India: Maharashtra's Beef Ban (Jyoti Punwani - EPW, March 14, 2015)

The Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - L No. 11, March 14, 2015
The Bharatiya Janata Party has claimed that it has merely fulfilled a long-pending promise to the electorate by bringing in a law banning the sale, purchase and possession of beef in Maharashtra. The arguments given by the proponents of the ban fail to stand scrutiny and it seems to have been pushed only to attack the dietary habits and livelihoods of Muslims, Dalits, Christians and other beef-consuming communities. Interestingly, it may well have negative consequences for the rural economy too.

Jyoti Punwani (jyoti.punwani@gmail.com) is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist and human rights activist.

Beef-sellers sitting idle; cold storage stores turning away customers; small Muslim eateries wondering how long they can serve buffalo meat at Rs 30 a plate; leather goods traders contemplating a bleak future, and at the country’s biggest abattoir, Deonar, butchers staring at empty stalls while outside, a ring of policemen prevents anyone bringing a bull or calf for slaughter. In the first week of March, the world changed overnight for all these people, only because their government decided they would not allow the meat of certain animals to be eaten.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has put up posters across Mumbai celebrating its achievement: bringing a ban on cow slaughter. The posters depict the party’s beloved white-as-snow gentle-eyed cow. But the posters tell a lie; the cow has been protected from slaughter in Maharashtra from as far back as 1976, when it was banned during the Emergency. That bill received the President’s assent in 1977. This new law — Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 1995 — prohibits the slaughter of bulls, bullocks and calves, in addition to cows. The only bovine that can now be slaughtered is the buffalo, which is not considered sacred, while the cow and the bull (Nandi) are.

A Religious Ban

Notwithstanding the BJP’s claims to the contrary, the driving force behind this ban is religious faith. The Sena–BJP government had passed this bill when it first took power in Maharashtra in 1995, but all these years, the President had refused assent. It was but natural that the BJP, which had promised to make this bill into law in its manifesto for Maharashtra’s assembly elections last year, would fulfil its promise by getting the President to sign this pending bill into law.

Apart from faith, BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari gave two other reasons for the ban: adherence to the Gandhian principle of ahimsa, and providing support to the state’s agro-economy.

Leave aside the absurdity of the Godse-loving BJP quoting Gandhi, and that too on ahimsa, the argument falls, since all other meat remains untouched. Even if it wanted to, the BJP would not be able to ban all meat consumption. The agro-economy argument falls too, given the lack of supplementary measures.

Bhandari explained that most farmers in the state are dependent on cattle to plough their land, but irregular monsoons force them to sell off their cattle to butchers, who are just waiting with inducements. The farmers sell their cattle with a heavy heart, since their cows and bulls are like family to them. Butchers vouch for this too, saying that it is only as a last resort that farmers sell their cattle, and no inducement — even if offering such large sums for cattle would make economic sense to the butcher — would persuade them to do so.

The new law, says Bhandari, would prohibit such distress sales to butchers. The farmer could instead leave his cattle at a cattle shelter and take them back whenever he needs to; or he could sell his cattle to another farmer who can afford to buy them.

Gandhian Support

Pushpendra Dubey, Sarvodaya activist and editor of the magazine Go-Vibha, supports Bhandari’s reasoning. For Gandhians and followers of Vinoba Bhave, it has been a dream to have an India where no animal, specially one useful to farming, is slaughtered. This is part of their vision of self-sufficient villages.

But the pattern of development that the country has followed has made such a dream seem impossible. That however, has not prevented these activists from not only carrying on a campaign against the slaughter of cattle — for the last 33 years, they have been on a dharna outside the Deonar slaughter-house — but also from fulfilling their vision with experiments in villages across the country. They have also set up units that research the benefits of cow urine, as well as distribution centres for products made from cow urine and dung.

