After the row over the “legacy issues” of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore and the recent hijab controversy, halal meat is the latest “raging entrant” into Karnataka where several Right-wing groups, including the ruling BJP, equated it with “economic jihad” and launched a strong campaign against halal products ahead of Diwali.
BJP national general secretary CT Ravi on Tuesday asked the community to shun halal meat and buy it from Hindu shops instead. “Halal is an economic jihad. It has been put in place so that Muslims don’t do business with others, which has been forced upon them,” Ravi, the BJP Legislator from Chikmagalur, said in Bengaluru.
“The way they (Muslims) feel that halal has to be imposed, the same way it is not wrong for others (Right-wing groups) to say don’t use it,” he said.
Muslims are mandated to buy only halal meat by their religion and it is the community which mostly runs the meat shops.
The BJP leader said the halal meat offered to “their God” is dear to Muslims, but for Hindus, it is somebody’s leftover.
“Halal has been designed in a planned way so that the products should be purchased only from Muslims and not others,” he alleged, questioning why Hindus should be forced to buy meat from Muslim shops when they refuse to buy meat from Hindus.