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The beef with beef

In most parts of India, cow slaughter is banned; yet, Indian beef is considered one of the best. Examining the paradox

Old Cows’ Tales: Most of the states in India prohibit the slaughter of cows and the sale of beef, but some do issue ‘fit-for-slaughter’ certificates when cows are over 15 years old and/or are permanently unfit for breeding or any agricultural work

Few countries have as complex a relationship with beef as India. Officially, cow slaughter is banned everywhere in India except for two states — West Bengal and Kerala. This means that there should be very little Indian beef; if you can’t kill a cow, you can’t get beef. And yet, believe it or not, India is one of the largest exporters of beef in the world. They prize Indian beef in such countries as Indonesia and 
especially Bangladesh.

Funny, isn’t it?

The injunction against cow slaughter comes from Hinduism. The practice dates back to the era where India was a largely agrarian society and the cow not only helped till the fields but was only a source of milk and the products that came from milk, chiefly ghee (used in cooking) and yoghurt (a vital part of Indian diets and rituals).

The refusal to eat beef stems from veneration of the cow. For many centuries, Hindus have revered the cow. She is treated as a motherly figure (gau-mata) and not only can you never slaughter a cow, most Hindus will hesitate to even push one around: which is why cows have right of way on Indian roads.

The ban on cow slaughter is a little more controversial. Yes, Hindus do not eat beef, but India is a secular country. The Indian solution has been to treat cow slaughter as a state subject and, despite periodic agitations, the issue has ceased to have much significance. There is no real movement to ban beef in Bengal, and in Kerala most neighbourhood restaurants will have no difficulty in offering a Beef Fry on the menu (the dish has its roots in the cuisine of the state’s Christians).

But with just two states permitting cow slaughter, how did India get to be one of the world’s largest beef-exporters? Well, partly it is because of the West Bengal-Bangladesh border. India exp-orts a lot of beef entirely legally to 
Bangladesh because West Bengal permits cow slaughter. Often it is not beef but cows (as livestock) themselves who are transported (on foot and hoof) across the international border. It has long been joked in Indian diplomatic circles that the easiest way to bring down a government in Bangladesh is not through war but simply by banning the transportation of cattle and the export of beef.

A lot of the Indian beef that goes to Bangladesh ends up being re-exported from there to Malaysia, Indonesia and, increasingly, to China where beef consumption is growing. So that’s one reason why Indian beef can be found throughout Asia.

But there is also a scam. While the cow is sacred, the water buffalo is just another animal as far as Hindus are concerned. So there are no injunctions about slaughtering buffaloes.

For decades, restaurants in India have passed off buffalo meat as beef. The problem is that the buffalo is not as versatile an animal as the cow, which yields juicy meat from every part of its body. So the only part of the buffalo that can be easily substituted for beef is the under-cut. But that’s usually enough.

At most restaurants in India, they use the meaningless term ‘tenderloin’ to describe buffalo meat. So it you are served a hamburger in India, the chances are that it is buffalo. Likewise with carpaccio and most Chinese dishes.

In Nepal, where the same Hindu injunctions apply, they even have their own term for it. Many restaurants in Kathmandu will offer you ‘buff-steak’. This is not a misprint. It means the steak is made with buffalo meat.

But now the confusion between beef and buff has gone the other way. Accor-ding to many meat merchants I have spoken to abroad, Indian exporters mark real beef as buffalo to get it past Indian regulators. Once it reaches its final destination, it is re-packaged and sold as beef. One Australian beef merchant told me that his country’s exporters were facing a real problem in exporting to South East Asia because Indian beef was cheaper and frequently better than the Australian equivalent.

In a way, the whole beef issue seems to me to sum up the contradictions of modern India. Isn’t it odd that India should be one of the largest exporters of a product that is unavailable legally in much of India? Welcome to the land of paradoxes!