“We need to shift from an oil-based economy to a soil-based one,” says Dubey. “Cattle are essential for this. In Maharashtra, unlike in many other states where mechanised agriculture is the norm, bulls are still an integral part of agriculture.” He, however, adds that only a ban on cattle slaughter would not be enough to bring about such a shift, though it is the first step to doing so. One would need to plan the cattle needs of every village, be they for milk, manure or breeding.

He agrees that such planning has no place in Narendra Modi’s vision of development,

During his Lok Sabha campaign, Modi railed against the Pink Revolution (the growing meat export industry), but has he banned meat export? It doesn’t need a law to do that. In fact, it’s gone up and more abattoirs are being sanctioned. And now, Modi is now talking of a Blue Revolution (fish export). Such exports bring in the dollars needed for importing oil. If we reduce our dependence on oil, we won’t need these animal exports, which are a shame for Gandhiji’s country.

Does the Maharashtra BJP share this dream? Bhandari is quick to clarify that his party is not against mechanisation of agriculture. The new law is geared towards helping farmers with small landholdings, who have no need for tractors but a crucial need for bullocks, he says.

But there is a serious flaw in Bhandari’s argument: farmers do not sell their cattle only because of drought. Mostly they do so because the animals have outlived their utility. The money they get from butchers — between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 per animal — helps them buy young cattle. What will the farmer now do when his cattle gets old? Will the cattle shelters pay him for them?

And, are there so many cattle shelters? Surprisingly, neither Bhandari nor Dubey see a role for the government in setting up a network of such shelters. Both say that is the responsibility of society, and point out that a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are already running go-shalas and panjrapoles across the country, with more willing to donate land.

But it is not just land that is needed for cattle shelters. They need copious amounts of water and fodder. According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Animal Husbandry’s report of 2013–14, fodder shortage in the country ranges from 35% to 57%; and Maharashtra is not exactly a state plentiful in water supply.

Counterproductive Law

The new law could actually be counter-productive, says Muhammad Ali Qureshi, President, Mumbai Suburban Beef Dealers’ Association. One unforeseen outcome could well be a decline in bull population. He argues,

Once the use of an animal goes down, its population too declines. So the population of horses has declined, as there are no buyers for them unlike earlier. The population of cows has also declined as it’s difficult to sell them.

Given these realities, the agro-economy argument can be discarded. What remains is only the faith argument. Mumbai’s butchers — the trade is dominated by Qureshis — were the first to understand this. Every one of them ascribed the decision to “vote bank politics.”

In the run-up to the last Lok Sabha elections, a large number of Mumbai’s Muslims, traditional Congress voters, wanted to go with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). However, what stopped them from shifting their votes was the whisper campaign that if the BJP came to power (since AAP was sure to lose), they would not be allowed to sacrifice bulls on Bakr Eid, a festival already fraught with tensions between Muslims and the Vishva Hindu Parishad’s Go-Raksha Dals.

The Congress lost anyway, and this whisper campaign has come true even before Bakr Eid. As they slaughter the stock of bulls still lying with them, the butchers of Madanpura, the old Muslim area with its rows of beef-dealers, swear that the BJP will not get a single Muslim vote next time.

That does not bother the BJP. “How many of them vote for us anyway?” asks Bhandari and answers, “5%–6%?.” When he is reminded that after last year’s assembly elections, he had gloated that for the first time in Maharashtra, the BJP had received 13% of the Muslim vote, Bhandari says that the vote was not uniformly distributed across the state. Besides, those that did vote knew this was part of the party manifesto.

Indeed, not all Muslims may be angry with this ban, especially those who switched over to this party for the first time because of Narendra Modi’s appeal and their disgust with the Congress. Konkani Muslims, for instance, do not generally eat beef; fish being their staple diet, says Faquir Mohammed Thakur, convenor of the Maharashtra Muslim Sangh which campaigned for the BJP. Most affected will be the Qureshis and the Khatiks, traditional butchers. Though a number of young Qureshis have of late taken to education, many of the older generation, and the poorest, carry on with their family occupation. Asked Nisaar Qureshi, active among the community in Santacruz, “What do I do at this age? I am 60, I have daughters to marry off.”

