The news that “Ahimsa Mutton”, or synthetic meat, is being prepared in a Central government laboratory in Hyderabad makes one wonder at the fate of the kasais, or butchers, in the long run. Will they have to bid good-bye to their hoary profession and go into anonymity? The Qurresh butcher community does not belong to the Qurresh tribe in which Prophet- Mohammad was born, though some erroneously adhere to this belief.

Just as there is a big difference between the Ansaris, who are members of the Julhai (weavers community) and the Ansaris, who are descendants of the Quranic tribe. The ex-Vice-President of India, Hamid Ansari has his antecedents in the latter.

The butchers of Delhi are descendants of those who came with the invading Arabian, Turkish, Persian and Afghan forces and settled down in India. It is interesting to note that few of them indeed are converts. They are mostly fair and well-built though those who are not so may be considered to be a reminder of the fact that inter-marriage has also taken place with other communities.

Before the Sultanate period in Delhi, butchers in the city and elsewhere were mostly Khatiks. Even now the latter share the jhatka meat trade with Sikhs. While the Muslim butchers, known as sheikhs, adhere to the kosher or halal system. One noteworthy fact is that there are no beggars among them. Also up until recently, their weddings always took place in the afternoon.

The Qurresh butcher community, which appends its names with Qureshi (like the Prophet’s descendants) spread through the length and breadth of India with each successive invasion. However, in the South they partly came with the Arabian, Moorish, Turkish, Afghan and Egyptian traders.

Researching into the antecedents of the kasais is not an easy proposition since so little has been written about them. But oral history based on hearsay would have us believe that the community first found a home in Punjab and other areas and now constitute Pakistan. This began with the Arab invasion of Sindh (712 AD). Then more than 300 years later, Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasions brought butchers (who were attached to his forces). A lot of them then came with Mohammad Ghori and made their home in India after the second battle of Terain in 1192.

Qutubuddin Aibak, as viceroy of Ghori had his Capital in Mehrauli. He needed butchers to slay the sheep and goats and other animals that formed food for him, his companies and troops. So that was the place where butchers first locally settled down. The Slave dynasty ended and the Khiljis took over. Alauddin Khilji built his Capital in Siri and the butchers came there. Many of them moved to Tughlakabad during the Tughlak period (and also Daultabad in the Deccan, when Mohammad Bin Tughlak moved his Capital there temporarily.

Followed the Sayyids and Lodhis and with their conquest butchers moved to other areas. In Nizamuddin they were greatly attached to Hazrat Nizamuddin Mahboob Elahi.

The Mughal invasion saw a fresh tribe of butchers in North India. When Akbar moved his Capital to Agra, they multiplied there and when Shah Jahan built his Shahjahanabad, they come in huge numbers to Delhi from Agra. In the latter place, they were mostly concentrated in Wazirpura, Mantola and other parts of Naiki Mandi, Ghatia Mamu Bhanja, Ghatia Azam Khan, Runkuta and Nunehai. Incidentally, it was in Akbar’s time that Anu Kasai was embedded alive in a fort wall in Sindh for trade in human flesh.

The butchers settled down in Qasabpura, Delhi, during Shah Jahan’s reign. So strong was their concentration that his successor, Aurangzeb preferred to build the Capital’s Idgah there. The reason is not far to seek. During Bakrid the largest number of sacrifices took place around the area. Butchers first made their hovels there and then pucca houses. Some of these are quite palatial now despite the fact that the slaughterhouse has existed there for centuries.

Butchers may be regarded as devoid of sympathy because of their profession but paradoxically enough they are also regarded as generous and loving, who helped kites, vultures and crows to thrive and never allows a beggar to go away empty-handed. And many still don’t starve just because of their generosity, like the fakir, whose skin was pulled off by the command of an emperor but managed to survive on pieces of meat given to him by a butcher every day.

A number of mosques have also been built by the community, which now boasts of doctors, lawyers, engineers, journalists and other intellectuals and perhaps the highest number of Hajis. Politicians have also sprouted among them.

In the distant past there was Ajmeri Kasai, who was sentenced by the British for leading rioters. He was convicted and went in appeal to the Privy Council in London, where his lawyer threw a sheaf of papers on the ground. He asked Sheikh Ajmeri to pick them up. The man was so fat (he had to be helped by two servants in the toilet) that he could not even bend. “My Lords,” said the learned lawyer. “This is the man, who is supposed to have climbed up the Jama Masjid and led the rioters by waving a green flag. Would anyone believe it?” The Sheikh was honourably acquitted.

Despite the stigma of cruelty attached to butchers, few are aware that they have a gentle side too. They have pet goats and are particularly fond of lambs born to the sheep they keep. In a full month from now, the lambs born in the old quarter of Delhi would have grown enough wool to require shearing. You will see them lying on the road with the shearer’s knee on their throats looking as silly as only sheep can look. They do not know what is happening to them, but they seem to enjoy it and perhaps know that the fleecing will give them relief from the heat.

The shearers are from Rajasthan, which has a sizeable population of sheep. But after the business is over there they move to neighbouring areas like Delhi, Haryana and Agra in search of work. The ewes are mostly confined to butcher’s houses in the thickly populated localities of Delhi. But the rams are trained in the open for fighting.

They are taught to butt against the palm of their master’s hand and later to fight among themselves. “And before their horns grow they would have tested their strength against tree trunks and walls to be ready for the Sunday evening bouts in the grounds opposite the Red Fort.

However, sheep and lambs were still exported in large numbers by livestock dealers, most of them from Haryana.

Goods trains carrying them even now pass by Delhi Cantonment station. It’s safer to transport cattle this way then in trucks, which are often attacked by Hindutva zealots, leading to unnecessary loss of human life.