Last year, a video went viral in India showing a schoolgirl, her hair in two neat plaits, fiercely defending her right and that of other children from poor families to be served an egg as part of her midday school meal. She is surrounded by fellow pupils who cheer and laugh as she calls on religious leaders in the Indian state of Karnataka to explain why they want children to be deprived of essential nutrition.

“You do not know the plight of the poor,” the girl told reporters, referring to the high priests and seers who argue that eggs violate the vegetarianism supposedly intrinsic to the practice of Hinduism. “We need eggs… who are you to tell us [what to eat]?”

In July, the howls of indignation from upper caste communities and even legislators notwithstanding, Karnataka’s department of education announced that it would provide eggs in all districts on 46 days of the 2022-23 school year.

Only half of India’s 28 states and eight union territories provide eggs as part of the midday meal scheme. And in those states that do provide eggs, the frequency ranges from daily to once a week to even once a month. These free school lunches feed well over 100 million of the poorest children in the country, ensuring they get at least one balanced, nutritious meal every day. The scheme began as an incentive for poor parents to send their children to school, if only to guarantee lunch, but is now a widely acknowledged bulwark against the persistent malnutrition that afflicts children in India.