HALAL PRODUCTS CERTIFICATION SHOULD BE HARAM IN SECULAR

Halal means – ‘permitted’ and Haram means ‘prohibited.’ It is a dietary religious directive to guide Muslims to know Halal Meat and non-Halal or Haram Meat so that they will be following the tenets of Quran in letter and spirit to be Devout Muslims.

Halal Products Certifications which are prevalent in many countries worldwide including Secular India are indicative of religion in such packaged packets. This practice is against the secular supply market, as Meat or Food or any item should not have a religious label in its packet.

Such certifications are to be condemned as Halalonomics.

Halalonomics means that they are Economics Jihad– to gain supremacy in Supply/ Demand and Production Markets by Muslims over other religious communities – especially Hindus in India.

Jihad which has been sanctified and approved by Holy Quran is simply a violent movement to impose Islamic Faith on non-Muslims to convert them to Islam by fair or foul means and Halal Certification falls within its ambit. 

Islam in its holy scriptures declares: “Use whatever causes blood to flow, and eat the animals, if the Name of Allah has been mentioned on slaughtering them.”

Halal food is that which adheres to Islamic law, as defined in the Koran. The Islamic form of slaughtering animals or poultry, dhabiha, involves killing through a cut to the jugular vein, carotid artery and windpipe.  

Animals must be alive and healthy at the time of slaughter and all blood is drained from the carcass and most importantly, animals must be slaughtered in the name of Allah and by faithful Muslims by uttering Bismillah which means “In the name of God” and it is the opening phrase in the Quran and repeated at the beginning of each chapter.

By any standard, such slaughters are the most cruelest form of killing , as  animals are allowed to suffer with bleeding from the cuts inflicted by Muslim butchers before their last breaths, but, World Forum – Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are deaf, dumb and blind to such horrible slaughters purely fearing Muslims violent protests, if they take up the case to the World Forums.

According to the Holy Quran, except Haram foods (pork meat, wine, carrion meat, blood, and meat of animals not slaughtered properly in the Islamic manner), all foods are tayyeb (lawful). Hence it is an indirect imposition of Islamic Dietary System on other religious communities by capturing supply markets worldwide. 

For Halal Meat, there are many WET MARKETS where live animals are sold and slaughtered in the presence of Muslims customers. Some Scientists believe the Corona virus may have first jumped from animals to humans in a Wuhan Wet Market. There are many wet markets in USA, UK – not to speak of Arab Countries.  There are Wet Markets for poultry, sheep and goats. Even in India such Wet Markets are not taboo and there are many patrons for such Halal Slaughters – no teeth in Secular India Statues to stop such cruelties in the name of religious practices – that will make Buddha to shed tears of blood, as His Ahimsa in the land of his birth is being breached in spite of proclamation of Secularism.

Even Vegetarian Cuisine, Tourism, Pharmacies, Real Estates, Hotels are also being certified as Halal much to the embarrassment to other religious communities. Hence Halal Certification is to patronize Muslim Communities in their commercial trades and such Halal Markets are for Muslims, by Muslims and of Muslims.

Even in USA Halal Market – Even Wet Market and its certifications are legal and are legitimate trade practices. Their Tolerance to Muslims Religious Practices make USA Secularism weak and diluted – the main reasons are their utter inability to implement to ban Halal Market and its certification – though they boast themselves as the citadel of Secularism.

Also, in India, Secularism becomes Psedo-Minority-Secularism due to appeasement politics.

Preamble of Indian Constitution had got amended to insert the most glorified word – Secular - through 42nd Amendment in 1976 by Indra Gandhi during her most infamous and detestable Emergency Rule. 

This insertion of word and amendment to the preamble of our Constitution instead of treating all religions as equal partners in politics, it has given a minority status to our Muslims brethren whereby their religious practices were untouched with protections to follow their own personal law.

On the other hand, the Hindu Laws – Personal Laws, Marriage Laws, and Inheritance Laws etc. were amended in tune with the secular fabrics as enshrined in our Constitution. Thus, secularism had not dared to reform any of the Muslim Laws and only very recently, with much difficulties, Triple Talaq system was made illegal and punishable under law.

Hence Secularism as prevalent and practiced in India is not ‘Enlightened Secularism’ with its core principle of separation of religion as essentially a private concern which States had no legitimate business.

Hence instead of an ‘Enlightened Secularism’, India in practice got Fractured and Darkened Secularism called ‘Enslaved Islamic Secularism’.

But, in our neighboring country Sri Lanka, Halal labeling system for food was stopped after protests from Buddhist groups. 

The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), Sri Lanka's main body of Islamic clergy, said the halal certificate issued by them would be used only for products that are exported to Islamic countries and further explained:"We are giving up what is important to us. We are making a sacrifice in the interest of peace and harmony and we are keen to avoid any escalation of religious tensions.”

Though Islamic Food Manufacturers in Sri Lanka initially argued it is impractical and uneconomical to have two manufacturing processes for the same product, they had at last given up Halal Certifications for Sri Lankan Markets. Sri Lanka is 70 per cent Buddhist, while Muslims comprise less than 10 percent of the population of 20 million.

Such a course to happen in India and elsewhere, Fabric of Secularism should be made meaningful, powerful and justifiable devoid of any religious bias.

