Halal Is Not Kosher

KHATIKS ARE DALITS WHO WORK AS BUTCHERS. Yet, their contribution to the massive meat sector in India is severely limited, primarily because, for years, the Government of India’s APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) rules in the Red Meat Manual mandated, under Chapter 4, that all slaughter of meat for export in slaughterhouses would be certified as genuinely halal.

Chapter 4 of the APEDA (under the commerce and industry ministry) manual said: “All the animals are slaughtered by HALAL method in the presence of Holy man assigned by All India Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind [JUEH] as per Islamic Shariat, for certification”. Chapter 2 of the manual said: “The animals are slaughtered strictly according to ‘Halal’ method; hence the meat is genuinely Halal.”

Here’s the catch. Most of the importing nations for our red meat products are, and have actually been, non-Muslim nations. Vietnam is the biggest buyer. Philippines, Thailand, Angola and other nations are key importers. Yet, APEDA’s rules insisted on a holy man from the Muslim community reading religiously mandated Quranic verses over the slaughter of animals to make it halal (as opposed to haram, or not religiously mandated and forbidden to eat in Islam). It also ensured for decades that the entire meat export chain was dominated and driven by Muslims and run according to Islamic practice in a nation of consumers that was dominantly non-Muslim and preferred jhatka meat slaughter, both in terms of being non-Muslim and in terms of compassion for animals. But they were foiled, first by rules laid down by the government organization controlling meat export and later, by sheer numbers of Muslims in the sector for decades, from running jhatka meat outlets, promoting its sale and consumption at restaurants and hotels. APEDA’s mandatory rules for certifying all meat exports as halal were perplexing in this backdrop. Especially given the Indian government’s compulsions, under Article 15(4) to proactively encourage SCs/STs and to not discriminate against Dalits in any manner—along religious lines, economically or socio-culturally. It was openly discriminatory of the fundamental rights of not just SCs/STs but all non-Muslims earning a livelihood, or seeking to do so, as butchers in abattoirs. Article 15 (1) of the Constitution of India asserts: “The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.”

It was not until January 2021, under intense pressure from various quarters, including Dalit groups, animal rights activists and rightwing groups maintaining that the government’s backing of halal meat was not kosher, that APEDA removed the word “halal” from its Red Meat Manual and clarified that, for purposes of export, animals should be slaughtered according to the requirements of the meat importing country or buyer. The revised Red Meat Manual rules issued by APEDA now read: “the animals should be slaughtered according to the requirement of the importing country/buyer.” On the ground, though, it has made little difference in terms of which community—thanks to decades of established practice—dominated the sector and continued to push its religious food habits on the rest of the country and in exports. APEDA’s move under pressure, however, brought it to the fore that the halal versus jhatka meat question was not merely of halal-approved meat exports but a much wider issue that involved the fundamental rights of all citizens, Dalit rights to livelihood and animal rights. It was against this background that various organisations had insisted that halal meat consumption should be banned for non-Muslims in meat shops, restaurants and hotels and served only to Muslims, thus protecting not only livelihood-related fundamental rights for all non-Muslims but also ensuring that greater compassion was exercised in India in animal slaughter.

‘Halal’ is an Arabic term that, in the Islamic context, means “lawful, permissible by Sharia or the Islamic law”. It extends to food but is not restricted to it. Practising Muslims the world over are expected to live by halal rules in all aspects of life. This includes the third largest Muslim population in the world living here in India, around 200 million of them, and a total ban on halal products, it is expected, will trigger massive social and economic consequences. It is in view of this that several rights groups have been advocating not a total ban on halal food and products but a selective ban that will allow enough halal food outlets and shops to cater to the religious sentiment and approved dietary habits of Indian Muslims even while proactively enabling jhatka meat products for the majority population of non-Muslims, most of whom view halal slaughter of animals as unnecessary and cruel.

