Amid Veg-Non-Veg Controversies in Bengal, a Halal-Jhatka Row Simmers to Reiterate Hindutva’s Pragmatism

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rise to power in West Bengal has inevitably made food a site of political contestation as part of its majoritarian agenda. During the state assembly electoral campaign, the party attempted to counter its vegetarian image by betting on fish, but this has, since its victory, been extended to controversies over cow sacrifice and beef, and subsequently to its inevitable push for vegetarianism.

These include attempts to promote vegetarianism among the Bengali populace, ranging from the state government’s decision to hand over mid-day meal responsibilities in Kolkata schools to an ISKCON-affiliated body, though the decision has since been revoked; and the very recent directive by the Vishva Hindu Parishad about the management of non-vegetarian food within Durga Puja premises in the interest of maintaining the ‘purity’ of the festival, suggesting that ‘designated spaces’ be created outside instead.

However, parallel to this vegetarian agenda, there is another campaign taking place at the grassroots, one that has received comparatively little attention: Halal versus Jhatka meat. This effort seeks to go beyond the question of whether Bengali Hindus should consume non-vegetarian food at all, and instead directs the attention towards what kind of non-veg food they should choose. Interestingly, in this case, departing from its monolithic conception of ‘vegetarian Hinduism’, the Hindutva camp is seeking religious legitimation for its Jhatka venture by linking Hindu deities to non-vegetarian practices, rather than keeping them apart.

The Halal-Jhatka formulation of Hindutva is not new, with similar disputes having occurred in other BJP-ruled states. However, Bengal has little familiarity with this distinction, and even the nomenclature is new to many Bengalis. 

As the Hindutva ecosystem seeks to bring its agenda into the Bengal mainstream, this apparent contradiction between its push for vegetarianism and the simultaneous promotion of a distinct method of meat consumption is therefore better understood, rather than viewed in isolation, through the broader lens of Hindutva’s pragmatism. 

Halal vs Jhatka

Let us first understand the difference. In Islamic terminology, Halal broadly refers to what is permissible, including in relation to food. In the context of meat, Halal denotes a method of slaughter in which an animal’s throat, oesophagus and jugular veins are cut using a sharp knife, allowing the blood to drain from the body. Meanwhile, the Jhatka method of slaughter involves killing the animal with a single swift blow causing its immediate death. It is generally associated with Sikhism and Hinduism but is less uniform, particularly within Hindu traditions, where it has often followed other local customs.  

In Bengal, Bali – the traditional ritualistic animal sacrifice in a single stroke – most closely resembles what is now being politically categorised as Jhatka.

In recent years, the Hindu Right has made scattered efforts to promote Jhatka meat as an alternative to Halal. Unable to find a uniform logic within a heterogeneous Hindu society, Hindutva has, as usual, relied on Islamophobic narratives to legitimise the agenda, framing it as a fight against ‘Halalonomics’ – an economic system that they claim works against Hindu interests.

In reality, the contemporary operation of Halal slaughter is largely shaped by broader market forces. Occupational specialisation and market-driven economic rationalisation and efficiency have contributed to making Halal the default in commercial meat supply around the world. Moreover, Halal as a certification goes beyond animal slaughter, and is attached to a range of everyday products, emerging partly as a modern institutional response to globalisation and commercialisation.

For Jhatka propagators in Bengal, however, the normalisation of Halal is portrayed as a product of the region’s secular culture, which they claim has gradually undermined the original cultural practices of Bengali Hindus. In the name of culinary choice, they seek to promote an alternative for meat-eating Bengalis, thereby introducing a communal distinction into an aspect of everyday life.

Political patronage and Jhatka crusaders

Hindutva groups in Bengal have so far promoted Jhatka through subtle means. It is only now, under active political patronage, that the agenda appears to have gained prominence with BJP MLAs committing themselves to its promotion.

Barrackpur MLA Koustav Bagchi, who had urged Hindus to boycott biryani from Muslim-owned shops earlier in January this year, has, after winning the election, called for a boycott of Halal meat, promoting Jhatka meat shops as an employment opportunity for unemployed Hindu youth. MLAs Sudipta Das of Bijpur and Chitta Mukherjee of Jangipur have gone a step further, offering Rs 10,000 in personal financial assistance to those willing to open Jhatka meat shops.

Given this conducive environment, several Hindutva outfits – Hindu Jagran Manch, Dharmachakra, Sanatani Nagarik Manch, Rashtriya Sanatani Sevak Vahini, Hindu Suraksha Samiti, and Sanatan Raksha Parishad, among others – have begun openly campaigning for Jhatka meat through posters, awareness campaigns, approaching local shops to display boards identifying the meat they sell, submitting deputations to government authorities, and felicitating those who open Jhatka shops. For them, the campaign is presented as a necessary step to dismantle ‘Economic Jihad’, allegedly backed by the Halal ecosystem.

