Explained : The great satvic scam: Purity, power and the politics of vegetarian virtue and Its Impact

The word ‘satvic’ conjures images of purity, simplicity and cleanliness. It is presented as the moral high ground of Hindu identity: diet of gods, lifestyle of sages, path to peace. Across India and in the diaspora, satvikism is now being marketed as a refined, enlightened Hinduism. However, it subtly divides Hindus into two camps. On one side are the pure: vegetarian, self-controlled, careful about touch, obsessed with ritual cleanliness, and wary of menstruating women and sanitation workers. On the other side are the impure: those who eat meat, work with their hands, and handle waste, blood, leather, soil and death. What began as a philosophical idea has solidified into a social hierarchy.

The irony is striking. While satvikism claims purity, it increasingly leaves behind pollution. Across the world, civic authorities now associate large Hindu festivals with environmental damage. In Australia, residents have protested after religious events clogged canals with flowers, plastic, food waste and idols. Similar complaints surface wherever diaspora celebrations grow in scale.

In India, the pattern repeats annually. Diwali chokes cities with smoke, Holi leaves chemical sludge on roads and Ganesh Chaturthi fills rivers with plaster, paint and thermocol. When environmental concerns are raised, a powerful lobby responds with outrage, framing regulation as an attack on Hindu culture.

What is conveniently forgotten is that these rituals were once ecologically benign. Offerings were biodegradable. Idols were clay. Colours came from plants. Fire returned organic matter to the soil. Immersion fed rivers, not poisoned them. Modern materials have changed everything. Plastic garlands, chemical dyes, synthetic decorations and mass production have turned rituals into environmental hazards. Yet the rhetoric of eternal purity continues, as if intention alone can cancel consequence.

The distortion becomes clearer when we look at philosophy. The word ‘satvic’ is not Vedic; Rig Veda does not use it. The root ‘sat’ means truth or being, but ‘satvic’ emerges much later in the Samkhya system. Samkhya describes reality as shaped by three gunas. Tamas is rest, inertia, night, the womb of potential. Rajas is movement, energy, ambition, daytime activity. Satva is clarity, awareness, balance, the freshness of morning. These were not moral labels, but descriptive tools to understand rhythm. Life needs rest, action and awareness. No guna is complete by itself; health lies in balance.

Modern satvikism disrupts this rhythm. It elevates one guna into a moral ideal and condemns the others as inferior. Rest becomes laziness, action becomes greed. Only clarity is celebrated, and only when it matches elite preferences. Philosophy becomes judgment.
This shift serves older power structures well. For centuries, Brahmin elites positioned themselves as thinkers and ritual specialists, distancing themselves from physical labour in the name of purity. Baniya or merchant communities glorified discipline, efficiency and control. Satvic ideology flatters both. It justifies avoidance of manual work while praising restraint and productivity. Together, these groups turn lifestyle into virtue and privilege into morality.Food becomes the most visible marker. Diet has always been political; who eats what decides who eats with whom. When vegetarianism is projected as the pure Hindu diet, habits of the wealthy minority become national ideals. Tribal, Dalit, pastoral and fishing communities are pushed to the margins, their food framed as uncivilised or violent, even though their vocations never harmed the ecosystem. This is not spiritual upliftment, but cultural engineering.

The ecological cost is equally ignored. Industrial dairy, mass flower cultivation, factory farming of vegetarian staples and long-distance transport of ritual goods all leave deep environmental footprints. Rivers clogged with flowers and idols are not symbols of devotion, but evidence of denial. Purity becomes a spectacle, while pollution is outsourced.

Why does this idea attract such emotional investment? Because purity creates hierarchy. To declare yourself pure is to claim authority. Others automatically become impure. Their labour becomes invisible, their bodies become suspect and their lives become service. Vegetarianism here is no longer a choice, but a badge of class and caste, protected by religious sentiment from criticism.

The tragedy is that Samkhya never endorsed this extremism. It recognised complexity. Humans need sleep and sweat as much as silence and insight. A society that denies tamas and rajas ends up exploiting those who embody them. In the name of cleanliness, dirt is pushed on to others. In the name of spirituality, responsibility is avoided. Rivers are polluted, cities are choked and divisions deepen.

The satvic scam is not about food or faith, but about power and narrative. It allows a privileged few to monopolise purity while escaping accountability for social and ecological damage. The satvic of philosophy was a state of awareness; the satvic of today is a brand. And like all brands, it sells aspiration while hiding cost.