A campaign has been started on social media to protest against derogatory comments on non-vegetarians and thoughts of banning meat. The campaign has begun with the hashtag #ಮಾಂಸವೇನಮ್ಮನೆದ್ಯಾವ್ರು ಮತ್ತು #ಬಾಡೇನಮ್ಗಾಡು, translated as #Meat_is_our_God to show solidarity with the meat eaters.
Kannada music director Hamsalekha, sparked a controversy by making comments at an award ceremony last week, criticising late seer Vishwesha Theertha Swami’s efforts to remove caste barriers.
Referring to the late seer’s initiatives to visit Dalit colonies, Hamsalekha had said, “Pejawar Swamy has gone to stay at a Dalit person’s house. This is a statement. He had gone and sat there but can he eat chicken if they give it to him? They will fry up sheep’s blood and serve it, can he eat it? They will serve liver, can he eat it? No. So I felt what is the big deal of him going to a Dalit person’s house.”
His statement caused outrage and provoked debate on social media with several people supporting Hamsalekha’s right to make the statements while others demanded an apology from the composer.
On Monday, Hamsalekha apologised for his remarks after a videos of his talks were shared widely on social media and a stir was raised by several people.
In a video uploaded on Facebook, he said that he did not intend to hurt anybody through his statements.
Meanwhile, derogatory remarks were made about non-vegetarians along with meat and sheep’s blood fry. Nowadays, meat is depicted as something that is disgusting and banned. Also, the non-vegetarians were insulted and called as the demons.
Opposing all these developments, the non-vegetarians have launched a campaign, for which many people have already joined the campaign. Questions have been raised on defaming them as over 70% Indians are non-vegetarians.
From past two days, the #ಮಾಂಸವೇನಮ್ಮನೆದ್ಯಾವ್ರು ಮತ್ತು #ಬಾಡೇನಮ್ಗಾಡು campaign has been going on with many people clicking a selfie along with their meat recipes and uploading it on social media.
