Anti Slaughter Rules

• The Government of India's innocuous sounding amendment, ‘Restrictions on sale of cattle’ promises to be the final death knell of cattle and buffaloes in India, and along with them, the destruction of what little remains of a dignified life and livelihood for farmers.
• The rules defines ‘cattle’ to mean “cow, calf, bull, bullock, buffalo, heifer, steer and camel”.
• The notification is another instance of the ‘mischievous and deceptive’ law-making practice involving camouflaging a controversial provision with seemingly progressive and innocuous provisions in order to deceive and mislead the general public.
• The notifications breaks the steady supply of cattle to slaughter houses and operations and beef exporters.
• The rules will hurt mostly Muslim traders who face mounting violence by increasingly assertive cow vigilante groups. Farmers will also be hit because they will be deprived of a traditional source of income from selling non-milch and old cattle. Farmers who can't take care of their cattle will have to pay for their upkeep in shelters.
• The move introduces lots of paperwork for cow traders who are mostly poor and illiterate. Before the trade, both seller and buyer will have to produce identity and farmland ownership documents. After buying a cow, a trader must make five copies of proof of sale and submit them at the local revenue office, the local veterinary doctor in the district of the purchaser, animal market committee, apart from one each for seller and buyer. An insanity at its best!
• Slaughtering means 'the act of killing or butchering of livestock for market';
  Cruelty means 'disposed to inflict pain or suffering'.
• By equating ‘slaughter’ with 'cruelty' and criminalizing the trading of animals for slaughter at animal markets as an act of cruelty, the central government has enforced a country-wide ban on the slaughter of buffaloes and cattle, leather industry and the consumption of beef.
• These new rules choke the free movement of animals via the markets undermining the freedom and rights of farmers, traders and all others whose livelihoods are linked to this production cycle that sustains cattle and buffaloes of this country.
• It is pertinent to note that the Act does not prevent slaughtering of animals. The Act permits destruction or killing of animals for the purposes of food on the condition that such destruction was not accompanied by unnecessary pain and suffering. Slaughter houses which slaughters 90% of cattle, sources cattle from middlemen & animal markets which will now become defunct with this ban order.
• The dairy farmer's life and livelihood are at stake because 40% of a dairy farm’s income is derived from the sale of unproductive cows & buffaloes.
• The assumptions that (i) there is always a farmer ready to purchase another’s cow or bullock and (ii) a farmer will be willing to retain or buy an unproductive cow, buffalo or bullock are totally false. 
• During drought times, everyone looks to sell their cows and bullocks for want of water and fodder and the farmers gets a reasonable price in the market because of traders involved in the trade of animals for slaughter.
• Indian beef is in great demand in the world market because it is cheaper and India is the largest beef exporter.
  - Meat exports are over 1.3 million tonnes per annum of which 95% is beef..
  - Meat exports industry is Rs.27,000 crores pa.
  - Leather market is estimated at Rs.40,000 crores pa.
  - Dairying is Rs.80,000 crores pa.
  - Cattle trading is the livelihood of about 15 million Muslims.
  - About 35 million people depend on slaughtering, beef & leather industry.
  - In all, 50 million people are dependent on cattle related businesses.
  - Majority of rural population supplement their meager incomes with dairying.
  - Most workers in leather industry are Dalits.
  - Only 10% of buffaloes heads for slaughter houses.
• The number of animals in milk - cows & buffaloes are about 100 million. Out of which approximately 10% i.e. 10 million unproductive cows & buffaloes are slaughtered every year. With this ban, who will provide grass & feed to this 10 million unproductive cows & buffaloes? There is no mention  about this in Modi's ban order.
• Slaughtering and the markets for beef and leather, complements dairying. Farmers rear cattle for dairy or as work animals, and when they become non-productive, the have value for its beef and skin used for leather. Beef is a by-product of dairying and draught, is another aspect of livestock economy.
• If today the slaughter of cattle and buffaloes is considered an act of cruelty, then it will be only a matter of time before the sale for slaughter of sheep, goats and poultry will also be forbidden. With the food preferences of the majority of citizens who eat meat and a massive number of livelihoods at stake, this highly contentious interpretation of cruelty needs to be interrogated and challenged.
• While Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the US are waiting to dump large volumes of subsidized milk powder into India, and Indian dairy cooperatives fighting hard to stop this, it is extremely foolish of the government to literally kill dairying in the name of animal welfare.
• Instead of creating 20 million jobs per annum, Modi is destroying informal sector which provides mass employment with his mindless and sadistic decisions.
• This Modi's senseless order is not sustainable and will be revoked. The earlier is better to contain damages. Already Madras High Court has issued 'Stay Order' few days ago. 
• This is another classic example of 'quack' advised policy decisions by Modi. No expert in the field of Animal Husbandry, Dairying or official in Ministry for Rural Development etc will recommend this type of insane decisions.

