The Symbolic Politics of Beef: Historical Narratives and Political Contestation in India and Bangladesh

Abstract (English)

This research explores the symbolic politics of beef in contemporary South Asia, with a focus on India and Bangladesh, to understand how food becomes central to historical reimagination, identity contestation, and nation-building. By tracing the politicization of beef, the study investigates how opposing politico-religious groups reconstruct the past and weaponize food to enforce imagined boundaries of community and belonging. In India, Hindu nationalist movements invoke the mythology of cow veneration to portray Muslim beef consumption as both a religious insult and a present-day threat, justifying acts of social and religious violence (Jaffrelot, 2007). In response, in Bangladesh, certain Islamist factions assert beef consumption as a marker of Muslim authenticity and anti-Hindu resistance, using it to vilify secular and progressive voices and reinforce a binary political identity (Riaz, 2016).

This research will focus on two parts- firstly, how the history of beef is being reimagined in the two societies (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983), and secondly, how beef is being weaponized to reconstruct national (Anderson, 1983), communal, and cultural identities in the two countries through the justification of violence. Based on historical analysis, discourse analysis of media narratives, political speeches, and ethnographic fieldwork, this research demonstrates that culinary practices are shaped by both historical narratives and shifting communal boundaries rooted in ongoing political contestation. It shows how temporal understandings of the past and present function as a continuum in the symbolic politics of beef consumption. This study offers a critical lens on how everyday culinary habits—such as eating or abstaining from beef—become imbued with historical significance, transforming food into a powerful instrument of violence, identity politics, and national reimagination.