A storm-in-a-tea-cup debate recently ensued in the Indian media. Why was meat not on menu at the Gala Dinner of BRICS*? Why just vegetarian fare offered to delegates? Of course, Indians know how to create debate even when none is required. No wonder India has more than 400 TV News Channels and 17,000 Newspapers, all thriving on debates. A Nobel laureate has written a whole book entitled, “The Argumentative Indian”. Indeed all democracies are noisy and argumentative but Indians take them to altogether another level.
The policy of 100% plant-based food is a new trend in national and international forums. The delegates who dined at Bharat Mandapam perhaps expected it because of the course already charted at other global events. The food offerings at COP28 at Dubai (UAE), at the Hollywood Golden Globe award 77th ceremony at Beverly Hills (USA) and at the Responsible Investment Summit (PRI) at Sao Paulo (Brazil), etc. had been strictly vegan/vegetarian. At all of those events the rationale behind no-meat-food was sustainability. BRICS2026 was no different, their well publicised theme was “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. Thus vegetarian fare sat in perfect sync with core objective.
The BRICS2026 delegates did not freak out on meat-free offerings. Their focus was on the culinary bandwidth of Indian vegetarian dishes in terms of ingredients, range, tastes and flavours.
Besides the sustainability angle to the all-veg menu, if one was to speculate any other rationale, he can cite a well entrenched practice of no-meat diet among a sizeable Indian population (though majority population is carnivorous). India, the host country may have wanted to bring home to the world, a USP of India. She is the only nation in the world who claims to be hosting the world's largest vegetarian population, measured on every index, be it number, percentage, antiquity and depth of underlying thought process. Vegetarian food offering aptly emphasises this unique aspect of India. Like Ayurveda and Yoga, Vegetarianism too gets increasingly associated with Indian-ness.
Let all who matter take to Vegetarian/Vegan fare at their official functions in the interest of the mother earth and become “Vishwa-Bandhu”, a friend of the world, a benevolent global citizen who abstains from meat so that we all stay longer on this one earth. Even occasional, once in a week or once in a month observation of vegetarianism can go a long way towards earth’s cause and service to our fellow earthlings.
*-BRICS is a group of emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa etc 11 countries currently. Their objective is to increase trade mutually among member countries to accelerate their economies. BRICS summit was held in New Delhi between 12th and 13th Sept 2026.
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