The High Commission of India has made a complaint to three federal government departments about Meat & Livestock Australia’s (MLA’s) latest lamb ad by The Monkeys, saying that it hurt the religious sentiments of the Indian community.
The Indian High Commission issued its complaint to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Communication and Arts and the Department of Agriculture.
“In a video advertisement released by Meat and Livestock Australia recently, Lord Ganesha along with other religious figures is found to be ‘toasting lamb’, which the Indian community consider to be offensive and hurting their religious sentiments,” a statement by the Indian High Commission read.
“The Consulate General of India in Sydney has taken up the matter directly with Meat & Livestock Australia and urged them to withdraw the advertisement.”
This comes after Hindu statesman Rajan Zed called for Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau to ban the ad.
Moreover, Zed believes MLA board chair Dr. Michele Allan and managing director Richard Norton should resign for “working against the interests of the organisation by upsetting consumers instead of charming them”.
“With strong condemnation of this insensitive ad world over, MLA appeared to be harming its ‘core focus’ of delivering ‘value to its 50,000 levy paying members by growing demand for red meat’,” he said in a statement.
However, it’s not just the Hindus who are calling for the ad to be banned.
Christian, Buddhist and Jewish leaders have followed suit in denouncing the MLA commercial, which they say trivialises various religious figures.
