Reverse cattle trade ban

Supreme Court provides an opportunity to Centre

Last month, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court (HC) directed that the central government’s notification effectively banning the cattle trade nationwide should be stayed for four weeks. Two months ago, the Union ministry of environment and forests had released the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017. These rules sharply restricted the trade in livestock as well as the transport of cattle to animal markets. Supposedly issued to address smuggling and to prevent cruelty to animals, they amounted to a ban in trading any cattle, including buffaloes, for slaughter at markets. Normally, high court directions are applicable nationwide, but given the doubts expressed in this case, it is welcome that the Supreme Court has explicitly indicated the stay applies to all states. Responding to a petition that sought to avoid confusion about the applicability of the Madras HC stay, Chief Justice of India J S Khehar specifically ordered that “the stay is extended to the whole of the country”. Counsel for the central government indicated that the ministry of environment and forests was considering possible changes to the cattle trading rules, and that they might be re-notified after that process was complete.

The Centre should grab this opportunity with both hands. Its new rules on the cattle trade were justifiably seen as encroaching on states’ rights and as an extension of a social agenda on cow slaughter into a new domain. The new rules, as when they are notified, should return the situation to the status quo ante. The ministry might be tempted to split the difference and just rewrite the ban to explicitly exclude buffaloes. Certainly, the leather industry and the bovine meat export business will be granted some relief by that step. But that will not be enough, even if the issue is examined purely from an economic standpoint. A ban on the cow trade, it is now amply clear, makes no sense. It reduces the value of cows to farmers. The dilemma for farmers on what to do with the animals that have outlived their utility is very real. Abandonment and starvation are hardly less cruel than the slaughter that the rules purported to address. Nor is it right to cause, at a stroke, many farmers’ primary asset to so strongly lose value. Finally, the political implications of the ban should have become clear. It creates divisions between states, which is unhealthy for the Union of India and gives beef-eating states that hosted a vibrant cow trade the sense that the Centre fully intended to intrude upon their rights and their traditional practices. In the long term, such a feeling would only lead to alienation between various parts of the country, to the detriment of the national interest.

It is time for the government to think beyond its constituency politics and social agenda. For economic reasons alone the ban must go. There is certainly a suggestion, given the government’s arguments to the Supreme Court, that a rethink is on. But that rethink must not be partial. It must be comprehensive. If it is, it will become clear that nothing less than completely dropping this ill-conceived proposal is satisfactory.