India meals supply big in U-turn over ‘pure vegetarian’ inexperienced fleet shirts

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One of India’s largest meals supply firms has been pressured to reverse its determination to have drivers delivering “pure vegetarian” meals put on inexperienced shirts over fears of discrimination and assaults by meals vigilantes.

Food supply app Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal introduced the corporate’s intention to launch a “pure veg fleet” – which can ship vegetarian meals solely from eating places that don’t prepare dinner egg, fish, or meat – in a submit on X/Twitter on Tuesday.

His submit was accompanied by pictures of Zomato brokers who would ship the meals sporting inexperienced shirts rather than the same old purple. They have been additionally seen carrying inexperienced luggage as an alternative of Zomato’s purple.

But on Wednesday Mr Goyal stated in an replace that Zomato has determined to take away the “on-ground segregation” after a number of folks on social media identified how the colors may probably be used to focus on individuals who ate meat.

Some raised considerations that the supply personnel – a piece of whom are from minority spiritual and caste backgrounds – themselves could possibly be focused by landlords and residents of vegetarian-majority constructing complexes.

“While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation…This [all delivery executives wearing red] will ensure that our red uniform delivery partners are not incorrectly associated with non-veg food, and blocked by any RWAs or societies during any special days… our rider’s physical safety is of paramount importance to us.

“We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice thing if that happened because of us,” Mr Goyal stated.

He defined the necessity for a separate fleet to cater to people who find themselves postpone by the “smell” of meals containing eggs, fish, or meat.

“Because despite everyone’s best efforts, sometimes the food spills into the delivery boxes. In those cases, the smell of the previous order travels to the next order, and may lead to the next order smelling of the previous order. For this reason, we had to separate the fleet for veg orders,” he stated in a submit on X.

Users identified {that a} fleet of this type, which can “only serve orders from these pure veg restaurants” and be sure that “even a veg meal served by a non-veg restaurant will never go inside the green delivery box meant for our pure veg fleet”, will serve to bolster caste beliefs in a rustic as numerous as India the place meals habits fluctuate throughout its size and breadth.

Meat-eaters and meat sellers – particularly Muslims – have previously come beneath assault from a piece of Hindu right-wing vigilantes pushing a vegetarian agenda. Beef is banned in a number of states throughout India as cattle is taken into account sacred in Hinduism.

Mr Goyal acknowledged in his unique submit X that “India has the largest percentage of vegetarians in the world”. This is principally owing to Hinduism being a predominant faith, nevertheless, not all Hindus are vegetarians. In truth, a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center acknowledged that solely 39 per cent of Indian adults describe themselves as “vegetarian”.

However, Mr Goyal clarified that the “Pure Veg Mode, or the Pure Veg Fleet doesn’t serve or alienate any religious, or political preference”.

Sheikh Salauddin, president of the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT), the biggest platform-based drivers’ union in India, stated: “The last time someone on Zomato requested for a delivery partner of a particular religion, Mr Goyal said ‘food has no religion’. Today, he seems to have gone back on this. I ask him directly, is he now going to categorise delivery partners on the lines of caste, community and religion?”

In June final yr, Zomato issued an apology after it ran an advert marketing campaign depicting a Dalit character from the Hindi movie Lagaan being “recycled” and used as numerous inanimate objects, however finally stated the “noble intention” behind the advert was “twisted so much by certain sections of the media giving it a colour that we didn’t even remotely conceive”. Dalits are on the backside of India’s inflexible caste hierarchy.

The Independent has reached out to Zomato for remark.