Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has urged Tollgate Brewery, in Ashby De La Zouch, Leicestershire, to remove its Kalika IPA, which features an image of the goddess Kalika, and said in a statement in Nevada, USA, that ‘inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial or other agenda was not OK as it hurt devotees’.
Zed, who is president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that goddess Kalika was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines, not to be used in selling beers for ‘mercantile greed’.
Supreme deity
On Zed’s website, it stated that goddess Kalika or Kali, personifies Sakti or divine energy, and is widely worshipped in Hinduism.
She is considered the goddess of time and change. Some Bengali poets described her as a supreme deity.
Hinduism is the religion of the majority of people in India and Nepal. It also exists among significant populations outside of the sub-continent and has more than 900m adherents across the globe, according to the BBC.
Different to others
Hinduism differs to many other religions because it has no single founder, no single scripture and no commonly agreed set of teachings.
According to Tollgate Brewery’s website, Kalika IPA is a well-hopped dark gold IPA with a 4.5% ABV.
The Morning Advertiser contacted the Tollgate Brewery but had not received a response at the time it published this story.
This wasn’t the first time Zed has called on a brewery to remove a beer because of its branding as in January last year, he urged Texas-based New Braufnels Brewing Company to withdraw its beers, Shiva’s Tears, Shiva’s Wrath and Cosmic Danger because they misappropriated religions imagery for commercial gain.