PETA Goes on Attack in India Over Milk Giant’s Treatment of Cows

A business as powerful as Amul needn’t usually worry about a bunch of animal-rights activists in its home country. The top bovine farming cooperative in the world’s biggest producer and consumer of milk, Amul had revenue of $7 billion last year, and its Amul Butter Girl, with her rosy cheeks and polka-dot dress, is one of India’s most recognizable corporate mascots. That should be enough for the company to withstand criticism from the India branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is trying to persuade the dairy cooperative to switch to plant-based alternatives.

Yet Amul has a fight on its hands. PETA may be a fringe group in other parts of the world, but animal rights is a mainstream issue for right-wing supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a vegetarian from Amul’s home state of Gujarat. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has made cattle protection a wedge issue to help win the support of Hindu voters. (Cows are sacred in Hinduism, and Hindu groups in India, while not opposed to milk consumption, object to the slaughtering of cows and male calves.) Rules against cattle slaughter have been tightened under Modi; since 2014 several BJP-run states have passed new laws, some of which deny bail to alleged violators, according to a Human Rights Watch report, emboldening “violent vigilante groups” to attack people suspected of harming cows.