After learning the polymer banknotes of more than 20 countries, including Canada, contain “literally minute” amounts of animal by-products, Hindus are urging the Bank of Canada to produce beef-free money in the future.
Hindus worldwide are upset over the central bank’s decision to continue producing polymer banknotes containing trace amounts of tallow, a hard, fatty substance made from animal fat.
Hindu cleric Rajan Zed, who’s now a U.S. citizen after emigrating from India, has asked the Bank of Canada “to show respect to the feelings of Hindus” and develop a banknote-production process without tallow as an ingredient. Zed, who’s also the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, added the bank was “highly insensitive” to continue with the current polymer recipe and asked both Stephen Poloz, bank governor, and Bill Morneau, federal finance minister, to explore the controversial matter.
The seat of many Hindu deities, the cow is sacred to the Indian religion. Beef is banned from entering Hindu religious centres, and the consumption of beef is conflicting to the religion’s followers.
There is a Hindu population of 497,965 in Canada, according to the 2011 National Household Survey.