Most societies have framed laws to ensure that slaughter methods for animals involve mandatory stunning, electrical stunning/electrocution, prior to slaughter. The European Parliament, for instance, has passed related laws but is yet to ensure that these are implemented on the ground. Individual nations, such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland, etc, have enforced halal after complete electrical stunning. However, the UK has been unable to enforce this 100 per cent although close to 90 per cent do stun animals into immobility and senselessness before slaughter in slaughterhouses, according to official statements. Some 10 per cent slaughterhouses get halal/kosher certification according to Islamic/Jewish preferences.

In more recent times, as the halal industry (including food, cosmetics and clothing) worldwide grows manifold driven by the younger generation of Muslims, the industry has resorted to reinventing and repositioning itself as one compassionate to animals. In the US, where the pressure is peaking from animal rights activists, the American Halal Foundation has reframed halal slaughter in the context of animal welfare, claiming that it was an important part of Islam prior to activism in recent times.

Why is the world mostly pussyfooting around the halal issue, and not mandating humane slaughtering methods? The answer could lie in the power of the massive and now exploding halal lifestyle sector globally. In contrast to cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and fashion, halal food, of course, is more common. But the halal pharmaceuticals market is expected to boom, according to a report by Adroit Market Research, an India-based business analytics company, which says the global halal pharmaceuticals market is projected to reach $174.59 billion by 2025. The halal cosmetic industry is booming too and, according to a 2017 report by Grand View Research, the global halal cosmetics market was valued at $16.32 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $52.02 billion by 2025.

IN INDIA, THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE ISLAMIC method of slaughter centres around the argument that the monopoly of halal meat and the dominance of Muslims in the meat sector comes at the direct expense of the dietary habits and accepted slaughter methods of every other non-Muslim community, and actively discriminates against them. Nothing about this is fair. The halal method of slaughter requires that the butcher be a Muslim. That specific slaughtering tools be used. That the animal must be alive. That Tasmiyah (slaughtering in the name of Allah) must be invoked. That at least three of the four ventricles (trachea, oesophagus and one of the two jugular veins) be severed to allow blood to flow even when the animal is alive and can feel the pain. And that all conditions, including mentioning of Tasmiyah, apply if the slaughterer is a Jew or a Christian.

Article 16 of the Indian Constitution clearly states: “There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters of employment under the State.” And Article 16(2): “No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or any of them, be ineligible for any office under the State.” But ignoring the complex questions involving community bias, caste-discriminatory and animal cruelty issues and the violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed to all citizens under the secular Constitution, the halal controversy here has predictably been projected by liberals as yet another instance of the belligerent Hindu right imposing its taste and preferences on a beleaguered Muslim community that has already been pushed into a corner. The narrative framed is that of a bigoted fringe trying to work for the eradication of yet another secular feature of the country and to the detriment of its so-called composite culture. And those pushing this narrative have not bothered to inform the public as to what the debate is truly about. Mostly, out of fear that if they did so, it could cause a huge embarrassment as it would go completely against the progressive tenets they swear by.

The self-confessed practitioners of transparency and the advocates of right to information look the other way on the real issues raised by this debate. This is an age when there is pressure for detailing the minutiae of what people consume down to the micro milligram, for minute-by-minute posting of colourful food photos on Instagram and focus on what goes into making, presenting and serving every dish. At a time like this, the silence from liberals on the halal controversy, the freedom of choice on food mandated to every citizen, and how it does not square with India’s Constitution that guarantees equal rights and opportunities to all, is appalling.

This is also a period in history when unemployment has reached highs, with even upper-caste Brahmins competing with others to work as salaried sweepers in government institutions, not even concealing their identity while seeking jobs that were once taboo for them. Allowing the meat sector (export and domestic) to remain an isolated economic island and a religious ghetto for one community not only goes against the moorings of the Constitution but is inconceivable ethically in the interest of social justice.