My View:

While ban on cow slaughter is understandable for Hindu religious sentiment reasons, altogether banning cattle slaughtering is utterly unwarranted. While cruelty is inhuman, slaughtering of cattle is not. Unproductive cattle, if not slaughtered and unfed will die in due course suffering hunger and pain. When the Act expressly permits slaughter of animals for food, rules imposing a ban on sale of cattle for slaughter is untenable. The Rules harm many by infringing their rights and benefit none, except certain animals, upon whom no explicit fundamental rights are conferred by the Constitution. Modi with his another quack advised cattle ban order has unleashed death warrant on Farmers and Muslims and is attempting forcing the nation to become vegetarian directly interfering with personal food choices of people and destroying millions of jobs. While the Centre is empowered to frame rules, implementation of the regulation of livestock falls under the State government’s ambit and rules can't violate the Act.

Muslims in India are second class citizens

The song 'Sare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamara' was an instant hit when Sir Muhammad Iqbal, or Allama Iqbal, wrote it in 1904. Late he became an ardent supporter of a Muslim homeland. Iqbal died in 1938, two years before the Muslim League adopted the resolution for Pakistan in Lahore in 1940, but he was honored as the spiritual founder and national poet of the new nation when it came into being in August 1947.

In early 20th century Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. Muslims faced defeat and humiliation everywhere. Muslims in India have been suffering in many ways. Yet, they are proud Indians and love India as much as any other Indian community. Politics was only one facet of the man. Many Muslims feared that since democracy was about numbers, the Hindu majority would dominate Indian politics, culture and society and Muslims would be slowly marginalized and obliterated from India. If you objectively see the conditions of Muslims in India today, you will feel that is exactly what has happened.

Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world. There were 1.6 billion Muslims in the world as of 2010 i.e. 23% of the global population. The world's population is projected to grow 35% in the coming decades, the Muslims are expected to grow by 73% to 2.8 billion in 2050. Majority of the Muslims i.e. 62% live in the Asia-Pacific region i.e. Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey etc. Indonesia is currently the country with the world's largest Muslim population with 203 million (87% of population), but India will have that distinction by the year 2050, with more than 300 million Muslims.

It is illogical & undemocratic to compare societal parameters in proportion to population. Yet the abysmal low shares enjoyed by Muslims in India, in all walks of life, cause heart burns and social unrest in future can't be ruled out. Muslims shares in India:

