Controversy over beef

A cow slaughter ban has many economic consequences

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah's dressing down of sundry party representatives, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma among them, for making inflammatory remarks about the Muslim community and beef consumption may put a damper on the spate of communal incidents that have roiled the national discourse over the past month. An outsourced reprimand that is a transparent damage-control exercise ahead of the elections in Bihar, where 17 per cent of the population is believed to be Muslim, is no substitute for an unequivocal condemnation of communalism by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is difficult to deny a direct link between the aggressive majoritarianism that the Sangh Parivar advocates and the violence of the past month, Indeed, Mr Modi may find his broader economic agenda of progress and development foundering on such a political ideology and nothing illustrates this better than the widening and violently imposed ban on beef consumption and sales.

It is clear that no local saffron politician has thought through the consequences of this draconian proscription that is likely to impact farming communities irrespective of their religious affiliation and a raft of industries. In fact, beef eating is a minor element of the cattle trade (for instance, exports are unlikely to be impacted since India exports only buffalo meat). As a cover story in India Today points out, from the skin to the horns, hooves, bones and hair, parts of the cow are used in a variety of industries: leather, toiletries, pharmaceuticals, even jewellery. Agricultural distress is the bigger dimension of the issue. Two years of consecutive droughts have left farmers in desperate straits, not least in Marathwada in Maharashtra, where farmer suicides are making a grisly comeback. Cattle-trading was one reliable income fall-back when crops failed; now, that route is being closed to thousands of farmers, who simply have to let cattle go when hard times fall, a solution that is cruel to human and animal alike and surely out of sync with the fervent love for the cow that the anti-beef brigade proclaims. Herds of stray cows on the National Capital Region roads have been testimony to this inhumane practice for some years and they add to the environmental problems that assail urban eco-system.

India's total cattle population already exudes about a sixth of the greenhouse gases from the world's livestock, according to India Today. Excretion from a growing population of stray, unculled cows will add to the crisis. Finally, a beef ban in states that are keen to attract foreign direct investment is likely to send out a wrong signal to prospective investors in India - whether Americans, Germans, Japanese or Chinese.