Food delivery app Zomato on Tuesday launched a “pure veg mode” service that will allow users to choose from restaurants that serve only vegetarian food. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal said that a separate fleet of delivery persons dressed in green uniform would cater to customers “who have a 100% vegetarian dietary preference”.
On Wednesday, the company rolled back the decision to colour-code its fleet after several social media users pointed out that it could prompt residential societies to restrict the entry of delivery persons carrying meat-based dishes.
But Zomato’s revised decision does not address another strand of criticism: that the segregation of its fleet is a move rooted in casteist notions. Vegetarianism in India, unlike in other countries, is largely driven by the casteist idea of so-called purity, analysts noted. Zomato’s decision only promotes this discrimination, they said.
The notion of ‘pure veg’
Dalit rights activist and writer Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd told Scroll that the expression “pure vegetarian” in itself is discriminatory as it suggests that anyone with other dietary preferences eats impure food.
“These are dehumanising terms coined by Indian Brahmins,” Shepherd said. “What is the difference between a pure vegetarian and just vegetarian? There is no such term as pure vegetarian in other countries. These terms come from the Brahmanical idea of…
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