IIT Mandi Director Laxmidhar Behera recently stirred a controversy after he claimed that landslides and cloudbursts in Himachal Pradesh are happening because of cruelty to animals. He asked students to take a pledge not to eat meat. “To become good human beings, what you have to do? No to meat eating,” he said.
Taking to the microblogging platform X, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Behera has shown he is not fit to hold the position of director. “The longer he stays, more the damage he will do to the spirit of scientific temper,” said Ramesh.
The opposition leader went on to add that the PM spoke of plastic surgery being known to our ancestors. Modi also told children climate has not changed, while we have. “Science and spirituality is one thing, but science and crackpot theories that are put out by people in positions of power is quite another,” posted Ramesh.
While addressing the students via a video call, Behera said, “Himachal Pradesh will have a significant downfall…if we do not stop butchering animals. You are butchering animals there… the innocent animals. It has a symbiotic relationship with the degradation of the environment as well… which you cannot see right now but is there…”
“It is having landslides, cloudbursts, and many other things again and again, these are all effects of cruelty on animals…people eat meat,” the IIT Mandi director added.
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Several users of X criticised the director for his views. “The collapse is complete. These superstitious fools will destroy whatever little was built in 70 years,” Sandeep Manudhane, an entrepreneur and IIT Delhi alumni, said on X.
Gautam Menon, a professor of biophysics, said, “In the current dispensation, having views like those of the director of IIT Mandi featured here is a feature, not a bug. It’s simply sad.” This is not the first time Behera has stirred a row with his controversial comments. Last year, he hit the headlines for claiming that he was involved in an act of exorcism to rid his friend’s apartment and family of ”evil spirits” by chanting “holy mantras.”
— with PTI inputs
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