IIT Mandi director Laxmidhar Behera sparked controversy on Thursday after linking weather incidents in Himachal Pradesh to the consumption of meat. As the top professor explained to students during a recent address, the ‘butchering of innocent animals’ had a unseen yet ‘symbiotic relationship with the degradation of the environment’. The debate has since taken a political turn as a video of Professor Behera urging students to turn vegetarian went viral.
“…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. To become good human beings, what you have to do? No to meat-eating," he explained.Behera also asked the students to vow not to eat meat. To become a good human being what do you have to do?” the IIT director asks and then states “No to meat eating.” He then asks students to take an oath “I will not eat meat”.“Himachal Pradesh will have a significant downfall if the innocent animals are butchered. You are butchering innocent animals,” said Behera said as he addressed the group of students in the auditorium.“That (butchering of animals) has a symbiotic relationship with the degradation of the environment as well which you can’t see now but it will have.” This is not the first time Behera has stir 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".