Jhatka-nomics gains meat
Jhatka entrepreneurs are counting on India’s demographics, which present a huge captive market for their product
In 2015, as political tectonics started pushing India’s mainstream cultural discourse towards the right, Mumbaibased Sikh entrepreneur Eshwinder Sethi got a novel idea. He opened what he claims to be India’s first non-halal or jhatka meat processing plant in a food park in Pune. Branded “Punjab Maratha”, raw and processed poultry and goat meat from his plant was labelled jhatka and thus “free from ritual & torture” that symbolises the Islamic halal way of slaughtering animals.
“We are Sikhs and are not allowed to eat halal meat. Of course this practice derives from Hinduism. I came upon this idea in 2015 after realising that it was nearly impossible to get jhatka meat in Maharashtra. In fact, a lot of Muslims also appreciate my products since it is clearly and transparently mentioned that the meat is non-halal,” said Sethi.
Sethi claims his products, which retail on online groceries, have evinced interest from a major airline caterer and the armed forces. The armed forces don’t specify whether the meat should be halal or jhatka in their tenders. But Sikhs comprise roughly 20 per cent of soldiers and officers in the Indian army, though they make up just about two per cent of India’s population.
The halal-jhatka distinction in India isn’t new. Thousands of small jhatka butchers who have existed in the unorganised sector in India for decades clearly mention the kind of meat they are selling. Sethi claims that his is the first big-scale certified operation. Where did Sethi’s company get a jhatka certification when neither the government nor internationally recognised certification agencies (like those for halal) exist?
Enter Ravi Ranjan Singh, a former journalist who used to cover Parliament. Singh runs the Jhatka Certification Agency in addition to a Delhi-based NGO named Live Value Foundation, which issues the “free from ritual & torture” certificate that ensures the meat has not been butchered
according to Islamic principles. Singh had also launched a movement to introduce jhatka meat in canteens of the Indian Parliament, which hasn’t made much headway yet. “Certificates are issued to only those who butcher the animal with jhatka. One cannot produce both halal and jhatka in the same establishment,” said Singh.
Singh charges between ~1,000 from a small butcher seeking validation and several lakhs of rupees from big establishments for the certificate. “Most of the meat sold in India is halal. You have everything from cosmetics, vaccines and even holidays that are certified halal. It is a religion-driven $7-trillion global business,” added Singh.
Jhatka entrepreneurs and proponents are counting on India’s demographics, which presents a huge captive market for their product in addition to being culturally coaxed into eating non-halal meat. A 2018 study by Balamurali Natrajan and Suraj Jacob published in Economic and Political Weekly indicated that more than 80 per cent of Indians were meat eaters. It quoted the National Sample Survey Orgnaisation (NSSO) to estimate that 58 per cent of Hindus, 93 per cent of Christians, 21 per cent of Sikhs and 78 per cent of all Buddhists were meat eaters. The Hindu community presents the most lucrative opportunity. The study used India Human Development Survey (IHDS) findings, which estimated that among Hindus almost 70 per cent of the forward castes and other backward castes (OBCS) were meat eaters while 87 per cent of Scheduled Castes (SCS) were non-vegetarian. The study also estimated that over 30 per cent of all Brahmins were meat eaters.
The exploitation of these demographics has also been subtly prodded by administrative action in recent months. In January 2021, the Agricultural Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) dropped the word “halal” from its red meat manual. Many believed this was the impact of the anti-halal campaigns by various right-wing groups. APEDA deleted the portions that required exporters to ensure “animals are slaughtered by halal system under strict vigilance of recognised and registered Islamic body as per the tenets of Islamic Shariyat and the certificate for halal is issued by the representative of registered Islamic body under whose supervision the slaughter is conducted in order to meet the requirement of (the) importing country”. APEDA’S manual now requires animals “slaughtered according to the requirement of importing country/importer”.
Last year, two Delhi municipal corporations, which are controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), instructed restaurants to display signs indicating whether they were selling halal or jhatka meat. But there have been informal segregations of halal meat from jhatka at wholesale markets. Nitin Kumar, a butcher who runs a jhatka meat shop in East Delhi’s Shahdara, said: “There are separate sections for jhatka and halal at Ghazipur from where we buy meat. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi stamps every jhatka animal slaughtered this way. I have a dedicated customer base coming to me for years. In recent years, I have seen newer customers as they prefer jhatka meat for religious reasons even though there is no price difference between halal and jhatka.”
Bigger restaurant owners accuse the administration in Delhi and elsewhere of creating undue hurdles when the industry has been battered by the pandemic. “Nobody cares whether they are being served halal or jhatka. If I serve my customers the best quality meat procured fresh from across the world from top suppliers, they don’t care whether it’s been butchered keeping in mind the tenets of a particular religion. It is just another way of harassment and high-handedness by mindless politicians,” said a restaurateur who runs a popular high-end café in South Delhi’s Greater Kailash market.
In October 2020, the Supreme Court of India rejected a plea seeking a ban on halal. The court observed: “Those who want to eat halal can eat halal meat. Those who want to eat jhatka can eat jhatka meat.”