INDIA’S NOT SO HOLY COWS

Stealing In The Name of ‘Holy Cow’! Do Gau
Rakshaks Know, Hindus also involved in Cattle Theft?

INDIA’S NOT SO HOLY COWS

Stealing In The Name of ‘Holy Cow’! Do Gau Rakshaks Know, Hindus also involved in Cattle Theft? On July 27, 2018 that too after the group and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) staged a protest against illegal transportation of cows on Thursday, 26 July in Mangluru, and also forming ‘Gau Rakshak Dal’ {Cow Protectors}, police had arrested 48-year-old Shashi Kumar, a Bajrang Dal activist in cattle theft. And six days later, on 2 Aug when police had arrested four persons in illegal cattle trafficking, out of the persons, three were Hindus, identified as-Radhakrishnan, Subhash Shetty and Sathish Kumar; and fourth person, a Muslim by the name of Naeemuddin. How about that? Seems like “We Don’t Practice What We Preach”!

Illegal slaughterhouses and cattle theft

According to media reports, India has numerous illegal slaughterhouses. For example, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the officials in 2013 reported over 3,000 illegal slaughterhouses. Cattle are traditionally left to freely roam streets and graze in India. These are easy prey to thieves, state Rosanna Masiola and Renato Tomei. According to The New York Times, the organized mafia gangs pick up the cattle they can find and sell them to these illegal slaughterhouses. These crimes are locally called “cattle rustling” or “cattle lifting”. In many cases, the cows belong to poor dairy farmers who lack the facility or infrastructure to feed and maintain the cows, and they don’t traditionally keep them penned. According to Masiola and Tomei, the increasing meat consumption has led to cows becoming a target for theft.

The theft of cattle for slaughter and beef production is economically attractive to the mafias in India. In 2013, states Gardiner Harris, a truck can fit 10 cows, each fetching about 5,000 rupees (about US$94 in 2013), or over US$900 per cattle stealing night operation. In a country where some 800 million people live on less than US$2 per day, such theft-based mafia operations are financially attractive. According to Andrew Buncombe, when smuggled across its border, the price per cattle is nearly threefold higher and the crime is financially more attractive. Many states have reported rising thefts of cattle and associated violence, according to The Indian Express.

According to T.N. Madan, Muslim groups have been accused of stealing cattle as a part of their larger violence against non-Muslims. Cattle theft, states David Gilmartin and other scholars, was a common crime in British India and has been a trigger for riots.

According to the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, some of cattle theft operations move the cattle stolen in India across the border into Bangladesh, ahead of festivals such as Eid-ul-Azha when the demand for meat increases. The criminals dye the white or red cows into black, to make identifying the stolen cow difficult. The Border Guard Bangladesh in 2016 reported of confiscating stolen cattle, where some of cattle’s original skin color had been “tampered with”.Hundreds of thousands of cows, states the British newspaper The Independent, are illegally smuggled from India into Bangladesh every year to be slaughtered.  Gangs from both sides of the border are involved in this illegal smuggling involving an estimated 1.5 million (15 lakhs) cattle a year, and cattle theft is a source of the supply, states Andrew Buncombe. According to Zahoor Rather, trade in stolen cattle is one of the important crime-related border issues between India and Bangladesh.

Animal cruelty

The slaughterhouses in India have been accused of cruelty against animals by PETA and other humane treatment of animals-groups. According to PETA and these groups, the slaughterhouse workers slit animals’ throats with dull blades and let them bleed to death. Cattle are skinned and dismembered while they are still alive and in full view of other animals.

The Supreme Court of India, in February 2017, ordered a state governments to stop the illegal slaughterhouses and set up enforcement committees to monitor the treatment of animals used for meat and leather. The Court has also ruled that the Indian Constitution requires Indian citizens to show compassion to the animal kingdom, respect the fundamental rights of animals, and asked the states to prevent cruelty to animals.

Cattle smuggling in India

Cattle smuggling in India is the movement of cattle for slaughter and processing from the states of India where cattle slaughter is illegal to those states where it is legal as well as to neighboring countries such as Bangladesh. It is widespread in India, with some estimates stating that over a million cattle are smuggled every year.

Cattle smuggling, states Jason Cons – a professor of Anthropology with publications on India-Bangladesh border communities, is a significant source of communal tension as it implies “transportation of sacred cattle [cow] for slaughter in Muslim meat markets”.[39] It is also a source of crimes, violence and has triggered disputes between the border officials at the India-Bangladesh border.

