How India fell in and out of love with PETA

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Editor's note: Nearly 21 years to this day, the world’s largest animal rights organization launched its first campaign in India. It didn’t make jaws drop like the infamous Tuff shoes advert had five years before it, but it did make you look. There, on the cover of Femina—which in 2000 was still India’s most reputed fashion magazine—was a sharp-featured Aditi Govitrikar in a ballroom gown made entirely of lettuce. “Let vegetarianism grow on you,” the copy suggested. “Aditi Govitrikar for PETA.” Govitrikar, the only Indian supermodel who was also a practicing doctor, offered soundbite-sized medical advice on vegetarianism and fitness going hand in hand. PETA India deployed her beauty-with-brains appeal in more campaigns with taglines such as “Use your head, go veg”, and in lifesize posters that teamed her up with a dimpled pageant winner who’d go on to become one of India’s biggest male supermodels: John Abraham. While PETA India was setting up office in Mumbai, the organization’s founder-president Ingrid Newkirk flew to Delhi and announced a fast to bring attention to the “cruel treatment of Indian cattle by the country’s …