00:00 Namaskar, welcome to another episode of Editorial.
00:05 I have got a very interesting topic for you and my topic is, Uttar Pradesh government
00:13 has banned Halal certified food.
00:17 Uttar Pradesh government banned the sale of Halal certified products with immediate effect
00:23 and also probation on the manufacturer and distributor of Halal food in the state.
00:30 Uttar Pradesh has banned the sale.
00:34 Let's talk about it.
00:35 Let's get right into the show.
00:39 So let's first start with the concept of Halal.
00:42 What is Halal?
00:43 Halal is, in Arabic, Halal means permissible.
00:47 Simple terms.
00:48 Halal means permissible.
00:49 Number one.
00:50 Number two is Halal food actually means or Halal certified means that you see there is
00:55 a certain way that Muslims slaughter the animals and there are certain animals that Muslims
01:01 eat.
01:02 There are certain animals they can eat.
01:03 There are certain animals they can't.
01:05 So a permissible animal slaughtered in a permissible way is what you call as Halal.
01:12 So that's what the definition of Halal is.
01:15 Now you have companies that gives you Halal certification.
01:19 So you go to a large chain of fast food joints, certain fast food joints, certain pizza joints
01:25 and certain products in your supermarket, in your local supermarket, you will have the
01:29 certification says Halal certified.
01:33 It is Halal food.
01:34 It will be certified.
01:36 This is the status.
01:37 Now, Uttar Pradesh government recently banned.
01:40 They banned it statewide saying that no, we will not sell, allow anybody to sell Halal
01:46 product.
01:47 Why did they ban?
01:48 They banned this for three reasons, predominantly.
01:53 Reason number one, they said, koon hota tum Halal certificate dene ko?
01:56 Who are you to give Halal certificate?
01:58 If there is a body that is giving Halal certification, who is that body?
02:02 Who gave you the permission?
02:03 Who gave you the authority?
02:05 Under whose authority are you selling Halal food?
02:09 That's number one.
02:10 Number two, they say that, listen, why are you giving Halal certification to things like
02:14 soap and oil and things of that sort?
02:18 And vegetarian food and all.
02:19 Why are you giving Halal certification to that?
02:21 If you are giving Halal certification to that, that means you are trying to attract a particular
02:24 community, which means you are taking advantage over other products to attract that particular
02:30 community so that community will not pick up the other product, but pick up yours.
02:34 So that's unfair practice in the trade, isn't it?
02:37 So they are saying that therefore that they are not allowing.
02:39 And third is they're saying that, baba, listen, you know what, if when you are giving, you
02:43 are going to these people who are giving you certification, you are giving them money,
02:47 obviously for certification.
02:49 What money are they, how are they putting their money to use?
02:52 How do we know they are putting their money to use for the right reasons?
02:55 A, they are unauthorized.
02:56 B, what are they doing with the money?
02:58 So these are the three problems that Uttar Pradesh government raised.
03:01 So they said, what, you know, the answer to which is ban.
03:04 Ban Halal food in totality.
03:06 Thik hai na?
03:08 Thik hai.
03:09 Let's keep that aside.
03:10 Now let's look at India perspective.
03:12 Let's look at Indian government perspective.
03:15 Does Indian government allow or disallow or authorize, not authorize Halal food?
03:21 The Indian government has nothing to say about it.
03:24 The Indian government doesn't tell you eat Halal food.
03:27 The Indian government doesn't tell you don't eat Halal food.
03:29 The Indian government doesn't tell you, baba, you can put Halal on your pack.
03:33 The Indian government doesn't tell you, you can't put Halal on your pack.
03:36 Indian government says nothing about it.
03:38 It is up to the, it is up to the manufacturer, the seller, the marketer and the consumer.
03:43 Indian government doesn't interfere in it till now.
03:47 So now the situation is Uttar Pradesh says nahi bhejnega.
03:54 The first question, answering the first question, who has authorized these people to give Halal
04:01 certification?
04:02 Chalo, a valid question.
04:05 Who has authorized these people to give Halal certification?
04:08 Our finance minister, Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, she said that food certification should be
04:15 done only by government agencies and not by non-governmental organizations.
04:22 She says, baba, it should be done by Food Safety and Standard Authority, FSSAI.
04:28 That is the one that will certify whether the food is edible, food is good, food is
04:33 of good quality or not.
04:34 There should be no other organization.
04:36 This is what she said while she was specifically answering this Uttar Pradesh ban story.
04:41 Okay, so that's one end of the story.
04:43 Theke isko side mein rakhte hai.
04:44 Now if you go to Google and search for government approved Halal authorities, government approved
04:53 Halal authorities, if you search in the Google, there is a name called Jamayate Ulema-e-Hind
04:59 Halal Trust in Delhi that comes up, that website comes up and they claim that they are government
05:06 approved Halal certification body.
05:09 So that's point number two.
05:11 Point number three is, the Uttar Pradesh government says that they have registered cases in Lucknow
05:15 against some entities for allegedly exploiting religious sentiments to boost sales by providing
05:21 Halal certificates to customers of a specific religion.
05:25 According to Uttar Pradesh government, these entities include as the Halal India Private
05:30 Limited Chennai, the same Jamayate Ulema-e-Hind Halal Trust Delhi, Halal Council of India
05:38 Mumbai and Jamayate Ulema Maharashtra among others.
