‘Milk is not vegetarian’: In Delhi’s Deer Park, how a group of volunteers are urging people to give up dairy

While some visitors frowned at the placards, a few stopped and struck up conversations with the volunteers.

They are from the Animal, Climate and Health Save India. The group’s activists and volunteers, from across Delhi, conduct outreach programmes as part of a national drive to tell people about why they should stop consuming dairy products.

“We do this to expose the violence and exploitation behind India’s dairy industry. The outreach, themed ‘Milk is not vegetarian’, invites people to confront the hidden suffering of cows and buffaloes which are used for milk production,” one volunteer said.

He added that the team tries to challenge the cultural normalisation of dairy by revealing its inherent cruelty — repeated forced impregnation of cows and buffaloes, separation of calves from their mothers, and the slaughter of male calves and non-lactating cows once they are no longer considered “useful”.

The group is supported by 1,000-plus volunteers across 50 cities

Seeing one such poster, park visitor Sunil Pathak (42) stopped with his three children to understand what it meant.
Hailing from a farmer’s family who domesticate cows to sell milk in Gorakhpur, he was puzzled about how cow milk is replaceable.

“Don’t you think that the way we depend on cows for milk, they too depend on us?” he asked a volunteer, Shilpa Bharadwaj (27).

Bharadwaj replied that humans have created this dependency. “They are animals, they will live in the jungle. We brought them… and that’s why accidents are occurring on the road,” she said.

Pathak frowned and paused for a few seconds before questioning, “Par jaise ye hum par dependent hai, hum uss par hai, tabhi toh duniya chalegi (But just as they are dependent on us, we are dependent on them — that’s how the world goes on).”

After a half-hour long conversation, he left mumbling, “Aapke aur humare vichaar same nahi hai (Our thoughts are not the same).”

A few metres away, another volunteer explains how stopping consumption of milk can lead to reduction in its production.

“Do STD booths exist now? No right? It’s because the demand is no more. If we stop consuming milk, then the government too will stop producing it,” the volunteer said, adding that alternatives such as almond, soya, quinoa, cashew and coconut milk can be used.

“But can you make me understand what will happen to farmers, for whom dairy is an alternate source of income?” a visitor asked. “How can you expect states like Rajasthan to grow water-intensive crops?”

To which the volunteer replied that they can grow an alternate crop “because killing animals cannot be an ongoing process”.

Narhari Gupta, national coordinator of the foundation, said both cows and buffaloes endure immense suffering for milk.

“Our work is to make people aware that there is no humane way to exploit someone who doesn’t want to be used,” he said.

The group is supported by 1,000-plus volunteers across 50 cities.

As the clock strikes 6.30 and the sun sets, the volunteers fold their placards, ready to return next Sunday for more conversations — and hoping to change minds.

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