McDonald’s strategy of adapting to local demand and opening meat-free restaurants in various pilgrimage sites across India, may not work out as planned.
The standard-bearer of the hamburger is already facing protests from Hindu fundamentalists over plans to open restaurants in two of India’s most revered religious centres despite promising that they will offer only vegetarian menus.
McDonald’s first veg-only restaurant is set to open sometime next year near Amritsar’s Golden Temple, the Sikh religion’s holiest site as well as at the foothills of Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir, where over 10 lakh pilgrims visit each year, Firstpost had reported yesterday.
McDonald’s strategy of adapting to local demand and opening meat-free restaurants in various pilgrimage sites across India, may not work out as planned.
However, since many religious pilgrims are strictly vegetarian and in a religion where meat consumption is forbidden, Hindu nationalist group Swadeshi Jagran Manch, a branch of the influential Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has reportedly described the move as an attempt to “humiliate Hindus”.
DNA quotes the group as saying, “It is an organisation associated with cow slaughter. If we make an announcement that they’re slaughtering cows, people won’t eat there. We are definitely going to fight it.”
