J&K's Beef With Beef: Why Kashmiris Love Mutton But Hate Beef Bans

Kashmiris have a beef with beef. A land of voracious meat-eaters, the choice of meat in Kashmir is mutton, not beef. In fact, there is an aversion toward beef, especially in Srinagar city and many look down upon those who eat beef. Nevertheless, the consumption of beef has always been a source of controversy in Kashmir, despite its small percentage of consumers. The matter usually becomes an issue after governments try to impose beef bans in the erstwhile state of J&K and residents try to defy it by calling it an interference of the government into their eating habits. 

A major political controversy around beef took place inside Jammu and Kashmir Assembly some eight years ago. In October 2015, minutes ahead of proceedings in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, BJP legislators heckled an independent MLA Engineer Rashid, who was on his seat, abused and thrashed him for organizing an alleged 'beef party'.

Omar Abdullah, the leader of the opposition at that time, described the assault on Rashid as “Dadri style” , adding that had the opposition not intervened, the BJP members would have killed Rashid. “We respect everyone’s sentiment. We don’t want to hurt your sentiments. But we too have sentiments. It shouldn’t happen that while caring about your sentiments, our sentiments are forgotten,” Abdullah had said giving an example of liquor. He said the liquor was prohibited in his religion but it doesn’t mean he would start beating in the Assembly any person who drinks. “Pork is prohibited in Islam does that mean I should thrash everybody in the Assembly who eats pork,” Abdullah said.  The BJP members were furious that Rashid had thrown a beef party on the lawns of circuit house Srinagar while Rashid’s associates would say he had thrown a mutton party. 

Incidentally, the law banning the slaughter of bovines in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was repealed after the abrogation of Article 370 and enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Re-Organisation Act 2019.

The beef ban law in the erstwhile state was a part of the Ranbir Penal Code enacted by Dogra ruler Maharaja Ranbir Singh in 1862. It is said, “he slit a woman’s tongue for beating a cow, which had torn some clothes she had hung out to dry.” In her book Hindu Rulers Muslim Subjects, historian Mridu Rai says Maharaja Gulab Singh, for all the inclemency with which he punished open violations of the injunctions against cow slaughter, stopped short of a blanket award of death sentence, limiting punishment instead to life imprisonment. Ranbir Singh, unhappy with this ‘liberality’, took his own measures to ensure that imprisonment would translate, in effect, into the death penalty. 

Ranbir Singh enacted the RPC with this provision, putting a blanket ban on beef in the entire state. Even after the end of Dogra rule, state governments under various Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers of Kashmir continued with the Maharaja era law banning beef.

In 2015, the Jammu and Kashmir high court disposed of a petition on the matter, saying that the court cannot direct the state to frame a particular law or enact a law in a particular manner and thus continued the ban. The J&K high court ordered strict implementation of the beef ban law in the state, which triggered protests within and outside the assembly and MLA Rashid came up with a bill seeking no bar on beef in J&K.

At that time Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Personal Law Board passed a resolution denouncing the ban as interference in Muslims' religious matters.

However, after the RPC was consigned to the annals of history on August 5, 2019, with the abrogation of Article 370 and the IPC replacing RPC, Jammu and Kashmir have no such ban on beef. 

Much before Maharaja, Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din Zain-ul-Abidin had banned cow slaughter in the state in deference to the religious sentiment of his Hindu subjects.  According to Jonaraja, a Kashmiri Pandit historian of the era, Budshah, the great monarch stopped the killing of cows and restricted the eating of beef. Budshah ruled for fifty years from 1420-70 and his period is known for religious tolerance and social harmony. 

Earlier in 1985, Islamic scholar Dr Qazi Nisar sacrificed animals after the then Governor Jagmohan re-imposed a ban on beef though it was already in vogue. And with it, Qazi Nisar became one of the leaders of the mass uprising later in 1989.

In October 2015, protests erupted in south Kashmir after a trucker Zahid Rasool Bhat, who was burnt at Udhampur in Jammu, succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Delhi. On October 9, 2015, evening, Zahid suffered burn injuries after his truck carrying coal was attacked with a petrol bomb in Udhampur in Jammu after rumours of cow slaughter in the area. The attackers had first lobbed petrol bomb at the vehicle and when driver Showkat and his conductor Zahid jumped out of the truck to save themselves, the mob went after them, first beating them with lathis and later burning them after sprinkling petrol. Both sustained serious burn injuries and were moved to the capital, where Zahid succumbed to his injuries at Safdergunj hospital. The truck had taken apple to Delhi and was returning carrying coal.  Police investigation in the case later revealed a cow had died because of food poisoning and rumour of cow slaughter was spread in the area to create communal tension.

At present mutton sellers want to increase the price of mutton and customers fear they shouldn’t close their shops like last year to press for the demand. The government last year fixed the prices at Rs 535 per kg without offal and Rs 490 with offal.  But meat sellers and shop owners are not satisfied with the rates and many are selling the meat at Rs 600 per kg. Around 22 lakh sheep are slaughtered in Kashmir annually, the bulk of which -15.5 lakh- come from outside.