An online food delivery app, Zomato has launched its ‘Pure Veg Mode’, and a ‘Pure Veg Fleet’, on Tuesday. While announcing the launch, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said it is to solve the dietary preferences of 100% vegetarian customers.
Announcement by Zomato’s CEO
Zomato CEO said that the ‘Pure’ veg mode will consist of only veg restaurants and will exclude those restaurants that serve any nonveg food.
“Our dedicated Pure Veg Fleet will only serve orders from these pure veg restaurants. This means that a non-veg meal, or even a veg meal served by a non-veg restaurant will never go inside the green delivery box meant for our Pure Veg Fleet,” he added.
Backlash and Criticism
As soon as the announcement, Zomato was criticized as “casteist” and “regressive”.
As in India eating meat is closely associated with caste practices. The framing of veg food as poor implies that meat or nonveg is impure or polluted. Again this imposes the same Brahminical, casteist idea of hierarchy placing ‘pure’ vegetarians on top and others who eat meat at the bottom. And the “pure veg” fleet appears to create a new form of caste segregation.
“Last year, Zomato released a casteist Ad that dehumanized Dalits, & now they’re introducing special pure vegetarian modes & fleets. This is what we call the socio-cultural capital of Oppressor castes. The majority of SCs, STs, & Muslims consume meat,” wrote a Dalit artist Lokesh on X. He further added only 19 percent of Indians consume vegetarian food.
Some complain that the Resident Welfare Association (RWAs) may ban regular fleets (red ones) from entering the apartments. It gives another reason for landlords to harass tenants, for eating non-veg food, leading to further discrimination and restrictions for meat eaters.
Segregation with Tweaks
Following the backlash, Zomato’s CEO made another announcement on Wednesday that they will continue the fleet but without on-ground segregation. The red uniform of Zomato will be the only uniform for both nonveg and veg fleets, the segregated ‘pure veg fleet’ will be visible on the app but with a red uniform.
Zomato’s casteist ‘Kachra’ Ad
In 2023, Zomato launched a promotional ad named “Kachra can change the game”, which was also problematic, faced severe criticism, and faced allegations of being casteist. The ad used the character ‘Kachra’ from the popular Bollywood movie Lagaan (2001).
Neeraj Gaywaan, the director of the movie Masaan, said, “Kachra from Lagaan was one of the most dehumanized voiceless depictions of Dalits ever in cinema. Zomato has used the same character and made a repulsive casteist commercial.” And He called it extremely insensitive.
