Indian armed forces are the departments of the Government of India. The Government of India functions in accordance with the Constitution. The constitution of India guarantees some of fundamental rights to its citizens. These fundamental rights except freedom of speech are also available to the members of the armed forces. The fundamental rights are inalienable and no government can take away.
The right to live is a fundamental right. Right to food of own choice emerge from right to life. So no one has a right to impose the food on you. You will be served veg and non vegetarian food.
The option to choose one of the two is with you. You can not choose both like clever opportunist but you can always shift choice every month as and when your mood changes. Why a month because the rationing clerk can source it for you from the next month .
The liquor goes with the food in stomach ache so you have right not to drink liquor if you don’t like . If you are non drinker and are deployed in the ranks , you will be always chased by drunkard colleagues to have your share given to them. They may repay you back by doing your extra duties on your behalf.
If you are an officer, you would get plenty of water and liquor to drink but since you have to wake up early in the morning for physical training, drinking late night is not a good idea and is against officer like qualities. If the Commanding Officer observes your weakness for drinks, he wont say anything but quietly will send you on some mission where liquor wont be seen.
You might have a question, how is the food in the National Defence Academy, and are cadets given chance to choose to eat what they like?
The food in all Indian Army messes (including training academies, Unit messes, Regimental Centres etc) will include both vegetarian and non-veg fare. There are cadets and recruits who may give up vegetarian food and switch to a (tastier) non-veg diet during training, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
For example at the National Defence Academy, where every Squadron has three very long dining tables for its cadets, one each will be for the vegetarians.
I’ve observed that a few officers who have been vegetarians for religious reasons do start eating non-veg after some time in the Army. The poor guys have a hard time hiding this from their families. This, however, is happening in the civvy street as well due to the magical mixing of cultures and food in the larger cities.
The one good thing with being a vegetarian in the Army is when they feed you random meat (cooked) in survival training during the Commando Course, they spare the vegetarians. Not all non-vegetarians find snake meat(they even scare you telling it is dog meat) palatable.
Written by Kiran Rahul, Ex Army officer on Quora.
What about Special forces, do they have an option to be a non vegetarian?
some soldiers and commandos are taught jungle/ high altitude survival which includes hunting and eating raw meat of the animals they gather. They pretty much have all sorts of meat during training and service.
What is important is staying strong, where food is scarce you should focus on gaining what ever nutrition you can afford without looking towards the source of nutrition.
I believe you should never consider Special Forces if you have such qualms. Special Forces stands for “Balidaan” or “Sacrifice”, if you can’t change your food habit for your country, you should refrain from joining.
Religion and food habits comes from people and country or region, not the other way around.
Going by Indian tradition, sacrifices are to be made for the greater good: Even Gautam Muni ate meat to Kill the twin Rakshasa’s Batabi and Ilal (Purana Stories) and Buddha ate meat given as Bhiksha and actually died from poisonous meat at the end of his life.
In both Hindu and Boudhha shastra it is said: When you give up society and become a monk and sacrifice all worldly comforts “accept whatsoever is given gracefully, thankfully, and eat it.”
That is of course my personal view on the matter says Deya Roy on Quora.
The right to live is a fundamental right. Right to food of own choice emerge from right to life. So no one has a right to impose the food on you. You will be served veg and non vegetarian food.
The option to choose one of the two is with you. You can not choose both like clever opportunist but you can always shift choice every month as and when your mood changes. Why a month because the rationing clerk can source it for you from the next month .
The liquor goes with the food in stomach ache so you have right not to drink liquor if you don’t like . If you are non drinker and are deployed in the ranks , you will be always chased by drunkard colleagues to have your share given to them. They may repay you back by doing your extra duties on your behalf.
If you are an officer, you would get plenty of water and liquor to drink but since you have to wake up early in the morning for physical training, drinking late night is not a good idea and is against officer like qualities. If the Commanding Officer observes your weakness for drinks, he wont say anything but quietly will send you on some mission where liquor wont be seen.
You might have a question, how is the food in the National Defence Academy, and are cadets given chance to choose to eat what they like?
The food in all Indian Army messes (including training academies, Unit messes, Regimental Centres etc) will include both vegetarian and non-veg fare. There are cadets and recruits who may give up vegetarian food and switch to a (tastier) non-veg diet during training, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
For example at the National Defence Academy, where every Squadron has three very long dining tables for its cadets, one each will be for the vegetarians.
I’ve observed that a few officers who have been vegetarians for religious reasons do start eating non-veg after some time in the Army. The poor guys have a hard time hiding this from their families. This, however, is happening in the civvy street as well due to the magical mixing of cultures and food in the larger cities.
The one good thing with being a vegetarian in the Army is when they feed you random meat (cooked) in survival training during the Commando Course, they spare the vegetarians. Not all non-vegetarians find snake meat(they even scare you telling it is dog meat) palatable.
Written by Kiran Rahul, Ex Army officer on Quora.
What about Special forces, do they have an option to be a non vegetarian?
some soldiers and commandos are taught jungle/ high altitude survival which includes hunting and eating raw meat of the animals they gather. They pretty much have all sorts of meat during training and service.
What is important is staying strong, where food is scarce you should focus on gaining what ever nutrition you can afford without looking towards the source of nutrition.
I believe you should never consider Special Forces if you have such qualms. Special Forces stands for “Balidaan” or “Sacrifice”, if you can’t change your food habit for your country, you should refrain from joining.
Religion and food habits comes from people and country or region, not the other way around.
Going by Indian tradition, sacrifices are to be made for the greater good: Even Gautam Muni ate meat to Kill the twin Rakshasa’s Batabi and Ilal (Purana Stories) and Buddha ate meat given as Bhiksha and actually died from poisonous meat at the end of his life.
In both Hindu and Boudhha shastra it is said: When you give up society and become a monk and sacrifice all worldly comforts “accept whatsoever is given gracefully, thankfully, and eat it.”
That is of course my personal view on the matter says Deya Roy on Quora.
