By Mumbai News Group (Originally in English)

Since 1997, school students in India have been given the right to choose whether they want to dissect living creatures in their biology class. This ruling was made by the Delhi High Court in response to petitions sponsored by vegetarian associations.

In the year 2001, upon the pressure due to constant campaigning of vegetarian groups, the Indian government made the decision to require vegetarian/non-vegetarian declarations on product packages. Now, every product has either a green or brown color-filled circle on its package, near the name or brand name of the food. The green circle means that the product is pure vegetarian, i.e., contains neither animal ingredients (except milk products) nor egg. And the brown circle means that animal substances are included. It is truly a time-saving invention for vegetarians, which will hopefully adopted by all governments in the future!

Vegetarian/non-vegetarian declarations on product packages in India. The green circle means that the product is pure vegetarian

For further information, please see the website of the Indian vegetarian association Beauty Without Cruelty: http://www.bwcindia.org/veg_campaign/veg_campaign_details.htm#laws

For Hindus, the slaughtering of cows is traditionally regarded as a serious crime, equal to the slaughtering of one’s own mother. Since the existence of slaughterhouses in India, many religious groups have demonstrated against them. Members of one of these groups, the Goraksa Sanchalan Samiti (followers of the Saint Vinoba, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi), who helped us with the distribution of Alternative Living flyers in Mumbai, told us that they have been demonstrating at the Deonar Slaughterhouse in Mumbai for the last 15 years, around the clock. They always have five people stationed there who are taken away by the police after some time. The police registers their personal data and sets them free again; meanwhile, another five people replace them for demonstration. When one of the members of this group learned about our distribution of vegetarian flyers, he asked for a whole stack of them. He set out with a small drum and his hat, with the logo “Save the Cows” on it, to distribute the flyers single-handedly.

In Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) which has a population of 16 million people and is the financial and business capital of India, meat eaters are often excluded from housing estates. In India, there is no law against forming an association and making an apartment block, for example, exclusively for Catholics or Hindus. And because many middle-class Indians from the neighboring states of Gujarat and Rajasthan (which are strongly vegetarian) are moving to Mumbai, there are entire housing-societies that require one to be a vegetarian in order to own an apartment in there. These house-owners are very strict and won’t sell to a non-vegetarian even if he offers a higher price than a vegetarian.

There are also entire streets and districts in which the population is 98 % vegetarian, particularly those which are inhabited by Jains (one of the major religions whose followers are pure vegetarians).

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