The central workplace of the butchers in Delhi was the Idgah abattoir locally known as the ‘Kamela’ or ‘mandi’ (market) because the livestock market is also located there. It is located on Idgah Road behind Sadar Bazaar police station. Built in 1914, the abattoir covers an area of 7 acres which includes the livestock market, the slaughterhouses and the offices of the MCD which is responsible for maintenance. There are three sections in the slaughterhouses: halal, jhatka and buffalo section. Each section is again divided into ante mortem and slaughter. The veterinary doctor checks the animal before it is sent to the slaughtering sections and charges a nominal tax for each animal slaughtered. The abattoir works from 5.00 am to 12 noon everyday except Tuesdays since it is auspicious for Hindus and observed as a meatless day by most. Apart from regular government holidays, the abattoir is closed for three days during the bi-annual Hindu Navaratra festival since 1994. The abattoir was closed following a Supreme Court order of October 2009 and remains closed till date.
The trajectory
In the traditional system, the journey from the farmer to the meat shop involved at least fourteen people or more. The trajectory included the following people:
1. The farmer who rears the animals in Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh;
2. The trader who sources the animal;
3. The transporter who brings the animal to Delhi;
4. A helper who takes care of the animal while in transit;
5. The supplier in Delhi;
6. The commission agent (aarhti) at the abattoir who sells it to the kaantewala;
7. The helper called gwala who takes care of the animals in lairage;
8. Chowkidar at the abattoir;
9. The maasha-khor who buys the animal from the commission agent on cash, slaughters it and/or sells it to the shopkeepers. This is an optional category and sometimes the shopkeepers procure the animal from the commission agent;
10. The Kameldar and sallaakh who slaughter and remove the hide;
11. The transporter or hand cart puller who transports the meat and its by-products
to different destinations;.
12. The shopkeeper generally the owner of the shop;
13. Skilled employed worker in the shop who carves the meat when sold.
14. Unskilled worker in the shop to help in cleaning and running errands
Most transactions are based on credit and word of mouth. So the commission agent sells the animal to the shopkeeper on credit and pays off the money when he recovers money from the shopkeeper. He goes on collection duty to the different meat shops or they meet over tea or lassi in the evenings. Most of them work within the same network of people.
In this trajectory, the first two categories – the farmer and trader – are mainly non-Muslims; the next three categories, that is, the transporter, supplier and the helper are from both communities. The commission agent belongs to the Quresh biradree. The gwala and chowkidar are again from various communities but mostly poor Muslims from neighbouring areas. Categories 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 are exclusively skilled people from the biradree. The chain shows that the trade involves Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Dalit Christians and Dalit Hindus apart from the Qureshi Muslims who constitute the main bulk in this trajectory. Within the Qureshis, it is the commission agent who interacts at all or most levels, thus maintaining the inclusiveness of the Qureshis. There are also people indirectly involved in this line of work. Women from the Khateek samaaj come to the abattoir to buy heads, hooves and entrails to sell them in areas like Madangir where there are pockets of dalits. It gives them a high protein diet at cheap rates. Apart from the trajectory of the animal to the meat shop or restaurant, there are also other areas like the lucrative export market and by-products. Horns, skin, offal, bones, intestine, blood, fat are sold and supplied at different stages to neighbouring areas where they are processed initially and then sold to factories. There is a whole line of production in each direction and involves people who indirectly depend on the meat industry.
from “Taleem, Tanzeem aur Tijaarat:: The Changing Role of the AIJQ” in
Vinod Jairath, ed. Frontiers of
Embedded Muslim Communities in India
(New Delhi: Routledge, 2011) pp 158-173
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