Just about 30 to 100 kilometres south of Delhi, something’s simmering. On the surface, it’s the pots of piping hot biryani on the road to Alwar, Rajasthan. Under it, though, is communal unrest, especially if some agents provocateur have their way. Yet again, meat is the matter. It’s what motivated the perpetrators of a gruesome double murder, gang rape and robbery in Dingerheri village near the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway, allege the survivors. It’s why biryani vendors along National Highway 248A’s 70-kilometre run from Rojka Meo to Doha Chowk have traded buffalo meat for chicken. And it’s why Haryana’s Mewat, in Nuh district, with its already notorious reputation has taken a further hit.

Speeding away from Gurgaon’s Rajiv Chowk towards Sohna and beyond on a Sunday morning, the glass and concrete of the Millennium City’s high-rise apartment blocks quickly give way to shades of green, vast open spaces and heavily-wooded areas. The streetlights disappear soon after Badshahpur, the median strip stays until Nuh, Mewat’s headquarters. It’s difficult to say which change is more abrupt — the landscape, or the price of chicken: as low as Rs 90 for a kilogram.

The beef with chicken

Locals say prices have been slashed to offset the dip in demand in anticipation of a feast on Bakr-Eid (Eid-ul-zuha) in the district where four out of five people are Muslims. Whatever be the reason, it has made the switch a tad less bearable for the biryani sellers — buffalo meat (not one fails to specify that it’s “bade ka gosht” — bhains not gai, buffalo not cow) continues to cost anywhere between Rs 100 and Rs 120 for a kilo, but using it means loss of mental peace, and exposing oneself to harassment and potential prosecution.

There is a payoff, though — the demand for chicken is far lower. At Rojka Meo, the northernmost village of Mewat, an elderly biryani vendor puffed on more bidis than the number of plates he sold. A batch containing two kilos of rice and three kilos of chicken cost him around Rs 500. On a good day, he makes a profit of Rs 100. And on a bad day? “Biryani worth Rs 100 is left unsold,” he lamented. “Some of it, we eat at home. The rest, I have to throw away.”

Not much changes 10 kilometres down NH 248A at Ghasera, also known as Gandhigram after the Mahatma’s December 1947 visit during which he exhorted Mewat’s Muslims to stay put. “We’re not expert cooks, perhaps we don’t know how to make chicken taste great,” rued a biryani seller, pointing to grains of rice sticking to the sides of the vessel. “If this were bade ke gosht ki biryani, these grains would have been much higher.” The rehri (roadside stall) was set up at seven in the morning. At noon, the reduced quantity was yet to sell out.

It was the same story at Doha Chowk, two kilometres before Haryana ends, at five in the evening. In the quarter of an hour this correspondent spent there, at least three solo bikers with Rajasthan number plates rode up, asked for biriyani and upon being told there was, they asked “Which?” Upon learning that it was murgh (chicken), they got on their bikes, took a U-turn and headed back.

“In Mewat, the demand is for bade ki biryani,” said the 20-year-old hawker. “Bade ka gosht has a taste that murgh can never match.” He broke down the numbers. Earlier, the biryani cost him Rs 2,000 (Rs 1,000 for eight kilos of buffalo meat, Rs 600 for rice, and Rs 200 each for garam masala and green chillies, and oil). From this investment, he earned Rs 2,600 (at Rs 20 a plate). Nowadays, average sales are down to Rs 1,600 (the price per plate has remained the same), so he only spends Rs 1,200 on a batch — five kilos of chicken (Rs 500), and rice and spices worth Rs 400 and Rs 100, respectively.

It still takes around 10 hours, from 7.30am to 5.30pm, to make a reduced profit of Rs 400 (down from Rs 600). Significantly, the switch was made not when Mewat’s biryani made headlines all over India a week ago, but over two months ago. “Some people started complaining to the SP (Superintendent of Police) instead of calling the local police station,” said the young hawker. Like other biryani sellers along the highway, he is also a poorer member of the Qureshi community, a minority within Mewat’s Muslim majority.

The Meos of Mewat

It’s a distinction that is more likely to be pointed out by Meos. For outsiders and for some of Mewat’s Hindus, Meo is synonymous with Muslim — other than Jammu and Kashmir, and Dhubri in Assam, Mewat has the highest percentage of Muslims among districts in mainland India. Meos, though, like to think of themselves as the original sons of the Mewati soil — a dominant, land-owning class that embraced Islam in batches, starting with the 712AD defeat of Sindh Raja Dahir by Muhammad bin Qasim. Despite the conversions, which gathered steam with the arrival of Moinuddin Chishti in 1190AD, Meos retained many Hindu customs like 52 gotras (clans) with strict rules regarding intermarriage, and claiming lineage from Hindu divinities Yadu, Chandra, and Surya.

