Last night I drove past an apartment building with a big sign that read "A BRAHMANICAL HOUSING COOPERATIVE." I think the thing about housing discrimination here that has surprised me the most is how open it is, how utterly obvious and shameless.
super fascinating, and a huge reason why being an indian, mostly atheist vegan is soooo complicated. i'm always happy to talk about my ethical reasons for not eating meat - EXCEPT when i'm in india bc then i risk being co-opted by the "purity" brigade.
I’d love to know more about how this is impacting people in Kerala (where beef eating is common across religions) and West Bengal, which has typically had a large number of meat eaters.
On the last point I’m particularly interested with how this affects Kali devotees, some of whom practice/witness animal sacrifice at Hindu temples such as Kalighat in Kolkata.
This is only partly correct. In Gujarat's cities, non vegetarianism is an excuse to refuse housing to Muslims. Parsis and Hindus who eat meat are allowed housing. I know this by experience and also because I have studied this phenomenon for decades.
Thank you for your research and reportage! This was a well-written piece and I’m glad Vittles covered it.
Families paying a premium because they can only purchase property in limited mixed neighborhoods, while facing artificially deflated prices at sale, reminded me strongly of Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law”, about the nationwide discriminatory housing practices faced by African-Americans after WWII. And, similarly to what’s described in this piece about India and Indian Muslims, this housing discrimination was supported by our government in myriad ways, some subtle and others blatant.
In the US, it took multiple decades of pressure for policies to be changed. The resulting generational wealth gap (not only due to home ownership, but also indirect factors like access to resourced schools) continues with visible effect today.
Many states in India, especially the ones ruled by the BJP have laws that stem from this. It’s a form of Apartheid backed by the state.
Thank you for this illuminating piece on a severely underreported aspect of discrimination angainst Indian Muslims.
Last night I drove past an apartment building with a big sign that read "A BRAHMANICAL HOUSING COOPERATIVE." I think the thing about housing discrimination here that has surprised me the most is how open it is, how utterly obvious and shameless.
Thank you for writing this and educating us on this topic.
super fascinating, and a huge reason why being an indian, mostly atheist vegan is soooo complicated. i'm always happy to talk about my ethical reasons for not eating meat - EXCEPT when i'm in india bc then i risk being co-opted by the "purity" brigade.
This was a really interesting article.
I’d love to know more about how this is impacting people in Kerala (where beef eating is common across religions) and West Bengal, which has typically had a large number of meat eaters.
On the last point I’m particularly interested with how this affects Kali devotees, some of whom practice/witness animal sacrifice at Hindu temples such as Kalighat in Kolkata.
This is only partly correct. In Gujarat's cities, non vegetarianism is an excuse to refuse housing to Muslims. Parsis and Hindus who eat meat are allowed housing. I know this by experience and also because I have studied this phenomenon for decades.
Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for your research and reportage! This was a well-written piece and I’m glad Vittles covered it.
Families paying a premium because they can only purchase property in limited mixed neighborhoods, while facing artificially deflated prices at sale, reminded me strongly of Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law”, about the nationwide discriminatory housing practices faced by African-Americans after WWII. And, similarly to what’s described in this piece about India and Indian Muslims, this housing discrimination was supported by our government in myriad ways, some subtle and others blatant.
In the US, it took multiple decades of pressure for policies to be changed. The resulting generational wealth gap (not only due to home ownership, but also indirect factors like access to resourced schools) continues with visible effect today.