05:43 So at one end, this trust says that we are authorized, on the other end, this trust,
05:48 the government says that they are not.
05:50 So one wonders what is right, what is wrong.
05:53 Let us talk about by using the word Halal, is it being unfair?
06:00 Are you playing with the sentiments of a particular religion or are you being unfair in your
06:07 trade practices or in your marketing trade practices?
06:10 Are you being unfair by putting the word Halal?
06:13 What does the government say?
06:14 The government says by, listen, if you put the word Halal in your brand, then possibly
06:18 a particular group of religion, religious belief will only come to your product and
06:22 buy your product because your product there is Halal written and they will not touch the
06:26 other products because there is no Halal written there.
06:28 Therefore, you get undue advantage of using that word Halal.
06:33 And why should you get that undue advantage in a soap, in perfume or in oil and all that?
06:38 Why should you get that undue advantage?
06:39 So that you are targeting it to one particular community.
06:42 Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.
06:45 I am asking two questions.
06:48 You can take political advantage by using one community.
06:52 That's fair.
06:53 That's okay.
06:54 That's fine.
06:56 You can take political advantage.
06:57 But if you are putting Halal in a brand, which I don't necessarily think will give them a
07:02 huge brand advantage in an open market place because a brand is always bigger, you are
07:08 saying that they are taking undue advantage.
07:11 How fair is this debate?
07:12 The person who makes your law, he can play community, community.
07:17 But a soap cannot do, a soap cannot write Halal.
07:21 How fair is that?
07:23 Please think and let me know.
07:24 Please think and let me know.
07:26 Write down in the comment box below.
07:28 And as a marketer, let me tell you, again I repeat myself, I don't think by just putting
07:33 the word Halal, that brand will get huge market share and all that.
07:37 I don't think it is going to happen.
07:39 I don't think it is going to happen.
07:40 It is not going to have that kind of impact and all of that.
07:43 Especially you have a soap and you put Halal there.
07:45 I don't think it is going to have much impact on the sales of that product.
07:49 They may get a little market advantage.
07:50 I am not disputing that.
07:52 But that same market advantage, Godrej once tried when they launched a soap called Ganga.
07:57 They launched a soap called Ganga.
07:58 So Godrej tried that.
08:00 So wasn't that unfair then?
08:03 So how can that not be unfair and this be unfair?
08:05 So that's my point number two.
08:07 Now my point number three.
08:08 I will tell you one, one interesting factor before I close my day.
08:13 Ok, you know what is the biggest, one of the biggest exporters of meat and even sellers
08:17 of meat in India?
08:18 It is a company called Al-Kabir and I am sure a lot of you all must have heard about this
08:23 company Al-Kabir.
08:24 You know this Al-Kabir, you know who owns Al-Kabir?
08:27 Al-Kabir is owned by a gentleman called Satish Sabarwal, Hindu.
08:33 Al-Kabir owner Satish Sabarwal.
08:36 You know there is another company called Arabian Exports.
08:40 You know who owns Arabian Exports?
08:41 No, huge company, huge exporter, meat exporters.
08:44 You know who owns Arabian Exports?
08:46 Arabian Exports is owned by Viranath Nagat Kudumle, Vikas Maruti Shinde and Ashok Narang.
08:52 They are not Muslims.
08:55 They are from Maharashtra.
08:56 They are Maharashtrans.
08:57 Arabian Exports.
08:58 Ok, MKR Exports.
08:59 You know who owns MKR Exports?
09:02 Again huge meat exporters.
09:05 Sunny Abbot owns MKR Exports.
09:08 Not a Muslim.
09:09 Al-Noor Exports owned by A.S.Sood.
09:11 AOV Exports owned by Abhishek Arora.
09:14 All of these are top meat exporting companies.
09:18 Not a single one to the best of my knowledge that I have seen till so far, Standard Frozen
09:23 Foods Export owned by Kamal Verma.
09:26 Phoney Products Exports owned by S. Satish Kumar.
09:31 None of these companies are owned by a Muslim.
09:34 So these companies too get Halal certification when they have to export.
09:40 And these companies too go to the same certification companies to get their Halal export.
09:45 Now if they don't go to the same certification company and don't get that Halal certification,
09:50 they will not be able to export.
09:52 So is the government going to ask them to stop exporting till such time that they finalize
09:56 on this or ban Halal certification for them also?
10:00 Because what is good for the geese should be good for the gander.
10:03 So you are banning in India, you are banning in Uttar Pradesh, you should ban exports also.
10:06 Then you should say certification should not be allowed anywhere.
10:10 Is that fair?
10:11 This is the point I want to make.
10:12 The conclusion to what I want to say is as follows.
10:17 You see, if it doesn't harm the larger interest of our country, if it doesn't harm the larger
10:28 interest of our market, if it doesn't harm the larger interest of our economy, you see,
10:34 putting hindrances, putting laws, creating laws, creating hindrances for somebody to
10:42 practice their religion, it's not fair.
10:46 And it achieves no good.
10:49 That's the point I wanted to make through this editorial.
10:51 Till I see you next time, that's tomorrow at 10.
10:54 Namaskar.
10:54 Namaskar.
10:56 Namaskar.
10:57 Namaskar.
10:58 Namaskar.
11:00 Namaskar.
11:01 Namaskar.
11:03 Namaskar.
11:04 Namaskar.
11:05 Namaskar.
11:07 Namaskar.
11:08 (dramatic music)
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