• Population: 17.22 Crores i.e.14.23%
• Armed forces: 3%
• IAS & IPS: 3.65%
• Bureaucracy 2.5%.
• Central Organisations: 6.24%
• Railways: 5%
• Banking: 3.5%
• Judiciary: 6.26%
• Police Chiefs: 0.1%
• Muslim convicts in jails 15.8% 
• Under-trial Muslims in jails 20.9%
• Per capita daily spend Rs 32.66 (Sikhs Rs 55.30, Hindus Rs 37.50, Christians Rs 51.43)
• Illiteracy: 42.7% ( 36.4% Hindus, 32.5% Sikhs 28.2%, Christians 25.6%)
• Below Poverty Line: 31% (SC/ST 35%, OBC 21%, OBC General 8.7%, Overall 22.7%)
• Fair price shop licences: 6.94%
• Antyodaya Anna Yojana Scheme beneficiaries: 1.9%
• Low income houses allotted: 2.86%
• Working people: 33% (Overall 40%, Sikhs 36%, Buddhists/Dalits 43%, Hindus 41%) 
• Women working: 15% (Sikhs 15%, Jains 12%, Hindus 27%, Christians 31%, Buddhists 33%)
• Rural land holding: 11%
• Women divorced: 23.3% (Hindus 68%)
• Men divorced: 12.7% (Hindus 76%)
• Tractors owned: 2.1%

Marginalization of Muslims in India is a harsh reality. Muslims are poorly represented in public employment, occupying only six per cent of state government jobs, four per cent in the central government, three per cent in the Indian Administrative Services and less than one per cent in senior bureaucratic posts. These empirical surveys and data depict how Muslims as a religious minority have been marginalized in the history of Indian formation. The issues of discrimination, exclusion and marginalization of Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular is complex but a serious matter of concern. But discrimination in every society exists and all people suffer discrimination in some form or other. In the communal–ridden society of India, most of the employers, industrialists and middlemen are Hindus, whereas most Muslims work as employees, workers and artisans. This ominous development has posed a great threat to the Indian Muslims and quest of survival. Muslim women in urban India are much worse off than their rural counterparts, in terms of their overall educational status compared to Hindu or Christian women. Since Muslim Indians share an economic and educational predicament with their vulnerable non-Muslim fellow citizens, therefore, economic and educational welfare are the predominant concerns in the process of democratization of Muslims.

After 9/11, the West unleashed its 'War On Terror.' The victims were mostly Muslims. For over a decade now, there is a general mood of doom and gloom among Muslims. In India too, the rise of right wing Hindu nationalists have made Muslims uncomfortable. Riots, framing innocent Muslims in terror plots, encounter killings, ghettoisation etc, Muslims in India have been suffering in many ways. Yet, they are proud Indians and love India as much as any other Indian community. 

Muslim leaders fought to get equal constitutional rights for Muslims and they failed. The Congress never accepted this idea of separate electorates on the principle that India would be a secular State and Muslims need not worry about it. Nehru's secularism and socialism stands defeated in India. The Congress's secularism turned out to be fake. During partition, the heaviest migration of Muslims that took place were from upper and middle strata of society. If Muslims have been a Congress appeased vote bank since 1947, why are they still backward?

In India, Muslims face communal violence and risk political exclusion because of Hindu majoritarianism, which is gaining ground in the country. While Hindu nationalist groups are waging a concerted campaign against all religious minorities in their efforts to Hinduise India, Islamist forces are doing the same and even worse to religious minorities on this side of the border. After Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, Hindu domination is complete in India. The tokenism of Congress is over. 

The ban on beef trading by Maharashtra government and closing of unauthorized slaughter houses in UP will disproportionately harm poor Muslims working in meat and leather industries. The spatial segregation of Muslims in urban areas makes them more insecure and vulnerable during communal riots. After the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, the state too has contributed to this sense of marginalisation by targeting Muslim men who face human rights abuses during siege and search operations carried out under the pretext of anti-terrorism operations, both within and outside the confines of the law. 

Elite Muslims are comfortable in both countries. Like most poor of the world, it is the poor Muslims in India and Pakistan that face most of the challenges, from education to healthcare to job opportunities. With education & prosperity, all sorts of discrimination will diminish over time. Muslims in India need to work hard to better their lot, and not just blame the government for their pitiable state. Muslims must organize themselves in India and look after their needs, otherwise they will be forced to exist on the margins of society and will be forced to learn to live as second class citizens of the State.

