Most estimates put it at around 40% (declining in recent years) with around 10% of those also eating eggs. That is important because it is considered vegetarian elsewhere but not exactly so in India so if you want to accurate in your research and not just provide clickbait headlines for the BBC, you will have to look into stuff and see what people actually mean when they say they are vegetarian or not.
As I said, research like this is hard and you can choose to not trust the government if you wish, but then going by some US anthropologist quoted by the fucking BBC is completely bonkers. It’s literally better to just talk to any Indians you know and form estimates that way, while acknowledging that the kinds of Indians who get to emigrate are the richer sort who are more likely to consume meat.
And, again, the vast majority of people who consume meat don’t do so every meal, every day or anything close to that. Just eating it a few times a month is enough to be considered a regular meat-eater which I don’t have a problem with as a category, but for this topic of meat being essential for nutrition, is so fucking dishonest.
As for the Vedic stuff, you can already see the change form that period to modern day religo-cultural habits by the 4th century:
Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic. The only exception is that of the Chandalas. That is the name for those who are (held to be) wicked men, and live apart from others. … In that country they do not keep pigs and fowls, and do not sell live cattle; in the markets there are no butchers’ shops and no dealers in intoxicating drink. In buying and selling commodities they use cowries. Only the Chandalas are fishermen and hunters, and sell flesh meat.
— Faxian, Chinese pilgrim to India (4th/5th century CE), A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms (translated by James Legge)
That is important because it is considered vegetarian elsewhere but not exactly so in India so if you want to accurate in your research and not just provide clickbait headlines for the BBC, you will have to look into stuff and see what people actually mean when they say they are vegetarian or not.
As I said, research like this is hard and you can choose to not trust the government if you wish, but then going by some US anthropologist quoted by the fucking BBC is completely bonkers.
There was also an Indian economist in that study for what it’s worth, which is why I thought it was at least somewhat credible. And like I said, based on other sources I’ve seen (you can find the references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#Estimates_and_Statistics) it’s still below 50%, like I said. I was just curious.
I think one interesting study I have not seen but would be extremely useful is how many meals does the average Indian consume without meat compared to other developing countries and to the West. That would go a long way towards helping people understand how much meat is “essential”.
