, social superiority, and caste coded cleanliness. Indians have historically evolved to appraise vegetarian food as pure. This idea serves to entrech the notion that the people who practice vegetarianism are thereby pure. Barthes, in his book’ Mythology’, explains that myths can only have a historical foundation. It cannot possibly evolve from the nature of things. Myths make social realities that should be up for debate as normal. The myth of ‘Pure Vegetarian ‘constructed by the casteist elites was institutionalised as a social standard and accepted as truth. The myth of pure vegetarianism doesn’t challenge anything, but in fact it normalises the Brahmanical food codes as default, desirable, and even divine.

Jishnu P is a student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Pondicherry University. Their work focuses on media, culture, politics, and cinema, exploring intersections between identities, digital subcultures, and visual storytelling.