There was also caste stratification. Others, including other Muslims who came from elsewhere and settled in the region, performed specific tasks for the Meos. In return, they were given a place to stay, two square meals a day and a sack of grain during harvest season. Qureshis, for instance, were in the meat business. Over time, some of them were able to improve their social standing. “There are several rich Qureshis here,” said Sarfraaz Nawaz. “They buy buffaloes from the biweekly animal fair here in Ferozepur Jhirka, and transport them to Dasna and Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh to sell them to meat companies like Al Nafees and Allana.”

The distinction needs to be stressed upon because there is no denying that cow slaughter takes place. Meos insist it only happens on a very small scale, in remote villages deep inside the district or nestled in the foothills of the Aravallis. They also insist that the authorities know exactly who are involved but are going after small fry, and that the perpetrators cut across religious lines — but do not include any Meos. “Anyone found involved in the beef business is socially boycotted,” said Salamuddin, a lawyer and a social worker.

Many locals see the recent biryani controversy — in which police collected samples to check for presence of beef — as a ploy to divert attention from the brutal double murder and gang rape in Dingerheri village of Mewat’s Tauru block. On the intervening night of August 24 and 25, five armed men murdered a farmer and his wife, raped two of their nieces — one of whom is a minor — and fled with valuables.

While the victims were Muslims, the four accused who have been arrested are Hindus who hail from the nearby village of Mohammadpur Ahir. One of the rape survivors alleged that the attackers were cow vigilantes who said they were being targeted as they “eat beef”. Police said no such link was found. Salamuddin bemoans the fact that the national media did not wake up to the ghastly crime even 10 days later, but sent over reporters from Delhi within hours when the issue was beef in biryani.

The cow, insist Meos, should be associated with economics rather than religion. “Even we rear cows and earn good money from its milk and ghee,” said Nawaz, while Salamuddin said Muslims will never do anything to hurt the religious sentiments of their brethren, be it with respect to the holy cow or anything else. “There has never been any communal tension here, not even in 1992 (during the Babri Masjid demolition),” he said.

Divided They Stand

The sentiment is not shared unanimously. Lokesh Goel, the 30-year-old owner of Balaji Textiles at the busy Badkeli Chowk, claims temples across Mewat were attacked in the aftermath of Babri, including one in his village of Nagina. While admitting that day-to-day life is peaceful, Goel says it is tough for Hindus, especially businessmen. “If a Muslim customer is unhappy with what you sell them, you have no choice but to provide a refund,” said Goel.

The consumption of cow meat, claimed Goel, is commonplace in Mewat. “Beef comes from villages in the interior in black polythene bags”, he said, adding that biryani sellers should not have any problem with sampling if they do not use beef. In a throwback to Kairana, Goel also alleged that there has been an exodus of Hindus. “The palayan has slowed down since BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has come to power, as Hindus feel confident now.”

Meos disagree. “If anything, 10,000 Hindus have come from Rajasthan and settled in Ferozepur Jhirka,” countered Umar Mohammad, president of Mewat Vikas Sabha, a social welfare organisation. He conceded that Hindus in the area face difficulties when it comes to their children’s marriages, but alleged that this was a fallout of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) nefarious designs. “Some 20 years ago, RSS started defaming Mewat by spreading rumours of women being picked up from the streets and crime being rampant,” said Mohammad. “As a result, Hindu families from Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad are scared of Mewat, and refuse to arrange marriages with Mewat’s Hindus.”

Those who can afford a better life move closer to the capital. Those who cannot have no option but to stay back in an area where development has not been commensurate with its distance from Delhi. According to the 2011 census, Mewat has the best sex ratio among the districts of Haryana. In terms of literacy, it stands at the bottom. The two major national highways that connect Delhi to Jaipur and Mathura skirt the boundaries of Mewat, as do the railway lines. It was only as recently as late 2014 that the Gurgaon-Alwar road was upgraded to the status of a national highway.

“Within Haryana, certain regions have enjoyed greater political patronage as Chief Ministers hailed from those areas,” said Mohammad. “Bhiwani, due to Bansi Lal; Sirsa, because of the Chautalas; and Rohtak, thanks to Hooda.” Mohammad feels things have improved marginally, especially in terms of roads and educational institutions, ever since Mewat became a separate district, but concedes there is a still a long way to go.

A confluence of stereotypes

During the Raj, Meos were lumped together with Meenas in the regressive Criminal Tribes Act, which made people criminals by birth. Meos say that happened because their ancestors bravely resisted the British. But a stereotype — that criminals run amok in Mewat — was perpetrated that continues to this date.

