OUTLOOK MARCH 30 2015

MAHARASHTRA: BEEF BAN

Weve Got No Beef With You

The ban that threatens to rob the livelihood of millions across religions.
PRACHI PINGLAY-PLUMBER

While the ban on cow slaughter was already in place, the fresh ban on slaughter of male bovines (bulls
and bullocks) threatens to rob the livelihood of millions across religions in Maharashtra, Prachi PinglayPlumber discovers after speaking to a cross-section of people involved in the beef chainfrom farmers
to exporters. Even as the NDA government at the Centre seeks to circulate the Maharashtra Act as a
model act to states, experts have questioned the wisdom of the ban. Haryana, meanwhile, threatens to
treat cattle slaughter as murder and prescribe a life sentence for the offence. Meanwhile, as other BJPruled states prepared to follow the example, the partys government in Goa curiously scrambled to
augment supply of beef following complaints of shortage in the market.

Photograph by Amit Haralkar

No Money To Send Home This Month

A.Q. Gani Qureshi, shop owner
Mohammed Nabi Anwar, worker
His friends and colleagues start giggling and making fun of him as he poses nervously in the shop with
his butchers knife. But theres no meat to process. All of 22, Mohammad has been sending Rs 5,0006,000 to his family back home in Bihar for the past five years. He makes about Rs 300 per day working at
Gausia Beef Shop, in a congested bylane near Mahim bus depot. I can only do this work and make
around Rs 8,000-9,000 per month. I didnt study beyond Class V and came here to work as soon as I
turned 17. Now, I am getting only half the salary because there is no work, Mohammed says, unsure of
how long he can continue like this. We share a room in the basti and have to pay rent. Every day I need

money to eat. I dont think I am sending anything home this month, he says. Community elders are
worried the unemployed youth could turn to a life of crime if the situation doesnt improve.
If the workers (mostly migrants), are in dire state, the employers arent doing too well either. At the
National Beef Shop, nestled in Kashinath building at Kapad Bazar, Mahim, A.Q. Gani Qureshi stares
vacantly at his empty shop, with its sign saying high-quality beef since 1976. The licensed beef shops
do not sell any other meat.
Our customers are Christians, Dalits and Muslims...in that order. No one prefers buffalo meat because it
is harder and less nutritious. We sell meat at Rs 140-200 per kg (with bone or boneless). Contrast that
with mutton at Rs 450 per kg, Qureshi says, adding that his own family of 10 members is solely
dependent on this one shop, which sells about 70-80 kg per day. We ourselves do not slaughter female
cows and it is not allowed in Islam either, but no one is listening. Now it is risky to keep any meat, buffalo
or otherwise, even in the freezer. Who can chance it, being put in jail for this? But our customers ask
every day when we will resume business.

Photograph by Amit Haralkar

Most Beef Exporters Are Non-Muslims

Halim Qureshi
Wholesale supplier of beef
We have been in this business for generations and this is the first time something like this has
happened, says Halim Qureshi, owner of four shops in Mumbai. Every week, on Monday and Friday,
Halimbhai makes a trip to the Deonar abattoir, where he buys 15-16 animals. It was almost a ritual for
him. We pay around Rs 20-25,000 per animal and have two or three slaughtered every day. We pay all
the chargesfor slaughtering, stabling, transport to the civic body, it comes to about Rs 2,000 extra per
animal.
But since March 3, he hasnt completed a single successful transaction. Most members of the
community lead a hand-to-mouth existence. They work and earn for the day. This ban will throw
everything out of gear, says Halim, pointing out that even buffalo slaughter, which is allowed, has been
stopped to show solidarity. He has documents from old SC judgements dating as far back as 1955 and is
tracking the cases closely.

Seated in his badly lit shop in Bandra east, workers gather, each showing videos and photographs of
drivers of vehicles carrying animals getting beaten up, mass slaughter of cows at unidentified places and
so on. The VHP and Bajrang Dal people catch our vehicles midway and attack. They loot the animals
and no one helps us, says one. Another video shows farmers at a bullock bazaar complaining about the
ban. Then there are the jokes.
Its wrong to say that only Muslims will be impacted or that only we are involved in beef eating or selling.
Most of the exporters are non-Muslims. Many ancillary businesses such as leather, animal fat in chemical
industries, soaps, use of bones and horns for making buttons etc have plenty of Hindu employees and
consumers. Not to mention the Dalits who regularly eat beef. After all, it is the poor mans protein, says
Halim.

Cant Feed Family, How Will We Feed The Cows?

Satish Solanke
Marathwada farmer
Satish is one realist Hindu farmer. Hes very fond of the cattle on his farm but he also recently sold an old
pair of oxen to get a new pair. Disturbed by the ban on slaughter of bulls (female cows are protected
anyway), he wonders if any farmer will be able to sustain livestock now. There is absolutely no end to
the grievances of farmers in Maharashtra. We have been battered by all sorts of natural calamities, droughts, hailstorms, unseasonal rains...and now we cant sell the old cattle, says Solanke who has a few
acres in Jalna district of the Marathwada region. This part of southern Maharashtra has seen severe
drought and farmer suicides are on the rise.
Honestly, the farmers dont even have the resources to feed their old, ageing parents. I know I am
sounding cruel but these are the facts. Every family will keep and take care of one or two cows till their
death, but all of them? When families are starving, how can one provide for food and water for the
cattle? he asks. He says a single cow or a bull needs fodder worth Rs 200-300 every day. Not to
mention medical expenses, space for the cowshed and other expenses. We use cowdung as natural
manure and it was worth keeping the cattle for that earlier. Now, because of the hostile policies for crops
like jowar and wheat, farmers only grow cash crops, resulting in the compulsion to buy fodder.

