Why the anti-Halal movement has to be driven by the people

For the governments, businesses and organisations to take cognisance of the anti-halal campaign, the sporadic outbursts of outrage against Halal need to be consolidated into a sustained and robust people’s movement, uncompromising in its demands and immune to the vicissitudes of time.

The last few days have seen an intense debate over the validity of the imposition of the Islamic practice of halal on unsuspecting non-Muslims. While this debate is not new, like any other Islamist edict, it evoked polarising reactions from both, the proponents as well as the opponents of the said practice. 

Social media websites were rife with posts that called for the popularisation of ‘jhatka’ meat in place of Halal, describing the latter as religiously discriminatory against non-Muslims. Calls for boycott of companies that promote Halal-certified products were made. Pharmaceutical company Himalaya found itself at the centre of a social media storm with the #BoycottHimalayaProducts hashtag trending on the microblogging app Twitter. This came after a social media post went viral with the ‘Halal policy’ of Himalaya.

Before long, apologists of Halal jumped in the fray, passionately defending the practice and proffering misleading and dishonest arguments to undermine legitimate concerns raised by the critics. Instead of discussing the problematic aspects of Halal certification and how it discriminated against non-Muslims, the supporters of Halal came up with meretricious arguments that Himalaya is being specifically targeted because it is a company controlled by Muslims and that are other organisations who adhere to Halal certification.

Still, others contended that organisations, by their nature, are profit-driven and since the Halal food industry is too big to be ignored, they comply with the requirements that are critical for their survival and penetration in markets where Halal certification is sine-qua-non.

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