nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in india's holy cows - naresh kadyan

7/31/2019 Nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in India's holy cows - Naresh Kadyan

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Nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in India's

holy cows : Sukanya Kadyan / Abhishek

Kadyan demands cow be declared as a

National heritage pet animal of India as

elephant became heritage animal of India.

Even in the dog days of summer, the quiet

paddy fields that mark the border between India

and Bangladesh look as supple and green as the

soft stems of herbs grown in a window box. But

the daytime tranquillity belies a stark reality.

This delta region of the Ganges river is a place

of often deadly conflict that underpins an

activity many in India would rather not discuss.


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Every year, hundreds of thousands of cows

considered sacred in India, with export of the

beasts banned

are illegally smuggled intoBangladesh where they are turned into shoes,

belts, bone china crockery and, of course, meat.

"There is smuggling here every day," said

Umesh, a member of a three-man Indian Border

Security Force (BSF) team on duty at awatchtower near the village of Kaharpara, just a

few hundred yards from the Bangladesh border.

"The smugglers will take 50, 100 or 200 cattle

at a time. We try to create an ambush and

surround the smugglers."

The story of the annual smuggling of an

estimated 1.5 million cattle says much about

modern Indiaabout the sometimes

hypocritical treatment of supposedly sacred

cows, the political power of right-wing

Hinduism and the corruption that allows the320m illegal trade to flourish. But ultimately

this story is about supply and demand. Hindu-

majority India has an estimated 280 million


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cows but killing and eating them is legal in only

a handful of states. Meanwhile, Muslim-

majority Bangladesh, where beef is eaten withrelish, suffers from a shortage of cattle. Half of

the beef consumed in Bangladesh comes from

its large, western neighbour.

The snaking border that divides the two

countries runs for 1,300 miles. Here in theMurshidabad district of West Bengal, 150 miles

north-east of the state capital Calcutta, large

sections of it are unfenced. It is a lure both for

human traffickers and gangs from both sides of

the border smuggling cows.

Villagers, who claimed not to know any

smugglers but appeared to know the intricacies

of the operation, said cattle were brought by

truck from states across eastern India such as

Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand. Some may even be

brought from further away. Despite the effortinvolved, the mathematics is persuasive. An

animal that might sell for 60-80 in the

country's cow-belt hinterland will here fetch


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130. Once inside Bangladesh, they could

change hands for 225 or more.

"Those buying the cows always look to see howfat it is. They feed them husks from the paddy,"

said Mohammed Ashraf, a blacksmith who was

hammering into shape a glowing curved sickle

that locals use to cut the rice crop that is

harvested three times a year.Yet the trade comes with a deadly price. The

BSF has been accused of killing hundreds of

cattle smugglers, as well as civilians not

involved in the trade. A 2010 report published

by Human Rights Watch (HRW) suggested thatmore than 900 people had been killed with

impunity by the BSF over the past 10 years. It

also said locals claimed some BSF members

were complicit with the smuggling and took

bribes. This year, an incident in which an

alleged smuggler was badly beaten by thesecurity force personnel was captured on video.


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"Over the last decade, they used excessive and

indiscriminate force, shooting at villagers on

suspicion that they were smugglers," saidMeenakshi Ganguly, HRW's south Asia

director. "While many may have been engaged

in cattle rustling, the BSF ignored the most

basic principles of protecting the right to life.

Instead of arresting suspects, they shot and

killed them. The BSF claimed they had to uselethal force as self-defence, an argument hard to

believe since the police reports on the weapons

recovered usually [refer to] sickles and sticks."

Asked about the allegations, a BSF spokesman

said: "The BSF is a disciplined and professionalforce [and] exercises utmost restraint in the use

of any force. The BSF has also an impeccable

record of upholding human rights."

Ms Ganguly said that since issuing its report,

the BSF had started using rubber bullets whichled to a drop in fatalities. But, villagers said

their evenings were still sometimes disrupted.

