Jhatka-nomics: Non-halal meat movement is going mainstream in India

India primarily exports meat to West Asia, where halal certification is mandatory. So, jhatka entrepreneurs are counting on India's demographics, which present a huge captive market for their product

In 2015, as political tectonics started pushing India’s mainstream cultural discourse towards the right, Mumbai-based Sikh entrepreneur Eshwinder Sethi got a novel idea. He opened what he claims to be India’s first non-halal or jhatka meat processing plant in a food park in Maharashtra’s Pune. Branded as ‘Punjab Maratha’, all raw and processed poultry and goat meat from his plant was labelled jhatka and thus ‘free from ritual & torture’ that symbolises the Islamic halal way of slaughtering animals for consumption.
 
"We are Sikhs and are not allowed to eat halal meat which is butchered as per rituals of