The Economics Of Cow Slaughter

But in this manifest sea of irritating homogeneity across parties, the BJPs election manifesto does manage to raise at least one serious issue which has a bearing on the daily life of all meat-eating mortals. The issue is so germane to real life that it has even got the apolitical Mumbaite all agitated. The gastronome in Mumbai is deeply hurt by BJPs renewed promise to enforce a ban on cow slaughter.

As posed by the BJP, the issue has been slightly misunderstood. It is not an issue in gastronomics but in hard core macroeconomics. It, of course, doesnt fall in the realm of either the real or the monetary economy, but belongs to the domain of the bovine economy. The bovine economy, in terms of its sectoral inter-relationships, is closely linked to the real side though its relationship with the monetary side is a little weak.

 

Unlike the real and the monetary analysis, issues in the bovine economy are handled with a lot of sophistication and analytical rigour. Consider the case of the bovine census. The methodology is not the simplistic head count, as used in the population census. Instead, the exacting method opted for the bovine census is to first count the number of legs. This estimate is then divided by four to arrive at the number of total bovine population in the country. What is more, bovine experts are not satisfied with this method, and like all exacting statisticians, put in a caveat to the effect that some rounding off of the estimates has been necessary in arriving at the estimates. The high analytical standards set in the analysis of the bovine economy are only matched by those used in capital theory. This is largely due to the fact that at the centre of both is the concept of capital.

The core of the bovine economy is a type of capital called the cow. It is an economic asset, sui generis as it combines the characteristics of all forms of known capital. First, let us describe it in terms of the use-based classification. It is a pure capital good. The basic definition of a capital good is that it produces other goods. A cow produces all types of dairy products which in the two-digit Annual Survey of Industries classification comes under food products. So it is a capital good that produces consumer goods. It also produces an intermediate good: fertiliser in the form of manure. So it is a machine that produces intermediate commodities. But that is not all, it is also a machine which reproduces. It thus makes machines to make machines which make consumer and intermediate goods. It is in this sense a machine tool or a mother capital good the most valuable form of an economic asset. At a theoretical level, it shows the malleability of capital which the conventional economists are still

struggling to define in their analytical constructs.

It is with this kind of an implicit understanding of the issue that the BJP has made the proposal to ban cow slaughter. In a capital scarce economy, destruction of capital can be least afforded. Especially at a time when industry is in a recession. The BJP, to be sure, is not in the least concerned about the religious dimensions that the pseudo-secularists are imparting to this demand of theirs. Those are only incidental to the issue. The BJPs sole motive in banning cow slaughter is to protect the fast eroding productive base of the national economy. Thus, if we take care of the cow, GDP, exports, poverty and indeed the rupee will take care of itself. Long ago, V M Dandekar, the legendary economist, called it the cow dung economics. This the model that India needs in its 10th plan to achieve the target growth of 8 to 9 per cent set by the BJP in its manifesto.