Post-Hijab controversy another controversy about banning halal products has started trending on social media platforms. Many users started targeting companies like Himalaya, Haldiram, and many others over the halal certification of their products. And, many hashtags like #banhalal, #boycotthalal, #boycotthalalproducts, #radicalislamicterrorism, #halal, etc became the trend. In this DFRAC exclusive report we will analyze these trends and different angles given to the whole issue.
#boycottHalalProducts
Along with the trend of #boycottHalalProducts, many hateful comments started on social media. Users are calling it economic jihad and requesting the Hindu population not to consume halal products. One such tweet is of @CTRavi_BJP who wrote on Twitter, “No more HALAL PRODUCTS for Hindus. Let us fight unitedly against Economic JIHAD.” Another such tweet is from @SherlynChopra who wrote, “Why is halal being forced on non-Muslims? There should be a choice for people who prefer to buy non-halal products. Why this discrimination? Is this Secularism?”
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Fake News Related To Halal Product Controversy.
There are many fake and misleading news related to the halal ban issue.
Claim 1
One such news that Himalaya neem and Tulsi capsules use Halal certified meat. Users are spreading a screenshot from the twitter id named Aarti Panchal. The screenshot is of an email [email protected] where it is writtern that,” Presently, our pure herb capsule shells (Including Neem, Tulsi, and Lasuna) available in the Indian market are hard gelatin.” It adds that “the gelatin capsules contain a pharmaceutical-grade gelatin which is Bovine bone origin and Halal certified.” from the But, we got into the depth of this claim we found that this screenshot is of 2015. And, it’s been getting viral since then.
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This viral screenshot is misleading as Himalaya has clarified that it’s product does not contain meat. It stated that, “A product’s halal status does not mean that it contains animal-derived substances. It applies to vegetarian food too according to the importing countries’ regulations.” Further, it has also clarified and confirmed that none of the Himalayan products contain meat as alleged on some of the social media platforms, this is factually incorrect. Halal certification does not imply that a product contains animal-derived ingredients
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Hence, A similar debate sparked online in 2021, after which the company issued a statement clarifying that they do not use gelatin capsules in any product for human consumption in India. Adding that all the online claims are baseless, the company stated that their products are in either tablet form or vegetable capsule. “Tulsi, Neem, and Lasuna medicines in question are sold in the tablet form,” Himalaya added.
Hence, this screenshot with misleading claim got viral again.
Claim 2
Another such post getting viral on the social media platform with the claim that Singer Lucky Ali said that Halala meat is not for non-Muslims. @SanatanPrabhat have shared a poster with the caption, “Hindu Tej Jago ! Halal meat is not for non-Muslims ! – Lucky Ali, Singer Why don’t maulanas and maulvis tell usthis truth ?”.
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They have presented the news misleadingly as looking at Lucky Ali’s post it is very clear that he has posted it with the intention to clarify the economical aspect of Halal certification. In his post he stated that, “now companies want to sell to everyone including the muslim and jewish populations, so to sell their product they have to label it as Halal certified or Kosher certified…otherwise Muslims and Jews would just not buy from them, but if the people are so bothered by the word ‘halal ‘they should remove it from their counters but one can’t foresee whether their sales would be the same as they were used to.”
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#BoycottHimalaya & #BoycottHimalayaProducts
The timeline had its peak on 1st April with more than 2,500 tweets on the hashtags and more than 550 replies on the same.
Further, many verified accounts like @madhukishwar, @SirPareshRawal took part in this trend. There were many tweets that were derogatory about Muslims. Such as @madhukishwar wrote that, “Beginning to fear that even Muslim owned Ayurvedic medicine company, “HIMALYA Pure Herbs” likely 2b indulging in #ThookJihad since it is #HalalCompliant Makes me nauseous to think I have consumed so many of their herbal preparations Throwing all in garbage today. #BoycottHimalaya.”
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Accounts Mentioned
The graph below tells about the accounts that were mentioned in the tweets containing the hashtags, some of those accounts include, @HimalayaIndia was tagged a maximum number of times followed by @SirPareshRawal, @beingarun28, @PMOIndia, and @rakesh_bstpyp, etc.
It is seen that #BoycottHaldirams hashtag was also done Aug 5, 2016. Whereas, hashtags on Boycott Himalaya started from Mar 15, 2020.
#BoycottHaldirams, #BoycottHaldiramsProducts, and #Haldirams
After Himalaya Haldirams was caught in the rage of the users. The trend was at its peak on 6th April 2022 with more than 2,500 tweets on the hashtags and more than 600 replies on the topic.
Suresh Chavhanke Editor-in chief of Sudarshan News hosted a full-fledged heated debate on this issue. He wrote in one of his post that, “Do companies ignore the sentiments of Hindus but bow down to fundamentalist Muslims? Why Arabic language on fasting packet? What is Sudarshan’s official line on the Haldiram controversy?” A bid controversy took place when a reporter of Sudarshan questioned a employee of Haldirams over the Urdu(which was actually Arabic) text writtern on a haldiram’s product. One such tweet is of @vijendrhandli. He wrote, “What percentage of Indians know Urdu? Moreover, none of the people who will buy that fruit will know Urdu, Then why Urdu? There is no problem with Urdu, but give Hindi also..!”
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Accounts Mentioned
Many accounts were mentioned in the tweets containing these hashtags. Some of the top accounts include, @SureshChavhanke was mentioned the most in the tweets followed by @SudarshanNewsTV, @HaldiramSnacks, @NagpurHaldirams, etc.
Below is the user timeline of more than 12,000 users who all interacted with the hashtags. As seen from the graph, the rise in user creation came in the early 2022.
The highest number of accounts were created on 14th of March 2022 more than 28 accounts created on that particular day.
Users Location
Below is the geological map of the world, indicating countries from where the user interacted on the hashtags. With over 7,500 users’ data, most of the users who interacted on the hashtag were found from India with almost 5,600 users followed by USA with almost 120 users and then UK with 55 users.
Verified users who interacted with the hashtags
Below is the bubble plot depicting the top 25 verified users who all interacted with the boycott hashtags. Some of the top accounts includes, @BDUTT, @ZeeNews, @sagarikaghose, @SirPareshRawal, @madhukishwar, @Guttajwala, @YogiDevnath2, etc.
Non Verified users who interacted with the hashtags
Some non-verified users who interacted with the hashtags involves, @abplivenews, @Divya_Bhaskar, @MonikaSinghSays, @rattibha, @PuriVirender, etc.
Tweeted accounts ratio
Below is the pie-chart depicting the ratio of accounts who tweeted. Between the two types, i.e. Verified accounts and Non-verified accounts, majority of the users were non verified with almost more than 12,000 users and only 111 were the verified twitter users. Making the ratio of 99.1% of non-verified and 0.9% of verified users.
Accounts tweeted/ replied the most
Below are the accounts who tweeted / replied the most on the boycott hashtags. Some of them includes, @dharmubhai10, @samsudd62893268, @sarveshmarut, etc.
Timeline of all the boycott hashtags
Below is the timeline of the boycott hashtags on Himalaya, Haldirams and Patanjali. It is clearly seen that boycott Himalaya hashtags started at first having the highest peak.
Conclusion
Ther are many hastags related to Halal Products like #BoycottHalalProducts, #BoycottPatanjali #Urdu, #BoycottHaldirams, #BoycottHimalaya, #Thookjihad etc are trending. These hashtags are filled with offensive comments targeting companies like Himalaya and haldirams. Moreover, these hashtags also contains derogatory words about Muslims.
