Anuvrat Movements Theory and Practical

Author(s): Shivani Bothra
Publisher: USA Florida International University

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to compromise on my eating habits."109 From my informant's statement, it seems that
Tulsi's decision not to interfere in anyone's diet facilitated the growth of the movement.
According to the data, out of 115 Anuvratis, there are 104 vegetarians; out of 64 non
Anuvratis, there are 61 vegetarians. A similar proportion of the respondents are
vegetarians irrespective of the vow status. In this way, reflects a co-relation between the
dominant religion in India and the role of vegetarianism within it. Even more interesting
is to find that there are seven non-vegetarian Anuvratis. The above datum thereby
supports the statement made by my Muslim respondent and demonstrates Tulsi's
inclusive strategy. An intriguing follow-up question would have been to what extent the
non-vegetarian Anuvratis experience any pressure to eschew animal protein.
Dowry
One of my survey questions was designed to address the potential effectiveness of
Tulsi's ninth vow to not participate in socially evil customs. To examine the present
views of dowry among my respondents, I ran some cross-tabulations on the data from my
questions on dowry including the variables of gender, age, household income and
Anuvrati versus non-Anuvrati status. The dowry question was: “Have you ever accepted
or offered a dowry?” As displayed in Table 3, nine out of thirteen respondents in the
youngest age group (18-22 years old) said "no." I found that many young respondents did
not answer to the dowry question at all. One reason for the lack of response could be that
the group of young respondents have not yet experienced the situation of accepting or
rejecting a dowry. However, in keeping with the majority of respondents in this group
who answered "no," it could also be a reflection of the changing attitudes in Indian
109 Ahmed Khan, interview by Shivani Bothra, trans, Shivani Bothra, August 2, 2012.
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