Beef-Baffle: Bovine (Cow) Politics Part II

India is totally baffled about beef in the current days. People are having feast with beef in public. Why how-off? Does it mean that they are not actually enjoying the beef-meat, rather are enjoying the fact that they're able to sensitize many other people who don't believe in eating beef from religious viewpoint? In that case, the enjoyment of food is being futile. These in-public-beef-eaters are also indirectly endorsing  the so called BeefBan. Good enough that they're doing this. Too much objections means endorsement. Too much negativity is also the other side of positivity. In India the so called protest against the so called BeefBan has, hence, turned into a hoax.

Cases were filed against the Central Government stating that they brought a ban on selling & eating beef which is unconstitutional as it goes against the 'right to eat' of people etc in three High Courts of the country; Kerala, Madras & Rajasthan. Out of these three, only Kerala HC brought forward the correct points on this issue, that there is NO BAN ON EITHER SELLING OR EATING BEEF-MEAT. Governmental standpoint about the cattle industry & the beef business is not really restrictive but regulatory. Government of India doesn't want to put a complete ban on beef but to put some rational regulations on beef business & cattle industry.

I suppose many people at this moment are pondering on why suddenly beef became such a National issue. I personally searched for the real objective of the bovine politics of India. Many people are jumping into a conclusion that the present Government is a hindu-fanatic one who forcefully wants to impose a ban on beef on religious ground. However, I found the real reason of bovine politics to be not so simple, not so straightforward. Rather there are grave economic causes behind such regulatory steps of the Government in the cattle industry.

The cattles are utilized in Indian scenario for 3 different purposes; milking, agriculture & meat-production. What happens in reality is that the owners of cattle-sheds for producing milk, sell off their old cattles, e.g. cows & buffaloes when they are unable to produce sufficient milk, to  intermediaries. They say that approximately 40% of a cattle-business turnover comes from selling off old cattles.

These intermediaries or middlemen mostly lack any legal identity & who again sell the animals to illegal trafficking agents of cattles who carry these cattles off across Indo-Bangladesh border illegally where they are slaughtered recklessly & hence are converted into meat. The meat is sold overseas as well as inland at a relatively much cheaper rate.  The money, earned by selling these bovine assets of India in Bangladesh, are 'black-money' which enters & circulates in Indian Economy weakening the fair & 'white-economy' of India. Cattle smuggling, thus, runs a strong, parallel economy in India & causes a continuous pilferage of money through this loophole, strengthening the neighbouring economy & also  the  terrorists.

Sometimes the money earned in lieu of selling cattle-meat is converted into illegal arms getting supplied to terrorists on Indian land.  Thus the meaty business makes the whole environment full of very pungent smell. Thinking more from the economic angle, the cattles born & brought up & grown old for milking in India, at the cost of Indian money, goes out of Indian economy without letting the country use its 'go-dhan' to the fullest extent. This is sheer loss for India & why should the people of India bear that loss?

The meat thus produced is also sold in India making cheap-availability of beef & buff meat in the country which are eaten by relatively poor people who otherwise can't afford good quality meat from legal slaughter-houses of India. The legal slaughter houses buy & rear the animals in a healthy way as per specifications for the very purpose of export-quality meat production. India's meat-export are from these slaughter houses & Government had put no restrictions on them other than their legal sanctity. So purchase of meat from there, is costlier & healthier. So the poor people of India can't afford to eat them.

Government is asking the legal cattlemen to take the cattle assets to legal places if they want to sell them off due to their non-productivity in milk industry.

