The Hindu community has lashed out at Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) over its latest lamb TV ad campaign, You Never Lamb Alone, which sees their deity Ganesha sitting down to a lamb lunch.
The MLA says it sought to be inclusive in the ad, which features a several religious figures dining together, including Jesus, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, Budda, and Greek goddess Aphrodite.
However the Hindu Council of Australia wants the MLA to voluntarily take the ad off air, and has referred the matter to the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB), according to AdNews.
The president of the Universal Society of Hinduism Rajan Zed in the US is also calling for the ad to be banned, saying: “linking Lord Ganesha with meat was very disrespectful and highly inappropriate” and that the revered deity was “not to be used in selling lamb meat for mercantile greed”.
Zed said that Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents, and that such trivialisation of a Hindu deity was disturbing to Hindus world over.
In recent weeks, Zed has also called for apologies and recalls from global food giants including Kellogg, Wrigley, and most recently Unilever over non-disclosure of beef in some of their products.
Zed said that it was shocking for Hindus to learn that some of these companies' products, which they had been eating for years, might contain beef, even though this was not explicitly mentioned under the ingredients listed.
The companies confirmed that while they do disclose the use of gelatin on pack, the source of the gelatin can not be guaranteed.
Unilever said protein of animal origin is so highly refined, it is not longer considered a meat product by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