"We hear the gunshots at night-time. Sometimes


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the smugglers get shot. It's mainly people from

the other side of the border," said Mr Ashraf.

Locals said the smugglers often used teenagersto transport the cattle across the border in the

belief the security forces were less likely to

shoot a youngster.

There is a clear antagonism between the guards

and the villagers. Some locals said the BSFtroops retaliated against anyone they could find.

Matir Rahaman, a rice farmer who was cycling

back from the fields, said he had been badly

beaten by BSF personnel. "One night the cows

came over the border and the paddy got

smashed. I went to the BSF and said, 'Why isthis happening'. They said, 'You are smugglers'

and they attacked us with [metal-tipped bamboo

sticks]," he alleged.

Ashfaqur Rahman, a retired Bangladesh

diplomat who now chairs the Dhaka-basedCentre for Foreign Affairs Studies, said the

matter was sensitive but that legalising the

export of cows or beef would put an end to


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corruption and violence. "There needs to be

wise counsel on both sides," he said.

An irony is that India is expected to become theworld's largest exporter of beeffrom non-

sacred buffaloes, rather than cows by next

year. According to an estimate recently

published by the US Department of Agriculture,

India is likely to export 1.5 million tons of beefin 2012, a 25 per cent increase from last year. Its

biggest markets are south-east Asia, the Gulf

and Africa.

Cows have been considered sacred in India for

centuries, and in only a few states is killing andeating them legal. More recently, a movement

by Dalits, or so-called untouchables, demanding

the right to eat cows has gathered pace. In 2004,

Indian historian DN Jha published the

controversial The Myth of the Holy Cow, which

argued that during the period when a number ofthe most important Hindu religious texts were

produced, people in India ate cows.


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Kancha Ilaiah, a Dalit activist and a professor at

Maulana Azad National Urdu University in

Hyderabad, believes Aryan invaders of Hindupromoted the (white) cow over the (black)

buffalo. "The buffalo predates the Aryans," he

said.

There have been attempts by the Indian

authorities to review the ban on cow exports.Earlier this year, a report by the government's

central planning committee suggested changing

the law to allow the export of beef. The plan

was hastily dropped and explained away as a

"clerical error" amid an angry backlash from

right-wing Hindu organisations such as theVishwa Hindu Parishad and so-called "cow

protection" groups.

Among those who complained was the UN-

affiliated International Organisation for Animal

Protection. The group's India director, NareshKadyan, said: "It is the fundamental duty of

Indians that [everyone] should respect all

animals. We strongly opposed the lifting of the


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ban and the government made a U-turn," he

said. "The cow is a very important animal for

Hindus."Revered and worshipped: Saintly beasts

Elephants

In Thailand, the elephant is considered the

national animal, and it is also revered in Burma,Cambodia and Laos.

Particularly auspicious is the white elephant

not a distinct species but an albino or elephant

with particularly pale skin which Buddha's

mother is said to have dreamt about before thebirth of her son. The appearance of a white

elephant in the reign of a monarch or leader is

meant to signify good fortune and power.

Cats

The ancient Egyptians took their worship ofanimals to artistic heights with statues to honour

their feline gods, which frequently featured cats'

heads on human bodies.


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Cats were prized for their useful rat-catching

abilities, and some argue they were first

domesticated in the region.While cats are no longer worshipped as gods in

modern Egypt, they are certainly preferred as

pets to dogs, which are traditionally considered

unclean in Islam.

Monkeys

Their association with the Hindu faith the

monkey god, Hanuman, helped Lord Rama

defeat the evil king Ravana has largely

protected India's monkeys in the face of much

annoyance at their mischievous and sometimesaggressive ways.

Delhi's tens of thousands of monkeys are a

frequent nuisance, stealing food, breaking into

homes, and even attacking people. But residents

continue to feed them.

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Andrew Buncombe reports from Kaharpara on a bloody war between rustlers and border

guards


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nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in india's holy cows - naresh kadyan

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