Other beef-eating communities: Christian, Dalits, nomadic tribes, can also be ignored by the BJP for future electoral calculations. “This is not a Dalit issue at all; what Dalit leaders say have no connection with what their community thinks,” asserts Bhandari confidently, adding: “Leaving aside the North East, beef is not part of the staple diet anywhere in India.”

While the political damage may be marginal (“English newspapers always make a noise about such things”), the political gain, on the other hand, may be considerable. The BJP’s core voter will be thrilled. “Come elections, they are bound to ask us why we asked for this ban during Congress rule and did nothing when in power,” explains Bhandari.

External Economies of Beef

Ancillary industries such as beef tallow and pharmaceuticals are perhaps too small to count, though for sure, leather is not. Leather exports accounted for $4.86 billion in 2011–12. But Bhandari dismissed the fear that the industry would suffer by saying that only the elite can afford real leather; the market in Maharashtra is for artificial leather. Significantly, on exports, be they of beef or leather, he had nothing to say.

Finally, what about farmers? What do they do now with their old cattle?

What do farmers of other states — Uttar Pradesh (UP), Delhi, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana — which have similar bans do? Not much, it seems. In UP, villages tend to be dominated by one community, says a Qureshi in Mumbai who has retained his ancestral links with UP, “Few outsiders can get in there; so a Muslim village carries on cutting bulls and the meat manages to reach the city.” This is not the situation in Maharashtra, where different communities coexist in villages, albeit in ghettos. Cattle from states such as neighbouring Gujarat, and even Rajasthan, are transported into Maharashtra. What this ban will do is send Maharashtra’s bulls to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. “Finally, all roads lead to West Bengal and Kerala,” laughs Dubey — states where no complete ban exists even on cow slaughter. Adds Mohammad Ali Qureshi, “Our cattle finally get smuggled into Bangladesh and Pakistan, where demand is very high. And we remain deprived of it!”

The question arises, why cannot butchers as well as beef-eaters switch to buffalo meat? “It’s a matter of taste,” says Mohammad Ali Qureshi, and beef-eaters agree. “It is like switching to sheep after eating goat; or to singara (river) fish from pomfret. If forced to, we shall have to; but it could take two years to establish the supply chain.” Currently, buffalo meat constitutes only 25% of local consumption, though beef exports are only of buffalo meet. India is the world’s biggest exporter of buffalo meat. Buffalo meat is also twice the price of other beef, and with the new law, its price will only go up.

Challenges

The basic question however remains: in a secular country, why should people be forced to change their food habits only because of their rulers’ religious beliefs?

Can the law be challenged? The Supreme Court in 2005 upheld a similar Gujarat law as being in public interest, accepting the Gujarat government’s arguments that cattle were the backbone of India’s agriculture, and that the Directive Principles of the Constitution were as important as fundamental rights (Article 48 urges the State to prohibit the slaughter of cows, calves and other milch and draught cattle).

What of protests on the street? Mumbai’s Muslims are wary of such protests, given the violence that erupted during the Azad Maidan rally called to protest atrocities against Muslims in Myanmar and Assam in 2012. A Police Commissioner lost his job because he handled the mob with restraint — a bitter lesson the community has not forgotten. A joint protest of all those affected may be more effective, but that requires a lot of organising, given that Mumbaikars are notoriously wary of coming out on the streets, and also that at least one beef-eating community — Christians — rarely gets into agitation mode.

What could do the trick is a farmers’ protest. But they are far away from the state capital — out of sight, out of mind. And given the religious dimensions of the issue, only a bold politician could take the initiative to mobilise them. Will the discontent arising from this ban then remain a Muslim issue? Or, will ways be found to circumvent it, leading to greater corruption and suffering for all concerned, including the animals?