International practice of stunning animals before slaughter, compulsory in Europe and Australia, is not followed in India, since Gulf countries want only halal meat. Buffalo and cow meat from India is popular in South-East Asian and Gulf countries, as it is ‘lean’
In the run-up to the lok Sabha election last year, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi slammed the then United Progressive Alliance Government for launching a ‘Pink Revolution’ by promoting slaughter houses and export of meat through subsidies and tax breaks.
Addressing a rally at Nawada in Bihar on April 2, Mr Modi said to thunderous applause from the audience, “This country wants a Green Revolution. But now those at the Centre, want a Pink Revolution. Do you know what it meansIJ When animals are slaughtered, the colour of their flesh is pink. Animals are being slaughtered and being taken to Bangladesh. The Government in Delhi is giving subsidies to those who are carrying out this slaughter.”
Indeed, the UPA Government’s Pink Revolution to promote meat production and export, led to a 44 per cent increase in meat consumption and export in four years, making India the world’s top exporter of beef in 2012, and edging out Australia and New Zealand. Meat production from registered slaughter houses increased from 5.57 lakh tonnes in 2008 to 8.05 lakh tonnes in 2011. Export earnings from beef alone touched `17,400 crore in 2012-2013.
Following the BJP’s unprecedented victory in the lok Sabha poll, India’s meat sector was a worried lot, and it braced for additional controls. Animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi’s induction into the Council of Ministers only served to further fuel fears, as her non-governmental organisation had not only campaigned against animal slaughter for meat but also freed livestock from trains and lorries.However, six months down the line, meat exporters are a relaxed lot, with no indication from the new Government on any planned new restriction.
On the contrary, buffalo meat exports continue to soar, with the figure touching $4.35 billion as against last year’s exports worth $3.2 billion. In April alone, the figure reached $321 million. leading industry website, globalmeatnews.com, quoted a senior official from Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority under the Ministry of Commerce as saying, “There had been no change in the policy on exports indicated so far”, by the new Government ,and that there were “expectations of steady growth in the coming years”, as China and Russia were expected to open their markets for Indian bovine meat.
While the exporters are in a buoyant mood, animal rights and anti-meat export activists are up in arms over the increasing meat export and resultant loss to the country’s rural economy and rampant abuse of animals.
They argue that slaughtering of animals and export of meat are violating several key constitutional provisions such as Article 19(1)(g), by snatching away employment of lakhs of people who are dependent on cattle-related activities, Article 47 by making agriculture costly, food grains unaffordable and depriving nutrition to masses and Article 48A by destroying sheep which alone help in the natural growth of forests, and by disturbing ecological balance due to depleted cattle.
In fact, Article 48 categorically states that the State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.
The Animal Welfare Board of India in its 67th executive committee meeting in April 1994, recommended a ban on meat export, which was echoed by the law Commission in its 159th report in July 1998 and the National Commission on Cattle in its 2001 report.
Animal rights activists point out to rampant abuse of animals during transport and slaughter. The international practice of stunning an animal before slaughter, compulsory in Europe and Australia, is not followed in India, since Gulf countries want only halal-cut meat. Buffalo and cow meat from India is popular in South-East Asian and Gulf countries, as it is ‘lean and cheaper’.
Further, no attention is paid to global norms for veterinary care, feeding and watering during transport. Unscrupulous police personnel often let vehicles through check posts for a bribe without fining the culprits for overloading as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. According to Humane Society International, in slaughter houses, animals are killed in full view of one another. Animals are not killed outright, ‘but hammered to death’.
More often than not, what comes under the butcher’s knife are milch cattle, in several instances pregnant animals and calves. In many countries, an unborn calf is considered a delicacy and in order to prove that to the customers, often the mother’s udder is stitched inside them.
Another major concern is the rampant smuggling of cows from India, particularly to Bangladesh, often with the connivance of authorities. In a telling commentary, the los Angeles Times in 2010, said, “A dirty little secret that most Indian politicians don’t discuss is the thriving cow smuggling trade from their Hindu-majority nation, home of the sacred cow, to Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where many people enjoy a good steak. The trade is particularly robust around the Muslim festival of Eid.” According to rough estimates, 1.5 million cows, valued at up to $500 million, are smuggled annually, providing more than half the beef consumed in Bangladesh.
It is indeed a tragedy that the animals who provide milk, butter, ghee and other products from their birth to death are being systematically and mercilessly eliminated in this manner in a country known for its compassion and love for animals.
Apart from the appeal made on religious grounds, it also remains a fact that in a country with small land holdings and small scale farming, often leading to farmer suicides, there is no better alternative to employ cattle for farming and for using products such as cow dung to produce bio-gas and increase fertility of the land.
India has more than 6,00,000 villages, many of which do not have motorable roads and where oxen can pull the carts with ease. Interestingly, while Indian Railways transported 55.7 crore tonnes of goods in 2004-05, in the same year, the humble oxen carts reportedly transported 278.5 crore tonnes, of course, without causing air or noise pollution.
If cattles are utilised extensively instead of being slaughtered, they can substantially help in reducing annual subsidy of `1,30,000 crore given for chemical fertilisers and the `45,000 crore food subsidy, annual savings of thousands of crores of rupees spent on fuel in rural India and savings of huge foreign exchange reserve spent on import of chemical fertilisers, diesel and petrol.
Environmentalists worldwide say the world’s growing appetite for meat — especially in developing countries — contributes to water and land clearing and higher levels of greenhouse gases. To quote Sone Ekman of the Swedish Board of Agriculture, “It requires a lots of resources to produce meat compared to vegetable food products, so many resources that the production can lead to deforestation of rainforests in the world.” The Board even recommended a tax to reduce meat consumption and said such a levy should be adopted across the European Union. It is high time that the NDA Government sits up and takes note.
(The writer is senior fellow and editor, Vivekananda International Foundation)