By all yard-sticks of rules as well as common-sense, food could be vegetarian, non-vegetarian, vegan, egg-based etc. and all these labels are based on what goes into the ingredients and to make it easier for quick identification, labels like a green dot or red dot must have evolved. Add-on adjectives like “Hot”,  “Spicy” or “Mild”,“Organic”, “Pesticide-free”, ‘Cruelty-free” make sense as they denote certain attributes of the item inside. Over a period of time, many other labels have also found a place on packages, which are either linked to the country’s rules like FSSAI/USFDA or to processes followed during packaging like ISO/CMM etc. But we need to understand that all these labels are either linked to the ingredients or to the process followed during manufacturing/processing etc.

But the Halal label on the item immediately accords religious flavour as it directly conveys that the said item is good for consumption by people of a certain religion.

The world is already in conflict because of religion and all leading product companies should thwart or resist any effort by consumers to push religion into products.  All manufacturers should put on their thinking hats and with collective consensus should evolve uniform best practices with the underlying intent to ensure that “Food has no religion”.  At least in the secular countries of the world, food should also be secular.

If the above looks difficult or challenging then the second-best option is to start labelling items for all kind of varied religions of the world till the time world has just one religion!  

In that situation nobody would mind, Halal type labels, provided there are contemporary labels also like “Dharmic”, “Satvic”, “Rajsic”, “Tamsic” 

or may be easy  to comprehend types  like  ”Good for Hindus”, “Good for Sikhs”, “Good for Jains”, “Good for Buddhists”,  “Good for Christians”, “Good for Jews” etc etc.

The onus is on the industry at large whether they want food to have religion or food to remain secular!

Most definitely, boycotting Halal products is not unethical. On the contrary, it is the moral duty of every concerned citizen to raise their voice against discrimination in all its forms.

Therefore, if business establishments can make such proud declarations of denying employment to non-Muslims without any fear of legal consequence and with the express consent of the Constitution, then why should any action be taken against a non-Muslim for declaring that no Muslim was hired in a particular business establishment? If Halal certification is legal, then business establishments also have the right to deny Muslims employment on the basis of their religion. If the Muslim community can encourage the employment of Muslims in the meat industry, which the insistence on Halal meat essentially does, then non-Muslims too have the right to encourage business establishments to hire people from their specific religion.

For instance, if a Hindu decides to not accept deliveries from a Muslim delivery person on Zomato or Amazon or any e-commerce service, then it is their right as a customer to do so. If Halal is legal and constitutional, so is this.

Non-Muslims can also act on other fronts as well if they so choose. If they wish to buy groceries and vegetable from only vendors from their own particular religion, then it is their right to do so.

As long as the retaliation against the discriminatory practice of Halal is limited to the economic domain itself, then it is completely justified. Equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution and the principles of equality dictate that every citizen ought to be equal before the law. However, the Police sometimes tend to forget that.

The arrest of the owner of Jain Bakeries in Chennai and the legal action against the Hindu vendor in Jharkhand is testament to that effect.

It is also pertinent to mention that on both these occasions, the Police acted after certain Muslims took offence on social media. The Muslim community must realise that they cannot eat their cake and have it too.

If they discriminate actively against non-Muslims on the economic front, then the other side also reserves the right to retaliate in equal measure. It’s not Islamophobia, it is the law of nature itself. The Muslim community must also realise that non-Muslims are not obliged to subsidise their religious beliefs. And they must stop expecting the same.

Halal India is a certifying agency in India which declares that halal certification will be as per shariah (law) – muslim law. Halal India’s captured markets are Food and Beverages – 38%, Pharmaceutical – 23%, Bakery Products – 13%, Primary Meat – 11%, Cosmetic & Personal Care – 9%, Nutraceutical - 6%.

Muslims Buyers base is estimated to be 1.9 billion spread over 112 countries. Global Market revenue of Just Halal food alone is projected to rise to 2043 billion dollars by 2027 and hence it will not be possible to ban Halal Market globally and hence it should be tried locally in countries where Hindus, Buddhists, Jains are prominent citizens.

To protest the arrests of a Chennai Based Jain Bakery who advertised that his products were manufactured by Jains only and no Muslims,  some  shops along the roads of Vijayanagar in the Bangalore city owned by the Hindus hoisted Saffron Flags with OM in front of their shops or indicating as ‘Hindu Shop’. But, the Police took objections to such displays. Police actions were discriminatory and against fair play and condemnable in view of the fact that Halal Labels on Meat products are being considered constitutional and legal.

 Such flags atop the shops of Hindus selling vegetables and other items cannot be labeled as inciting communal outbreaks. If halal certifications are permissible, then such flags indicating to the consumers that the shops are owned by the Hindus, should be equally permissible and constitutionally legal on the same ground. Yardstick of Secularism should be common both for Muslims and Hindus.

Following the arrest of the owner of Jain Bakeries in Chennai over an alleged advertisement that declared that no Muslims were hired at the bakery, demands have been growing on social media to boycott halal products.

If Ceylon due to Buddhism can ban Halal, India where Lord Buddha was born, renounced and preached his Ahimsa, can also make a beginning to ban at least Halal Slaughter – Bharath being the land of Dharma and Protector of All Creatures.