It is safer in India to be a cow than a Muslim ... Shashi Tharoor

My View:
Every person belongs to a minority group, with varying criterion. A Hindu Brahmin belongs to minority of castes. Telugu speaking people are a linguistic minority compared to Hindi speaking people. There are linguistic minorities in every other linguistic state. Since our society is primarily polarized based on religion, religious minorities gains significance especially at the time of elections. In Punjab, Hindus(38%) are minority with Sikhs(58%) are in majority. In India, J&K is the only state with Muslim population being majority at 68% whereas Hindus are 28%. But in Kashmir valley Muslims are over 96%. Minorities exist in all walks of life in all parts of the country. Hence it is the responsibility of the governments to protect minorities and ensure their well being. Social problems are born mostly by poorer classes and to some extent by middle classes where as rich are comfortable everywhere. Thus minority protection is a must as long as poverty & illiteracy are existing. Once poverty & illiteracy are eradicated all protections could be abolished and country can become a 'True Democracy' in letter and spirit with merit as the sole criterion and national achievements would be at its best.

It remains to be seen if India’s democracy can withstand the religious and fascist forces that seem to reign supreme now. The benefits of education, health, employment and enterprise were yet to reach around 100 million Muslims and India as a country cannot grow if Muslims and other marginalised populations are left behind.

Modi’s Perilous Embrace of Hindu Extremists

By New York Times Editorial Board March 23, 2017

Since he was elected in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has played a cagey game, appeasing his party’s hardline Hindu base while promoting secular goals of development and economic growth. Despite worrying signs that he was willing to humor Hindu extremists, Mr. Modi refrained from overtly approving violence against the nation’s Muslim minority.

On Sunday, Mr. Modi revealed his hand. Emboldened by a landslide victory in recent elections in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, his party named a firebrand Hindu cleric, Yogi Adityanath, as the state’s leader. The move is a shocking rebuke to religious minorities, and a sign that cold political calculations ahead of national elections in 2019 have led Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to believe that nothing stands in the way of realizing its long­held dream of transforming a secular republic into a Hindu state.

Mr. Adityanath has made a political career of demonizing Muslims, thundering against such imaginary plots as “love jihad”: the notion that Muslim men connive to water down the overwhelming Hindu majority by seducing Hindu women. He defended a Hindu mob that murdered a Muslim man in 2015 on the suspicion that his family was eating beef, and said Muslims who balked at performing a yoga salutation to the sun should “drown themselves in the sea.” Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people, badly needs development, not ideological showmanship. The state has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Nearly half of its children are stunted. Educational

outcomes are dismal. Youth unemployment is high.

Mr. Adityanath has sounded the right notes, saying, “My government will be for everyone, not specifically for any caste or community,” and promising to make Uttar Pradesh “the dreamland” of Mr. Modi’s development model.

But the appointment shows that Mr. Modi sees no contradiction between economic development and a muscular Hindu nationalism that feeds on stoking anti­ Muslim passions. Mr. Modi’s economic policies have delivered growth, but not jobs. India needs to generate a million new jobs every month to meet employment demand. Should Mr. Adityanath fail to deliver, there is every fear that he — and Mr. Modi’s party — will resort to deadly Muslim­ baiting to stay in power, turning Mr. Modi’s dreamland into a nightmare for India’s minorities, and threatening the progress that Mr. Modi has promised to all of its citizens.

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE

My View:

Modi has cheated people of UP with his cunningness and charisma by not declaring CM face prior to elections. Had he declared Yogi Adityanath as CM candidate ahead of polls, probably all secular forces (SP, Cong & BSP) would have been compelled to form 'Grand Allaince' and BJP would not have won more than 60-70 seats. Elections are all about falsehoods, strategies (read cheating) and narratives (read charisma) rather than principles, truths and realities.