The saddest & the most pathetic part of this cattle-smuggling is the cruelty with which the smugglers treat the cattles in the transition period before they're slaughtered. They dump them tight into insufficient space, unhealthy environment & often don't feed them. They consider the live cattles as already dead as they plan to slaughter them for meat. This inhuman mindset of these cattle-smugglers is the most objectionable thing. Due to such ill-treatment & cruelty towards the old cattles, the animas often be sick & terribly distressed. Government wants to stop this unrestrained practice of cruelty against animals. It is notifying the cattlemen to sell their old cattles through fair & legal channels like the State Livestock Operating Board & Dairy Co-operatives. Every State of India has such bodies under the corresponding State Governments. Government of India is banking on its federal democratic structure to streamline the cattle channel as it is expecting the corresponding State Governmental bodies to function in cohesion & practice its power to help the cattlemen to do their business legally, fairly & on the right track.

Government of India notified the cattlemen that if they take their old cattles to open market for sale, they'll have to declare that they are selling the animal for agricultural purpose and not for slaughtering, submitting required Aadhaar (identity) documents of both the saleable livestock as well as of the seller & the buyer too. The objective of the Government, hence, is clear. It wants to keep a close invigilation on cattle handling in India as the country is loosing a lot of money through this cattle-channel as well as enormous atrocity & cruelty is being done towards the bovine animals. This is not only illegal, but also inhuman.

Moreover, the smugglers keep the cattles often unfed & in sickening, disastrous condition in the transition period between purchase & slaughter. So the meat thus produced by illegal trafficking & reckless killing of smuggled cattles beyond the Indian border or illegal slaughter of  cattles on the indigenous land doesn't be quite healthy & often are not strictly fit for consumption as per specifications. So what's wrong if Government wants to stop the availability of such poor quality meat for the consumers of India? If one wants to have meat, let them have the proper & costlier meat. Now one can say that how would the poor people afford such costly meat?

Surely they can't & hence would have to resort to some other food-option, because for taste & desire, health can't be compromised. A huge section of India's human resources take refuge to such cheap-quality, unhealthy meat & also do suffer from different diseases. Why should we admit that? If a huge section of our people are suffering, they gradually are very prone to spread those diseases even involuntarily. So availability of such cheap, unhealthy meat being restricted is an example of good governance by the Government of India. I wonder, why wasn't it done so far?

However, if the milk-wise unproductive cattles are disposed properly & legally through State Governmental bodies, then, even if they are slaughtered to produce meat in the legal slaughter houses of the  State, the price of healthy, good meat would gradually fall as availability of good & legal meat will rise. So gradually the poor people also would be able to afford them. And the Government would be able to breathe a sigh of relief that they are able to provide quality food even to those people who are economically not so well off & at the same time, Government (i.e. the people of the State) also wouldn't lose economically. Raw-food-material-standardization is a desired Governmental step for any developing country which wants to flourish & prosper as good quality raw-food-material is the key to good health & good health is the greatest wealth of any country & its people.

So beef was NOT banned as Kerala HC stated. Poor quality, cheap beef-meat would not be available in future in India & I, as an Indian, believe that every rational & sensible citizen of India would accept that non-availability wholeheartedly.

However, I must say that the Governmental set up & infrastructure for livestock handling, selling, reselling etc should be much more developed with bigger & better 'gau-shalas' for assisting the cattle-business-persons to facilitate easier & faster selling of their old livestock & also for easier purchase of new livestock by the cattlemen. Government should also have sufficient research to find out what is the exact annual requirement of 'go-dhan' of our country, so that the cattle-population doesn't explode. We should have the desired number & turnover of cattles as per their birth & mortality rate. Excessive number of cattles would also weaken the Governmental control. It is the responsibility of the Government (each State Government as well as the Central one) to see that the cattle-business, in spite of some initial staggers, doesn't suffer even in short future. Regulations are welcome, along with facilities. Even if facilities be a bit delayed, Indian Economy & people would wait a bit for the time being.

Moreover, in the name of Cow-vigilantism, a group of hooligans are taking a toll on people in different places. Government has to be vigilant upon them too, especially to find out who they really are!

So, not to be trapped in this beef-baffle. Everybody is politicizing the issue. The real reason is nothing but sheer economic & health-concern.