Over decades, a complex and virtually impenetrable control structure has been put in place, outside the government framework, to ensure that Muslims alone get to corner the meat business nationwide. The mullahs and maulanas chanting holy verses on the slaughtered animal in abattoirs charge for their services. This is religious cess by another name, clearly forbidden under law. In India, the halal certification is monopolised by 24 private players that includes JUEH. Coercion does not end with meat now; it has spread to other spheres as well, forcing non-Muslim communities here to increasingly cede more space to the halal way of living. As part of the same halal lifestyle promoted among the faithful and growing exponentially in other countries (Indonesia, for instance, got the highest halal rating globally in the recent past), halal certificates are now issued to vegetarian products, clothing, cosmetics, drugs, housing companies, and even tourism. The halalindia.com website, home to one of the key certifying agencies in India, proudly asserts that the restaurants and hotels certified by it have the upper hand among tourists from 117 countries that India’s halal-certified products are trusted in and exported to. In 2020, Kerala sported its first ever Shariah-compliant, halal-certified building complex, Asset Genesis in west Kochi. While online halal clothing sales outlets like Red Bubble are well known abroad, shopping sites offer similar services in India.

So powerful globally is the might of the halal business that even the very vocal animal rights group, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which often objects to elephants and other animals being made a part of religious processions and held captive for decades in temples—and rightfully so, given increasing awareness of the extreme trauma that these animals captured from the wild go through in a captive state for decades—has chosen to remain silent in the case of the widespread Islamic mode of slaughter countrywide. This selective outrage and hypocrisy about not calling out the extreme pain that an un-stunned animal goes through while its throat is slit and the blood drained slowly from its body while it is still conscious is shocking. All the while, the Quranic verses are recited in a demonstration of the self-avowed “animal welfare and compassion espoused by Islam” over the animal’s traumatised body, all in the name of religious rites. This completely contradicts the very ethical mission that organisations like PETA claim to represent. It is time these defenders of animal rights and vocal votaries of freedom of choice and the majesty of the law were called out for their cloak of secrecy imposed by the halal certification ‘mafia’ and adopted uncritically by them.

In this ecosystem, the jhatka method of slaughter that prevailed in most parts of the subcontinent prior to the vice-like grip of halal has been deliberately undermined. Jhatka, as opposed to halal, mandatorily stuns the animal into senselessness before resorting to instant slaughter, a method accepted globally. But although Hindus and even Sikhs consume jhatka meat, those non-Muslims traditionally involved in this practice of animal slaughter and meat sale—already from marginalised sections of their communities—have been sidelined further. The halal meat industry has, meanwhile, thrived globally on completely untested claims that the Islamic way of meat slaughter was cleaner and made the meat tender and tastier when compared to non-halal slaughter.

As with any protest movement, there will always be the fringe that threatens violence, boycott and total shutdowns or bans. However, by no means does that nullify the whole argument around the halal industry both in India and globally. Here, the time has come to remove the veil of ignorance and oppression that the country has been shrouded in. In the name of a ‘composite culture’, what is essentially underway is an unabashed promotion, across the spectrum, of the Islamic worldview on a halal lifestyle. Whether it is the destruction and vandalism of temples, the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, the tyranny of the hijab and the azan call on loudspeakers, no more can such crucial issues be brushed under the carpet. When the votaries of the Constitution, fundamental rights, equal opportunities and the right to life and livelihood and practise of faith under India’s most important covenant refuse to acknowledge that these issues need urgently to be debated and the mainstream media ducks open debate, reaction is inevitable.

Moreover, well over seven decades after Independence, not only should these seemingly controversial issues be debated but the nuances need to be confronted with honesty and boldness. Failing this, the debate-dodgers on the liberal side are in for more nasty shocks and surprises. Like The Kashmir Files film that blasted the silence around the suffering of the Pandits, well hidden until now under the cloak of ‘secularism’; like the result of the recent Assembly election in western UP; and like the ever-increasing platoons among votaries of Hindu resurgence that turn out at Ramanavami processions.

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