The state of cows

Slaughter bans do not help protect cattle

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With Maharashtra and Haryana taking fresh legislative initiatives to ban cow slaughter and beef consumption, a highly emotive, albeit contentious, issue that had long remained muted has needlessly been raked up again. Maharashtra has extended an existing slaughter ban to cover bulls and bullocks as well through the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (amendment) Bill. Passed by the previous BJP-Shiv Sena government, it has finally received the President's formal assent. In Haryana also, slaughtering of cattle (including bulls, bullocks, oxen, heifers and calves) had already been proscribed under the Punjab Prohibition of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955, that applied to the whole erstwhile state of Punjab, of which Haryana was a part. The new law has extended the ban even to the sale of canned beef - which was permitted earlier - and made its violation a non-bailable offence. In fact, most Indian states have some kind of anti-slaughter regulations in place.

However, regardless of these provisions, the ground reality is that beef is available - openly or clandestinely - in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai where legal and illegal animal slaughter houses exist in large numbers. In many other towns, too, cow meat is available in the guise of buffalo meat which is not a banned item. Aged and unproductive cattle are usually abandoned by their owners or get picked up by the cattle traders for illegal butchering - or roam about, uncared for, on city streets. During droughts, when fodder turns scarce, cows are usually the first animals to be discarded by the affected population. The translocation of older and non-productive cattle to Kerala or other destinations for slaughtering is also fairly common.

Thus, barring placating religious sentiments, the new-found enthusiasm about curbing cow slaughter is unlikely to serve any gainful purpose. They are unlikely to make conditions for cattle any more humane. Further, they hurt India's thriving animal husbandry sector which has made India the world's largest milk producer and the second largest beef exporter. Also at stake is ordinary Indians' access to relatively cheaper meat - remember, vast parts of this country, including many Hindus, eat beef - and the livelihood of lakhs of people engaged in beef production and trade. Animal husbandry experts feel that the existence of large population of stray, dry or low-yielding cattle is an avoidable drain on the country's fodder resources. Culling of under-performing animals has, indeed, been a normal practice the world over. This is part of the process of genetic improvement through selection which has been used with great advantage in India as well in the case of buffaloes and other milch animals. That explains why India has the world's best breeds of buffaloes. That also explains why, unlike cattle, buffaloes are seldom seen wandering around as stray animals. Indeed, but for the religious taboo attached to cow slaughter, India wouldn't have had to rely on exotic bulls or semen to upgrade its local cow breeds through crossbreeding - a key strategy that paved the way for the white revolution.