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”.
