Halal jaggery in Sabarimala: BJP spokesperson offers Sangh Parivar leaders a lesson on sweetness

(L) Jaggery, (R) A can of aravana prasadam from Sabarimala. Photos: Shutterstock/Sriram_2905, Shutterstock/ AjayTvm

Just when the BJP was trying to amp up the 'Sabarimala halal jaggery' controversy, BJP spokesperson Sandeep G Varier has struck a note of caution. "It would be good if Hindus, Christians and Muslims realise that they could not live in Kerala if they competitively impose economic sanctions on each other," Varier said in a Facebook post.

The Kerala unit of the BJP had used the controversy to escalate the discourse to what it termed "halal terrorism". There was a social media storm against the company that was supplying jaggery to Sabarimala. At a function organised in Thiruvananthapuram to protest the death of a BJP worker in Palakkad, state president K Surendran said: "In many places, terrorists are implementing their agenda in food and clothing. Various institutions in Kerala are being communalised. Halal hotels, halal bakeries and now it has come to such a pass that even Sabarimala has been forced to use halal jaggery."

Sandeep G Varier
Sandeep G Varier

With a clear intention of causing aversion towards Muslim food habits, Surendran had shared on his Facebook a video of a Muslim spiritual leader blessing the food prepared for a big feast somewhere in Kerala. The spiritual head takes two to three spoons of the rice from the large vessel into a plate and, as if the rice is too hot, softly blows over it and drops the rice back into the large vessel. The same 'soft blow' ritual is done with the meat. "Why are progressives so silent when such crude superstitions are taking place in a civilised society like ours," Surendran said in his post. Surendran would later claim that the spiritual head had spat on the food.

Varier's post is a sharp rebuke of such sweeping generalisations that top BJP leaders were resorting to. "A Hindu works in a Muslim's company and a Muslim in a Hindu's. A quick social media post is enough for you to destroy an institution. But when this happens, pushed into hunger and poverty would be people from all religions. The auto rickshaw driver who depends on the customers of this institution or the vegetable and milk vendors who supply to this institution and the agent who reaches the daily newspaper belong to various religions. There would be Ram, Rahim and Joseph among them," Varier said.

He said that we should never lose sight of the fact that we live in a multicultural society. "I who had introduced to the world Abdul Salam's Cafe Makani (Cheruthuruthy, Thrissur) that supplied free food to Indian soldiers can talk only like this," Varier said. "It is reason, and not passion, that should lead us forward," he added.

There was also defiance in Varier's call for sanity. He put up his rebel post right after the BJP state leadership had told him not to air his personal opinions on social media. State president K Surendran himself had warned Varier against stray and contradictory social media posts at a party meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram on November 2.

A can of aravana prasadam from Sabarimala temple. Photo: Shutterstock/ AjayTvm

A Sangh Parivar activist, S J R Kumar, had gone to the High Court saying that the Travancore Devaswom Board was using 'halal'-certified jaggery for preparing 'appam' and 'aravana', the two major offerings of the temple and also its biggest money spinners. The jaggery sacks supplied by a private company, S P Sugar & Agro Private Limited, had halal certification on the outside.

Kumar's contention was that jaggery prepared observing the rules of another religion could not be used in Sabarimala, which had a different set of customs and rituals.

Price of Sabarimala aravana, appam may go up as TDB aims to tide over financial crunch

In turn, the TDB had informed the High Court that the 'halal' certification appeared on the sacks because the company was also exporting jaggery to Gulf countries where such a certification is mandatory. The TDB also told the court that the jaggery supplies were first tested for its quality by the food safety authority before it is used in the manufacture of 'appam' and 'aravana'. The final products, 'appam' and 'aravana', are also subjected to another round of quality testing before they are offered to devotees.

Interestingly, S P Sugar & Agro Private Limited, which supplies jaggery to Sabarimala, are run by Patils and not Muslims. The company's directors are Suresh Sahebrao Patil, Sameer Suresh Patil, Sarita Suresh Patil and Swapnja Suresh Patil.

Halal means 'permissible' and a halal certificate is a stamp of religious purity attached to food products, especially meat, meant for the Muslim community. Islamic rules prescribe that animals and poultry that are converted into meat should be killed in a specific way; they should be killed in one cut and the entire blood should be drained out.

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