Maaz Hysteria

Something is rotten in Kashmir and it’s not just the meat. Behind the public fury lies a deeper decay. Broken oversight, eroded trust, and a society where outrage fills the vacuum

In Kashmir, every week brings the premiere of a new “episode,” an event or issue that dominates public attention. For days, people dissect it threadbare. Then, the following week, an entirely different, often unrelated plot takes over. The cycle repeats, trapping people in an endless crisis loop.

It’s a convenient way to keep the public busy with immediate distractions, manufacturing outrage through pliant media, “intellekhtuals,” and vigilante influencers who cash in while the news is hot. These journalists not only keep Kashmiris busy with smaller, safer controversies, they often act as agents of vigilante justice, whipping up public fury, singling out individuals, and handing down trial-by-media punishments. Meanwhile, the journalists who dare to ask the real questions have been silenced, leaving a vacuum filled with noise instead of accountability.

A few years ago, American rap icon DMX said something in an interview that stuck with me: trust is the foundation of any society. If I buy yoghurt from a milk vendor, I expect it not to be poison. The vendor expects me to pay. That’s how functional societies operate, on trust and a shared social contract. It’s so ingrained that people hardly think about it. You pay taxes, you expect clean streets. Simple.

But we’re talking about Kashmir, a society in turmoil. And turmoil eats away at trust.

Ibn Khaldun, writing in the 14th century, observed that “the ruin of civilisation occurs when mutual trust disappears, for trust is the foundation of solidarity.” Frantz Fanon, centuries later, showed how colonial systems deliberately attack that foundation. In The Wretched of the Earth, he described how colonisers “systematically destroy the social fabric” by creating suspicion between neighbours, rewarding informers, and replacing community bonds with fear.

It’s a simple but devastating formula: erode trust, and a society can no longer act together in its interest. In a place like Kashmir, that means people are primed to believe and act on every rumour that confirms their worst suspicions.

This week’s episode is the “Maaz Hysteria.”

Meat is central to a Kashmiri diet, as in many mountainous and Muslim cultures. It is also a marker of economic and political health. If you can afford meat daily, you are considered well-off, a big deal in an economy stuck in the doldrums. In the 1990s, the availability of meat was an unofficial measure of conflict intensity.

I remember the mid-1990s. After weeks of curfew, the local butcher’s supply ran out. He began selling from a shuttered shop like a drug dealer. That is when nutri, soy chunks, became a trend. We had them for a week. They were delicious. I wanted more, but once the curfew ended, we went back to our daily meat diet. Boring.

Cheap meat, of course, has always been sold in Kashmir. Discards of animals served up as a quick roadside meal, eaten mostly by the lower-middle classes or those who would rather spend a few hundred rupees here than thousands in a fancy restaurant.

My grandmother would call it maker yad, “dirty stomach.” As purchasing power has declined over the years, cheap meat has found more takers, both in the supply chain and among consumers. And while there are always black sheep who exploit that trust to profit illegally, some of them are also incentivised.

By the time this episode is over, we will likely never know what happened, who was in the supply chain, or which bureaucrat was responsible. In Kashmir, mistakes are managed until the next crisis arrives.

A few news-influencers and pliant media outlets sensationalised this latest story about rotten meat. In a society with broken institutions, news mutates into Chinese whispers, and sometimes it’s only Chinese whispers. By the time the videos went viral, rumours claimed dog meat and even pork were being sold. In a conservative Muslim society, that is enough to trigger disgust and panic.

Many have stopped eating meat altogether, a shift that could further squeeze hundreds of restaurants and eateries drowning in debt. For them, this isn’t just another slow week; it’s yet another crisis to survive. Even if the investigations eventually clear the supply chain of wrongdoing, the damage to their revenue and the trust they depend on is already done.

The media here blames traders who allegedly brought the “rotten” meat into the valley. Interviewees are calling for their execution. Most of these outlets now pick any random person for their views on any subject, as if there are no experts who can give an informed opinion on what’s happening. A stray comment becomes a headline, not to inform, but to manufacture outrage that drives clicks, boosts ad revenue, and earns the channel more access to the corridors of power. As Fanon warned, when a society’s trust is deliberately eroded, it becomes fertile ground for panic and paranoia.

Sociologists have long observed that mass hysterias are common in conflict-torn societies. As Robert Bartholomew, who has studied outbreaks of “collective delusions,” notes, they often occur where “communication channels are weak, uncertainty is high, and trust in institutions is low.”

For instance, in March–April 1983, more than 900 Palestinian schoolgirls and a few female teachers across several towns in the West Bank reported sudden dizziness, headaches, nausea, and fainting spells. Rumours quickly spread that the Israeli military had released toxic gas in classrooms to punish protesters.

The panic escalated so fast that some schools closed entirely. Investigations by the World Health Organisation and independent toxicologists found no evidence of chemical agents. The conclusion: a mass psychogenic illness, fuelled by an already tense environment of military occupation, frequent raids, and deep mistrust of authorities. The symptoms were real, but they were triggered by collective anxiety, conflict trauma, and a collapse of trust in official explanations.

Back to the episode.

Yet nobody is asking the real question in Kashmir. How does a Muslim-majority region not have a halal authority to certify meat? How does a 80% meat-eating population of around eight million still rely on imports from other Indian states? Why does the food authority have no control over the supply chain? How did the food inspections department suddenly launch investigations that, as everyone knows, usually happen only during Eid? Why are only the consumers or end-retailers being questioned? Why hasn’t the administration taken responsibility over its failure? Because in Kashmir, the outrage is never the point.

What’s the next episode?