Politics in Andhra Pradesh is on a knife’s edge after the revelation that the ghee meant to be used in the world famous Tirupati laddu was adulterated — possibly with vegetable or animal fat. It has created a strange political situation in Andhra Pradesh where the party in power, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), is on an agitational path. TDP supremo and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, and his allies Jana Sena and BJP, are squarely blaming the previous YSRCP government led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for the fiasco. The Hindutva spin factory is seeking to project the incident as a Christian conspiracy by linking it to the previous CM’s faith.

Lost in the din is the fact that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government played a key role in pushing the exponential growth of an industry that produces one of the most commonly used substances to adulterate cow’s ghee: buffalo tallow or beef tallow.

Beef tallow is one of the 14 adulterants mentioned in the Centre for Analysis and Learning in Livestock and Food’s (CALF) laboratory report which tested samples of the Tirumala ghee. The report however clarifies two important points: one, that there are chances of false positives; and two, that beef tallow (or fish oil, palm oil, rapeseed, palm oil or linseed oil among others) could potentially, not conclusively, be one of the adulterants.

Explaining why the CALF report isn’t conclusive, veterinary scientist Sagari Ramdas focused on the clause mentioning false positives. “Cows and buffaloes in India are mostly fed cotton seed or ground nut cakes. The saponification range (which measures the molecular weight of fatty acids) of palm oil and beef tallow is similar. More tests need to be done just in the interest of scientific rigour instead of jumping to conclusions,” Ramdas explained. Even the CALF report's annexure adds a clause noting that the the result could well be a false positive if the milk was "obtained from cows which received an exceptionally high feeding of pure vegetable oils like rapeseed oil, cotton or palm oil."

Also Read: Tirupati laddu ghee adulteration row: What the lab reports say

The lack of certainty didn’t prevent the TDP, BJP, or Jana Sena chief and Andhra Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan from crying hoarse. Pawan, who also is the state’s Science and Technology Minister, called for the constitution of a ‘Sanatana Dharma Rakshana Board’ to ensure that the sanctity of Tirumala — and by extension temples across India — is protected.

The denial of science is one thing. But the political rhetoric contributes to one more harm: it masks the history of meat and tallow trade in India. TDP and Jana Sena’s chief ally, the BJP, was the party that permitted the export of buffalo tallow in 2014, seven months after Narendra Modi took the reins as Prime Minister.

This was a major pivot considering that ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister hopeful Narendra Modi accused the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of slaughtering bovines (various classes of cattle) just to promote meat export. In western Uttar Pradesh and in Bihar, Modi spoke at length about the dangers of what he dubbed ‘gulabi kranti’ (pink revolution, referring to the pinkish hue of meat).

But just seven months after forming the Union government, the Modi government permitted the export of buffalo tallow.

In December 2014, the Union ministry of commerce and industry, issued a notification. “Export of buffalo tallow has been permitted,” it said. The Government Order (GO), notified by the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), inserted export of buffalo tallow as a new entry in a schedule of the Indian trade classification's harmonised system (ITC-HS).

Under the BJP led Union government, India has exported 129.56 crore kg of buffalo meat in 2023-24 and earned Rs 31 thousand crore from it. In 2013-14 export under the Congress led UPA — 13.65 lakh tonnes were sold earning Rs 26 thousand crore.  

Beef tallow was also used as a tool by the BJP during Indira Gandhi’s Prime Ministership. The first major controversy surrounding beef tallow ignited in July 1983 after news reports at the time had chronicled a dispute between a customs authority and a vanaspati manufacturer regarding import duty to be levied on a consignment of beef tallow. This triggered suspicions that beef tallow was being used to adulterate the vanaspati, a popular vegetable fat, causing a dip in vanaspati sales across the country.

VP Singh, the then Commerce Minister, stood up in the Lok Sabha and stated, “Our import policy has been amended in which all tallows – not only beef but also mutton tallow or whatever tallow it may be – has been banned. Beef tallow has already been banned and even mutton tallow is being closed.” 

The Congress government accused the then opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of launching a ‘whisper campaign’ on the tallow issue. “The import of tallow had been legalised by the former Janata Party government and was banned by the Congress (I) government in August 1982,” the Congress said.

Buffalo tallow also remained on the list of products banned for export until 2014.

In her book Mother Cow, Mother India, critical animal studies expert Yamini Narayanan writes, “.... the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying started schemes offering 100 percent subsidies and tax exemptions to modernise slaughterhouses…This strategy (to promote export of buffalo meat) was cemented via the Five-Year Plans put in place after 2008–09, with a stated objective of upgrading or establishing 50 new animal abattoirs,” she adds.

“One of the main reasons tallow is used in adulteration is because it costs less,” said Pradeep Kumar Nath, founder of Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals, adding that when the buffalo meat export demand increased, adulteration increased as a result. 

A senior official with one of the largest meat exporters in India told TNM that more production of buffalo meat means more tallow is produced and subsequently exported. “Buffalo tallow is important because it is used as a base fuel in the biodiesel industry in and outside of India. The export is highly crucial because once the buffalo is unproductive, a farmer who sells the buffalo to the meat industry benefits from it,” he explained, adding that the cycle (from farmer to the meat industry to exporting business) is important to sustain India’s status as the largest dairy producer in the world.

This clearly isn’t lost on BJP either, which has time and again promoted the ‘Gujarat model’ and its thriving dairy industry to bolster Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s standing. Even as he pushed the ‘gulabi kranti’ anti-Congress tirade in 2014, he recognised the secularity of the meat export business. “It is untrue that meat exporting is related to one single community. It isn’t. Several of my friends from the Jain community are in it. Don’t tie it to any one community,” he said in an interview.