If data maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is anything to go by, Mewat isn’t particularly unsafe. A possible cause for concern is that it has gone from being the safest police district (apart from Government Railway Police) in 2008 to the eighth rank in 2013. But NCRB data can be interpreted in a wholly different way, too — perhaps victims are feeling empowered enough to register complaints. With the exception of 2011, crimes against Scheduled Castes have generally gone down since the formation of the district in 2005 to 2012.

Dalits, who have the lowest percentage share in Mewat among all districts of Haryana, have recently been the victims of two crimes. While some Hindus cite those as examples of Hindus across caste lines being repressed by the Muslim majority, many Meos believe neither crime was against a Dalit. “In Punahana village, a Dalit girl fell in love with a Meo boy,” said a resident of Ferozepur Jhirka. “The couple ran away to get married, and the girl’s family registered a case of kidnapping.”

In Nimkheda village, Dalits were beaten up for trying to access water. Yet again, there is a non-caste explanation. “In the sarpanch elections, the Dalits had sided with the Meo candidate who ended up losing,” he said. “The winner tried to teach them a lesson for not supporting him, but the losing candidate turned it around and made it a caste issue.”

Apart from crime, there is another stereotype that has grown to be associated with the region — that of religious radicalisation. Mewat was where Tablighi Jamaat – an orthodox Muslim movement that has its roots in the Deobandi movement, itself an offshoot of Wahabism – was born around the same time as Hindu shuddhi movements (precursor to ghar wapsi) were taking root in the area.

While Salamuddin insists that Meos are “religious but not communal”, other observers feel there has been a cultural change at the very least. “Earlier, the Muslims used to wear turbans and dhotis, and sport a moustache,” said one. “That has now changed to skull caps, pyjamas, and a beard.” Mohammad agreed that people of both faiths have become more orthodox — Muslims have become “more Muslim”, while Hindus have started associating everything from mosque minarets to biryani with Muslim culture.

‘Why now?’

For the sudden spurt in polarisation, Muslims (both Meos and others) blame Bhani Ram Mangla, chairman of Haryana’s Gau Seva Aayog who hails from Punahana in Mewat and who, locals say, runs multiple businesses including a motorcycle dealership and a ready-mix-concrete (RMC) plant. “He is from here, he has always known what goes on here. Why now?” is the refrain.

While biryani sellers in Rojka Meo and Ghasera miss the Congress government, Salamuddin says Mewat’s voters go for the candidate, not the party. “People voted for Zakir Hussain when he was with Congress, they voted for him when he was with BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) and they voted for him when he shifted to INLD (Indian National Lok Dal),” he said. Hussain is the incumbent legislator from Nuh, one of Mewat’s three assembly constituencies. Of the other two, Ferozepur Jhirka is with INLD while Punahana voted an Independent to the Vidhan Sabha.

While Mewat’s snub to BJP in the 2014 assembly elections is seen by some as a reason why the area is being targeted, Salamuddin has an interesting theory — with UP elections around the corner, communalising Mewat will have a ripple effect. “Why else is Gorakhpur MP (Member of Parliament) Yogi Adityanath referring to Mewat as a ‘Mini-Pakistan near Delhi’ in his speeches over the last three months or so?” he asked.

It’s the poor who are in dire straits. For them, NH 248A could just as easily be Telegraph Road. To paraphrase Mark Knopfler, they’ve got a right to go to work but there’s no work to be found. Earlier employed in stone quarries that have shut shop and factories that have terminated their services, they have turned to feeding others in order not to starve themselves. Now, even that source of income is under threat. “It’s this lack of employment opportunities that ends up creating criminals,” says a Mewat-based journalist. “Some resort to stealing cattle or motorbikes in order to feed their children, not because they want to.”

That said, the people of Mewat insist that the Dingerheri episode was an exception. “Show me one crime that happens in Mewat but not anywhere else in the country, or whose rate is much higher than elsewhere,” said a local in Ferozepur Jhirka.

On Thursday, a ’36 biradari’ mahapanchayat will be held in Nuh to decide the course of action in the wake of the biryani controversy. The term ’36 biradari’ does not mean that members of exactly 36 communities will take part — it is more in the ‘one for all, all for one’ vein. Mewat has another saying that plays off its reputation — “Aadmi Mewat aane se pehle rota hai, aur chhodte waqt bhi rota hai (A man cries when he is sent to Mewat and cries again when has to leave Mewat).”

With the National Capital Region expanding, the KMP Expressway cutting through Mewat, the Gurgaon-Alwar road getting the status of a National Highway, and the Rojka Meo industrial belt coming up in the area, perhaps people will travel to Mewat without shedding a tear.

(Illustrations by Shivali Chandra)