India – the world’s largest beef exporter

According to a 2016 United States Department of Agriculture review, India has rapidly grown to become the world’s largest beef exporter, accounting for 20% of world’s beef trade based on its large water buffalo meat processing industry. Surveys of cattle slaughter operations in India have reported hygiene and ethics concerns. (From Where the Buffalo Roam: India’s Beef Exports, Maurice Landes, Alex Melton, and Seanicaa Edwards (June 2016), United States Department of Agriculture, pages 1-6)

India Emerges as a Major Beef Exporter

Since the late 2000s, India has rapidly increased its beef exports—specifically water buffalo meat, also known as carabeef—narrowly overtaking Brazil as the world’s largest beef exporter in 2014. Recent ERS research shows that India’s beef exports grew from an average of 0.31 million tons during 1999-2001 to an estimated 2.1 million tons during 2013-15, or about 12 percent annually. Over the same period, India increased its share of world beef exports from just 5 percent to about 21 percent. Although the U.S. share of global beef exports declined from 18 percent to 11 percent during this period, the decline does not appear to stem from increased competition from India, as Indian beef suppliers serve distinctly different market segments from those targeted by U.S. exporters. (Indias-Beef-Exports.pdf)

The rapid expansion in India’s beef exports has been driven by three main factors. First, global demand for India’s relatively low-cost water buffalo meat is strong, particularly among low- and middle-income countries in Asia and the Middle East. The United States and most other developed-country beef exporters primarily supply higher cost beef products that target higher income markets and consumers. The relatively low price of Indian beef reflects perceived quality differences: it is buffalo rather than cattle meat, it is produced primarily from culled dairy animals, and it cannot meet the stricter sanitary and phytosanitary standards common in more advanced markets.

Second is the size of India’s water buffalo herd which is, by far, the world’s largest. The herd is prized for dairy production but is mostly underexploited for meat production because of low domestic consumer preference for beef by a majority of Indian consumers. Third, the development of private, export-oriented slaughter and packing firms in several Indian States is enabling the successful transport and processing of animals and marketing of products to the specifications of a diverse set of export markets. While exports of cattle beef are banned for religious reasons, buffalo do not hold the same religious significance to most Indians, and buffalo slaughter is legal throughout India.

Analysis of India’s capacity to sustain growth in buffalo meat exports is limited by a lack of reliable data. USDA projections suggest continued strong growth in import demand in most of the markets served by Indian beef suppliers, but assumptions based on past calf-rearing and feeding practices suggest that Indian production could fall below current USDA projections by about 2020. If producers or processors respond to the commercial opportunity now afforded by the export market by rearing more male buffalo calves and/or increasing feeding to boost low slaughter weights, production and export growth may be sustained.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda:  It is the duty of every Indian to understand Kṛṣṇa and preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement to others. That is real Indian business. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mission, that every one of you become Kṛṣṇa conscious and preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others who are unaware of Kṛṣṇa. That is the injunction; that is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mission. He said, bhārata-bhūmite manuṣya-janma haila yāra (CC Adi 9.41): “Anyone who has taken birth in India as a human being”—not as dogs; manuṣya, manuṣya means human—”his duty is to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and preach to the other people for welfare activities.” Bhārata-bhūmite manuṣya-janma haila yāra. We should mark this point, manuṣya-janma. He’s not requesting the cats and dogs. So in other words, that those who are not taking, Indians . . . Bhagavad-gītā is known to everyone; every Indian knows. But if he does not preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then he is not to be counted as human being. Because He says, manuṣya-janma haila yāra. If we claim to be human being, born in India, it is our duty to understand the value of life from Bhagavad-gītā and preach this cult to others to do real welfare activities. This is the duty of every Indian. Why Indians are lacking in their duty? They do not understand Kṛṣṇa and they do not understand how to do good to others. (760711 – Conversation – New York July 11, 1976)

So you are all educated men. You study this philosophy, try to understand; also join. It is your duty, because you are Indian. Caitanya Mahāprabhu entrusted this mission to the Indians.

bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra
janma sārthaka kari’ kara para-upakāra
(CC Adi 9.41)

Indians are meant for doing good to others. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mission. An Indian can become perfect because there is all the Vedic literature. Janma sārthaka kari. First of all you become perfect, then preach the knowledge for others’ benefit. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mission. Now our leaders says, “Throw away these all śāstras in the water.” This is going on. And what they have gained by throwing away? And actually, government is against us, against my movement in India. What can I do?

All over the world they are in darkness. They do not know what is the value of life. So in India, anyone born, he can make his life successful. We have got Bhagavad-gītā and all Vedic literatures. By learning, by practicing, we can make our life perfect and then distribute the knowledge. This is India’s business. Unfortunately, they have been conquered by the illusion of māyā, and they are not interested. They are becoming drunkard and talking all nonsense. So you have come, kindly. Of course, Bhārata means the whole planet. Anyway, don’t deviate. Just try to do some good to the human society by awakening them to spiritual consciousness, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The method is very simple: harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma eva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21). But it is para-upakāra. That is human life, para-upakāra: to do good to others, not to exploit others. That is not human life. (770204 – Lecture Arrival – Calcutta, February 04, 1977)

Comment: India is bearing the brunt of Kali Yuga onslaught because it should present Sanatan Dharma to the world, but nothing is going on. What 500 years of mughal and british rule could not achieve, corrupt politicians managed in 50 years, the so called “pink revolution, when the British left 1947 80% of population were vegetarians, nowadays 80% are not strict vegetarians, everyday about 10.000 cows are killed in India (incl. cross border smuggling)