The linked economies of halal

I have recounted this story before but it merits reminding Hindutva bigots again. Gujarat 2002 was, of course, the bloodiest riots in India so far but before that there was 1992-93 in Bombay, soon after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

Muslims just vanished from the city thereafter – initially the trains to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and elsewhere were packed to capacity going out of Mumbai and so empty coming into the city that once I had to walk through the entire train to find other passengers and then we all – barely a dozen or so -- congregated in one compartment for safety in numbers through the night.

What this meant for the city was disastrous for its economy. I discovered that again by accident as I went to a particular shop for embroidered garments and found only last season's designs all frayed and dusty on the shelves. When a couple more visits yielded nothing better, I asked the listless shop owner why he was not stocking fresh designs and was taken aback by his almost ferocious response.

“Maaro! Aur maaro! Musalmanon ko aur maaro aur phir mujh se poochho ki meri dukaan pur kuch kyun nahin hai!”

That startled me no end but as a journalist I could not let that go. And nosing around, I discovered the interlinkages. The shop owners were all Hindu. But their kaarigars were Muslim. In this instance, the delicate Lucknowi embroidery on the garments he stocked were executed by Muslim embroiderers from various parts of Uttar Pradesh and they had all run home to their villages and were refusing to return to work.

A similar situation prevailed with diamond merchants - not just the diamond cutters but even the trusted angadias (or couriers) had all vanished into their ghettos and were refusing to leave the security of their homes or risk being accosted by marauding rioters who would pounce on them, loot or even kill them.

Months after the riots had quietened down, Hindu businessmen in many sectors of the economy -- furniture making, furnishing, tiling, plumbing, electric works, masonry and others -- who owned small and medium businesses or shops that employed a skilled --largely Muslim -- work force were slowly going bankrupt.

Many of these were friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party and at the beginning of the riots had been gloating about how the Muslims were being taught a lesson. Sime months later they were cursing those who instigated the riots and even travelling to remote villages in the north to persuade their trusted workers to return, giving personal guarantees for their safety and security.

There was also an open meeting of upper end businessmen like builders and other entrepreneurs who got together to give the call, “Enough is enough!”

It woke up Bal Thackeray and the harassment of Muslims stopped almost overnight. People were apprehensive when the Shiv Sena came to power a few years later with many Sena leaders once again speaking of the economic boycott of Muslims.

But by then every one, at least in Mumbai, knew how economies are interlinked and even during the Devendra Fadnavis years when the beef ban was initiated from Maharashtra, there was no incident. Because in this specific case, Muslims only had to suffer the lack of a culinary item on their dining tables, but it was Hindu farmers who needed to get rid of their uneconomic cattle who paid the heavier price of fingering Muslims and depriving them of one item of food. Not selling those cattle for slaughter virtually ruined them in those years.

So those bigots who wish to target Cipla, Wipro, Himalaya, Hamdard and other companies run by Muslims should understand that a majority of their products are consumed by Hindus. I presume a majority of their employees are also Hindus and shutting down these companies will not only deprive Hindus of many trusted products and life-saving drugs but have a chain effect in pushing their own people towards deprivation and starvation.

And what about halal? Here is an incident over which I simply cannot stop laughing. I was with a friend at a beauty salon owned by a leading non-Muslim entrepreneur in the country. She asked for their best hair stylist and got a very efficient-looking Muslim. Asking for easy solutions to stop hair fall, he recommended almond oil.

“There are many good brands in the market,” he said.

When asked for specifics, “You can use Hamdard's Rogan Badam Shirin for best effect,” he said.

“Is there no other brand?” she asked.

Sensing her discomfort, he asked “You might be comfortable with Patanjali? They also have almond oil.”

Then he added innocently, “They are also halal. Their oil will also give you similar results.”

My friend was huffing and puffing at the hair dresser’s so-called deliberate promotion of a Muslim company's product and his attempt to paint Patanjali with the same brush of halal.

But when she finally bought the product what was it called? Patanjali’s Rogan Badam Shirin! And the package had a clear halal stamp on it!

Now why should Patanjali seek a halal certificate for its products? While I do not know the definitive answer to that question, I guess it is related to interlinked economies -- without that certificate, the Muslim hair dresser might not have recommended it. Without that recommendation my Hindu friend would not have known it existed and Patanjali would have lost at least one sale of the same. And the cascading effect of the onward recommendations...

So what is this whole controversy over halal? Frankly, I do not understand it except in terms of how they slaughter animals. But if bigots think halal is cruelty to animals, then they don’t know about this leading poultry company which strings its chickens upside down in a dark room simulating night until the birds doze off. Then they decapitate the fowls.

When I asked the poultry owner why they should do this, he said “Well, during daytime when the birds realise we are coming to slaughter them, they stiffen up and hence the meat is not as soft as when they are asleep and don't know anything. Ours is the tenderest chicken in the market.”

Now is that halal or haram? And I know many bigots who love that chicken brand. And, no, this poultry owner is not Muslim.

So, I would rather not bar an air-conditioning mechanic from fixing my machine for merely being Muslim for the company that employs him might be pure Hindu like Patanjali. And I would rather buy cheap, generic life-saving drugs and cosmetics from Muslim-owned companies than pay through my nose for the same products just to prove a point. I do not cut off my nose to spite my face.

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