In some areas, the campaign has also taken a vigilante turn, with at least three such incidents coming to light recently. The first occurred in late June, when Hindutva activists were seen harassing a Muslim shop owner in Jadavpur and threatening to force him to leave the area if he continued selling Halal meat. The second took place in early August, when local BJP supporters-cum-customers created a ruckus outside a popular restaurant in Krishnanagar over being served Halal meat, compelling it to introduce separate Jhatka and Halal options on its menu overnight. The third came to light in late September, when a Hindutva group was seen harassing a Muslim-run biryani shop in the Ashoknagar area of North 24 Parganas over its sale of biryani made with Halal meat.

The pattern is well known: whether through appeals or intimidation, the Hindu nationalist camp is attempting to make the Jhatka-Halal distinction appear natural – from markets and meat shops to restaurants and everyday consumption.

Reconfiguring the market

The row is not simply religious; it has an underlying economic, or more precisely, commercial logic. Popularising Jhatka meat requires either altering existing market norms or creating an alternative one – efforts that in Bengal have drawn a range of actors, from Hindutva outfits and businesses to non-profit organisations, into the field.

Over the past three months, opening and promoting Jhatka meat shops has become a key agenda for different Hindutva groups, with Hindu Jagran Manch playing a leading role through its various units. Business entities such as Jhatka Bytes have supported the campaign and are simultaneously benefiting from the emerging market.

Founded in 2021 and certified by the Jhatka Certification Authority, Jhatka Bytes sells Jhatka-style mutton both online and offline. Beginning in Kolkata and its surrounding areas, the company has gradually expanded into the districts and gained some popularity, benefiting in part from its close association with the BJP-RSS. Since Bengal’s political shift, however, it has rapidly established physical outlets through a franchise model in several locations. 

Many individual shop owners are similarly following the trend, advertising their outlets as selling Jhatka meat, supposedly ‘distinctive in taste, beneficial to health, and humane in principle.’ The non-profit Antarbodh Foundation, founded in December 2025 and describing its vision as rooted in ‘Sanskrit philosophy’, has, in association with some BJP politicians and Hindu nationalist individuals, initiated a proposed food festival titled ‘Banglar Palanna 2026: A Non-Halal Movement’. 

Scheduled to be held during Durga Puja across 42 assembly constituencies, the festival seeks to popularise a dish called Palanna, which the organisers say is prepared with Jhatka ingredients. Palanna, they claim, is the “original form” of modern-day pulao whose name and recipe changed after the advent of Mughal rule in India. Recovering this heritage dish will supposedly counter “biryani jihad”, premised on claims that Muslim-owned biryani shops act as centres of ‘love jihad’; that Halal certification boards “fund terrorism”, and biryanis from such shops are prepared in “degrading” Islamic ways.

The question is not really about ‘choice’

Jhatka propagators have framed their campaign largely as a matter of consumers’ freedom to choose according to religious belief. There can be little disagreement over an individual’s right to make dietary choices; the question is whether such preferences arise organically or are politically imposed by defining one community’s choices against another. 

It is up for debate to what extent Bengali Hindus check the method of slaughter before purchasing or consuming meat, but there is little indication that this is a predominant practice. Even if attempts are made to invoke past practices or traditions to legitimise the current Jhatka campaign, Bengal’s diverse cultural context should be taken into consideration. The campaign risks deepening social cleavages, while its economic effects are aimed to also hurt minority individuals involved in the meat trade. Such outcomes are not unusual to Hindutva’s process of otherisation. What deserves attention, however, is why these developments are best understood through the lens of Hindutva’s pragmatism.

The Hindu nationalist movement strategically adopts seemingly inconsistent positions, adjusting its claims to context. One example is its promotion of vegetarianism in the Hindi-speaking belt, while accommodating non-vegetarian practices in eastern and northeastern India. This becomes even clearer from the contrasting efforts of its foot soldiers. 

For instance, in Haryana, a Hindutva outfit vandalised a shop named ‘Maa Kali’ for selling non-vegetarian food. In Bengal, too, such groups have at different times opposed non-vegetarian shops near temples and advertisements featuring biryani alongside an image of Maa Durga, invoking Hindu religious sentiments.

Yet, in promoting Jhatka meat, they are, in the same breath, endorsing the very shops bearing the names and imagery of Hindu deities to buy meat from. The selective invocation of Bengali religious figures further illustrates this pragmatism. 

Jhatka proponents have cited Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s preference for eating mutton only from shops having an idol of Goddess Kali. But would the same proponents be equally receptive to the Ramakrishna who, before arriving at his spiritual conclusion that “all religious paths lead to the same goal”, practised Islam and Christianity and, during his Muslim spiritual practice, reportedly claimed to have experienced a state in which he tasted cow flesh after astrally entering the body of a dog? The answer is self-evident.

While Hindutva’s pragmatism continues to benefit its political project, despite containing elements that can potentially counteract it, only time will tell how Bengal responds to this latest directive of the Hindu Right.

Sufal Bepari is a PhD Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India. He can be reached at: dr.sufalbepari@gmail.com

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