The affected meat and fish shopkeepers gathered in the Golbagh area of Amritsar on Tuesday to voice fears over losing their livelihoods. (File photo)
The December 15 notification of the Punjab government declaring the Amritsar walled city area as ‘holy city’ and banning the sale of non-vegetarian items there has cast a shadow on the future of around 100-150 meat and fish shops, and around 150 outlets selling non-veg items.
Talking to The Indian Express, Surinder Singh, a meat vendor near Hathi Gate, said, “Our ancestors came from Pakistan in 1948, and since then we have been running this meat shop near Hathigate. We do not know any other business, any other work.”
“Most meat stalls in the walled city are run by middle-class and poor people. So far, no one has come to us to shut our shop, but… the administration has started objecting to the outlets in the walled city,” Singh added. He clarified that of roughly 100 meat shops, only 20 sell halal meat, while 80 offer jhatka meat as per the Sikh code of conduct.
Fish vendors echoed similar pleas. Makhan Singh, owner of Makhan Fish near Hall Gate, said, “We have talked to the mayor about relocating the fish market to an appropriate place, and we are hopeful that the administration will help us. There are around 20 meat and fish shops near the Hall Gate.”
The ‘ban’ has also ignited Sikh doctrinal debates. Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) member Kiranjot Kaur objected sharply, terming the ban a “Brahmanical imposition”. “Jhatka meat is our right,” she asserted, citing Guru Nanak Dev cooking meat in Kurukshetra and the 1935 Jhatka Conference.
“Tobacco and kutha (halal) remain prohibited in Sikhism, but jhatka aligns with the Gurus’ hunting traditions. So there shouldn’t be any ban on meat shops,” she said in a Facebook post.
Meat vendors have formed a committee to meet the deputy commissioner and mayor, seeking to limit bans so as not to affect their meat shops, which are largely near the outer edge of the walled city.
The fresh restriction echoes demands dating back to the 1980s, when Sikh bodies like the SGPC and All India Sikh Students Federation pushed for tobacco and liquor bans around the Darbar Sahib. In 1980, SGPC president Gurcharan Singh Tohra urged prime minister Indira Gandhi to prohibit the sale of these items.
Demand to ban meat sales, however, emerged when the then Amritsar deputy commissioner S M S Chahal called a joint meeting of the city’s Hindu and Sikh leaders in 1981. Hindu bodies raised a demand for a ban on meat shops during the meeting, to which Sikh bodies didn’t object.
Sikhs traditionally eat Jhatka meat, but nowadays a large section of Sikhs are vegetarian.