Even the people in the dairy business are asking what they would do when the cows grow old, says Solanke. Farmers are emotional people and they love their cattle. They dont like to think about what
happens to the animal after it is sold in the market. But viability and survival are todays realities. I fear
now that no farmer will actually keep cows and bulls. The concept of the gotha(cow shed) might
disappear.

Is This A Democracy? Lets Ban Brinjal Too

Aravind Nair
Beef connoisseur
In Mumbai for a decade now and a regular at most of the citys Kerala and continental restaurants,
Aravind is furious about his beef fry disappearing from Hotel Sunny. Its simple. If you dont want to eat
something, dont. Banning is no solution. I do hope the government comes to its senses soon. The ban
on beef sale and jail term for possession is downright ridiculous! If you ask me, the government barring
people from choosing what to eat violates two of our fundamental rights as set by the Constitution of
Indiathe right to life and right to freedom. The ban must be revoked.
Aravind is one of the few vocal people to see the ban as a signal sent by the government. Its
regressive and implicitly sends out a wrong message to the non-Hindu population in the country. Its
worrying.
For someone who eats beef at least once a week and frequents Sunny for his dose of parotta-beef,
(Please, its not paratha or parantha. Its either parotta or porotta), Aravind asks who all will the
government appease. Jains dont have onion and garlic, so why not ban that? Islam prohibits consumption of pork, so why not ban that too? Personally, I dont like brinjal, might as well ban that too! The
basic premise of democracy and equality is freedom of choice.
Earlier, Aravind was a happy man in the city, one who was for a while even on a mission to identify the
best beef burger patties in town. But now hes just at all the different bans the city has. The ban on beef
is going to kill the livelihoods of thousands of people employed in the trade. Whats the Maharashtra

government doing to rehabilitate them? Is the government trying to create more employment or taking a
step backwards? First dance bars, now a ban on beef. Makes me wonder if we truly are a democracy.

Photograph by Apoorva Salkade

Its Just Not The Same For My Customers

Jacob Varghese
Hotel Sunny, Chembur
The lively Jacob Varghese is not only popular with Malayalees, including Hindus, Christians and every
other denomination, hes also the go-to guy for the students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which is
not far from his Sunny Hotel, Chembur. With a little prodding, the hotel owner, known for his delicious
preparations of beef fry and Kerala parotta, explains what the ban would mean. Many of my customers
come here especially to eat beef. Along with beef they also eat other things but if we cant serve beef,
they wouldnt be coming all the way here at all, says Jacob emphasising that beef is not taboo in many
Hindu communities.
Although he is reluctant to share business details and turnover, he says he will be losing at least 20-30
per cent of his customers. We are introducing different preparations of mutton, fish and chicken but
those who like beef do not like anything else. Its just not the same for them, though we do a bit of
cajoling, says Jacob sheepishly. Hotel Sunny is not exactly a poor mans hotel but price of a beef dish is
about half of the same in mutton. How will people pay more for something they didnt want in the first
place? he asks.
He too has the same concerns about serving buffalo meat, as its not a preferred meat. Battling with
several other factors like taxes, fast food joints and the rising prices of everything from real estate to
ingredients, Jacob is a worried man. I dont know if its really possible to continue like this. The ban on
beef will be the last nail in the coffin for those who are trying to run a genuine business.

Itll Push Everything To The Black Market

Vilas Sonawane
Dalit activist

Vilas Sonawane has all the numbers of the beef business on his fingertips and can rattle out every law
and judgement on the issue since India became a republic. Over and above that, he has a menacing
forecast for times to come. Some 75 per cent consumption of beef is by non-Muslims, which includes
tribals, Dalits, OBC communities and others. By allowing buffalo meat, which is only exported and not
consumed locally, the poor are not helped at all. Prices will double now, says Sonawane. He says that at
Rs 120 per kg now, beef is cheaper than even some vegetables.
What bothers him most are the implications of this ban. It will just push everything into the black market.
Extortion, corruption, bribes to officials, politicians and police will increase. This is forcing a part of society
to embrace a mafia life, Sonawane says, adding that this was an act of foolishness on the part of the
BJP.
In the past three months, when butchers and beef traders were on strike for 40 days, nearly 25,000
animals have been looted. If hundreds of animals are slaughtered on a daily basis in Mumbai, Pune and
licensed butchers shops in other places in Maharashtra, then where are all those animals? This is a
deliberate effort on the part of the government to take away the business from a self-employed butcher to
corporate cartels where exports remain unharmed, he alleges, adding that most exporters are Jains.
Hes not hopeful about the politicians either. When the president asked the state government in 06
about this bill, how come no one opposed it? Thats why the president signed now. We are looking at a
time when well pay Rs 200 for a kilo of potatoes.