Enormous levels of ignorance about India on this thread from some, likely those who haven’t lived in, visited, or have friends from India.
The majority of the country, actually nearly three quarters, eats some kind of meat. Hindus that constitute about 80% of the population tend to avoid beef, probably for cultural reasons today more than religious ones.
Hinduism unlike other major religions is very diverse in how it’s practiced. It’s not accurate to say Hinduism forbids eating beef because there is no such prescriptive religious text that says so. The cow is revered like a mother because it provides milk. There are some very ancient scriptures (in Vedic script that hardly anyone can even read) that say that “cow slaughter is an act of gross ignorance” (sort of like Aesop’s fable about killing the goose that laid golden eggs). But there are also all kinds of other animal killing “sins” preached in some Hindu sects, for example, killing a cat (for any reason) is heinous and requires much more laborious atonement measures than killing a cow. Ancient Hindu texts do forbid animal killing because it’s cruel but don’t forbid meat eating (hey, nobody said religions are logically consistent), so most Hindus happily eat meat.