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Pursuits: The whole beef issue sums up the contradictions of modern India

Few countries have as complex a relationship with beef as India.

Officially, cow slaughter is banned everywhere in India except for two states – West Bengal and Kerala. This means that there should be very little Indian beef; if you can't kill a cow, you can't get beef.

 

And yet, believe it or not, India is one of the largest exporters of beef in the world. They prize Indian beef in such countries as Indonesia and especially Bangladesh.

 

   Funny, isn't it?

 

   The injunction against cow slaughter comes from Hinduism. As you probably know well, Hindus worship the cow. And there are good reasons for this. The practice dates back to the era where India was a largely agrarian society and the cow not only helped till the fields but was only a source of milk and the products that came from milk, chiefly ghee (used in cooking) and yoghurt (a vital part of Indian diets and rituals)

 

   There is a view – controversial and certain to provoke rage in some quarters -- that Vedic Aryans ate beef. Some historians go further and say that because the cow was so highly prized, only Brahmins (the very highest caste) were allowed to eat beef. But though there is a body of scholarship on the subject, historians who take this view tend to get shouted down and most have found less controversial areas of research.

 

   Regardless of when the injunction against beef-eating became part of the Hindu tradition, there is no doubt that for many centuries Hindus have worshipped and revered the cow. She is treated as a motherly figure (gau-mata) and not only can you never slaughter a cow, most Hindus will hesitate to even push one around: which is why cows have right of way on India's roads.

 

   The interesting thing about the Hindu injunction against beef eating is that it is really the opposite of most anti-meat traditions in other religions. For instance, Muslim will not eat pork not because the pig is sacred but because it is regarded as being dirty. Jews will not eat shellfish for the same sort of reason. For Hindus, however, there are no injunctions about 'dirty' animals. Non-vegetarian Hindus are not taught to regard any animal as unclean. The refusal to eat beef stems from veneration of the cow.

 

   The ban on cow slaughter is a little more controversial. Yes, Hindus do not eat beef but India is a secular country. So should India's religious minorities (Christians, Muslims, Parsis, etc.) be subject to restrictions based on Hindu beliefs? Of India's non-Hindu communities, Sikh don't eat beef and Jains are totally vegetarian. But Buddhists have no problems with beef and Tibetan Buddhists (who are infuriated by the Hindu tradition of seeing their religion as a branch of Hinduism and the Buddha as just another avatar of Vishnu) enjoy beef as part of their cuisine.

 

 "At most restaurants in India they use the meaningless term 'tenderloin' to describe buffalo meat. So if you are served a hamburger in India, the chances are that it is buffalo."

   The Indian solution has been to treat cow slaughter as a state subject and despite periodic agitations by sadhus, the issue has ceased to have much significance. There is no real movement to ban beef in Bengal and in Kerala most neighbourhood restaurants will have no difficulty in offering a Beef Fry on the menu. (The dish has its roots in the cuisine of the state's Christians).

 

   But with just two states permitting cow slaughter how did India get to be one of the world's largest beef-exporter? Well, partly it is because of the West Bengal-Bangladesh border. India exports a lot of beef entirely legally to Bangladesh because West Bengal permits cow slaughter. Often it is not beef but cows (as livestock) themselves who are transported (on foot and hoof) across the international border. It has long been joked in Indian diplomatic circles that the easiest way to bring down a government in Bangladesh is not through war but simply by banning the transportation of cattle and the export of beef in the weeks leading up to Eid.

 

   A lot of the Indian beef that goes to Bangladesh ends up being re-exported from there to Malaysia, Indonesia and increasingly to China where beef consumption is growing. So that's one reason why Indian beef can be found throughout Asia.

 

   But there is also a scam. While the cow is sacred, the water buffalo is just another animal as far as Hindus are concerned. So there are no injunctions about slaughtering buffaloes. For decades, restaurants in India have passed off buffalo meat as beef. The problem is that the buffalo is not as versatile an animal as the cow, which yields juicy meat from every part of its body. So the only part of the buffalo that can be easily substituted for beef is the under-cut. But that's usually enough.

 

   At most restaurants in India they use the meaningless term 'tenderloin' to describe buffalo meat. So if you are served a hamburger in India, the chances are that it is buffalo. Likewise with carpaccio and most Chinese dishes. In Nepal, where the same Hindu injunctions apply, they even have their own term for it. Many restaurants in Kathmandu will offer you "buff-steak". This is not a misprint. It means the steak is made with buffalo meat.

 

   But now the confusion between beef and buff has gone the other way. According to many meat merchants I have spoken to abroad, Indian exporters mark real beef as buffalo to get it past Indian regulators. Once it reaches its final destination it is re-packaged and sold as beef. One Australian beef merchant told me that his country's exporters were facing a real problem in exporting to South East Asia because Indian beef was cheaper and frequently better than the Australian equivalent.

 

   In a way, the whole beef issue seems to me to sum up the contradictions of modern India. Isn't it odd that India should be one of the largest exporters of a product that is unavailable legally in much of India?

 

   Welcome to India, land of paradoxes!

 

 

CommentsComments

  • zac 21 Apr 2015

    By the way, in Kerala about 80% of the population consumes beef. There are no religious or caste boundaries here when it comes to beef. Hindus, Christians and Muslims all have a share of it.

  • Aaanya 22 Jul 2014

    You clearly don't know enough. Go to Brahmin households in northern India, the chicken is considered dirty as it cannot fly and is restricted to eating off the ground. As opposed to game hen that can fly.

  • Ani 21 Jul 2014

    While on an archaeological dig of a Harappan era Ahar site in Gilund, Rajasthan, our team came across bones of cattle that had been clearly chewed by human teeth. Of course, that information was relegated to the back pages of our reports. : )

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