PETA Starts Targeted Campaign Against Shefali Vaidya After She Asks It To Stop Selective Outrage On Hindu Festivals

Noted columnist and author Shefali Vaidya and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) India engaged in a virtual exchange of words battle on Twitter yesterday (18 July), following which the animal rights organisation started a targeted campaign against her.

The context of the heated debate was a recent campaign by PETA featuring a cow, where the animal rights organisation had asked people to “go leather-free” this Raksha Bandhan which left many social media users scratching their heads.

Multiple netizens had slammed PETA for the illogical tweet, questioning the relation between leather and rakhis. They argued that the rakhis are rarely made of leather and using such an auspicious occasion to promote cow protection was insensitive and ill-timed.

Following the outrage PETA "clarified" by saying that, "This campaign is pointing out cows are our sisters under the skin, like us, they want to live, & that Raksha Bandhan is a great day to extend our protection to our cow sisters not wearing leather.”

In continuation with the criticism against PETA, Shefali Vaidya subsequently tweeted, "This Eid-Al-Adha, sacrifice your ego, not innocent animals’. Said NO celeb animal rights activist EVER!"

With the tweet she aimed to point out the ‘selective outrage’ by PETA India in calling out a Hindu festival, even when it was amply clear that the festival was not even remotely connected to killing animals.

Vaidya also tweeted a few hashtag suggestions for PETA which included #BakraLivesMatter #ThisEidSacrificeYourEgoNotGoat with the former becoming one of India's top trends.

After scores of twitter users voiced their support for Vaidya's tweets, PETA India then proceeded to dig up her old tweets and began targeting her for not being a vegetarian - while refusing to addresses the allegations of hypocrisy levelled against it.

"I am vegetarian"--things @ShefVaidya never says, because she is a meat-eater: https://twitter.com/ShefVaidya/status/1235534874506752001. Change starts at home. Go vegan Shefali, live by example, and join us urging Konkanis, Muslims, and people of all other backgrounds to go vegan", tweeted PETA.

In another reply, PETA tweeted, “Exposed: ur obsession w/ Eid isn't 4 respect 4 animals. Konkani and so won't stop eating chickens/fish, but expects Muslims to stop eating goats? Pathetic. Join us in asking EVERYBODY to go vegan. Start w yourself. How goats & chickens/fish u eat suffer.”

After PETA's onslaught multiple trolls were inspired to jump on the bandwagon and began sharing edited videos of Vaidya comparing her to a snake.

Shockingly, PETA India too took the opportunity to launch a similar attack and taunted Vaidya by saying that "just letting you know, we help snakes too".

Seeking the all round attack against Vaidya, many Twitter users jumped to her support and started trending ‘PetaIndiaExposed’ on twitter.

One user pointed out PETA's hypocrisy when it gave a Hero to Animals award to Shilpa Shetty, despite her being a ‘meat-eater’.

The twitter user also question as to how PETA who wants to save cows on Raksha Bandhan, can name actress Sonal Kapoor as its person of the year even though she has done several endorsement with leather-goods manufacturing brands over the years.

Many prominent twitter users concluded from PETA's attacks that Vaidya's tweets has successfully unmasked it as a group of common trolls.

As amply clear from this episode, instead of addressing the issue of ‘selective outrage’ on Hindu festivals, PETA launched an ad hominem attack against Vaidya by asserting that she had no right to question or criticise the organisation as she is a meat eater.

It should be noted that Vaidya never asked Muslims to stop eating goats or at any point claimed that she is a vegan, rather she just questioned why PETA was not doing a campaign to save Goats on Bakri Eid.

Secondly, the selective targeting of Vaidya, a noted faced among the right-wingers, only furthers her earlier hypothesis of ‘selective outrage’ by PETA.

PETA's attempts of discrediting Vaidya though seems to have backfired as #PetaIndiaExposed has now become India's number two twitter trend.

Vaidya while responding to PETA's personal attacks against her has responded by saying that, "I think I can go to bed tonight happy in the feeling that I turned a 20 year old NGO @peta @PetaIndia with huge offices in multiple cities in the world into nothing but low, abusive twitter trolls! Last 48 hours, their ONLY activity has been trolling me, a private individual!".