Ditch dairy to save male calves: PETA India urges people to go vegan

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has urged people across India to shun dairy products as a part of their new campaign to inform about the cruelty inflicted on male calves in the dairy industry.

PETA has come up with a message, “Male calves are discarded like trash because they can’t produce milk. Go vegan”, in major cities like Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai to mark the World Vegan Month observed in November.

The campaign has been launched to bring attention to the common dairy-industry practices of separating calves from their mothers shortly after birth, then abandoning the males, allowing them to starve, or selling them to be killed for their flesh and skin since they cannot produce milk.

“Some dairies even use khalbacchas stuffed dead calves hung or propped up on sticks to try to trick mother cows and buffaloes into lactation. A Nagpur man was recently booked for this and other cruelty to cattle,” the animal rights organisations said in a statement.

PETA India Senior Campaigns Coordinator Radhika Suryavanshi urged everyone to recognise that “cow and buffalo milk belongs to calves, not humans.

“The dairy industry also supports the beef and leather industries, which are able to exist in India largely because the dairy sector supplies them with spent and unwanted animals,” the statement added.

The animal rights organisation said that University of Oxford researchers found going meat- and dairy-free can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent. “And doctors tell us dairy consumption in humans is linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, and other ailments,” it added.