While the West has frequently associated vegetarianism with progressiveness, eco-friendliness, sustainability, animal welfare and ethicality the Indian attitude of practicing vegetarianism has birthed from other reasons. According to the sample registration system baseline survey 2014, 30% of India’s total population are vegetarians, a number vastly greater than any other country. Indian vegetarianism manifests with markedly different values. One of its main features is to cultivate a social distance from non-vegetarian food and non-vegetarian peoplefrom the mainstream. The non-vegetarian population mostly includes the religious minorities, the lower-castes and the tribals. Thus India has relied on its culinary habits for the purpose of including the dominant by excluding the non-vegetarians. This paper is inspired by the first chapter, They Eat Meat, in the book The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015) by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Keywords: vegetarianism, dominant, mainstream, tribals, inclusion, exclusion