‘Transporters Scared Of Riding Out With Buffaloes, Hindu Farmers Afraid Of Selling, Traders Shut Shop’

The trophy hunting by cow vigilantes in Rajasthan have claimed a fresh life -- a young Muslim cattle trader. The killing has mounted despair in the minds of those plying the same trade in Uttar Pradesh. They fear the government’s ban on “illegal” slaughterhouses coupled with the fear of thugs beating them up will crush their business.

The Holi and Navaratras had paused the poultry and meat supply business, but traders hoped the business will see an upswing when the fasting season gets over. But free-roaming vigilantes and the threat of death have sounded a death knell to hopes of getting the business back up.

Haji Hakeemuddin buys and sells animals in Uttar Pradesh, a business, he said, has been unusually bad for the past few weeks. “Leather and meat are the only trades Muslims have flourished in,” he said. 
“Now, thousands of us are hanging around jobless but in Hindu areas they are still selling meats, including that of pigs and jhatka chicken and goat.”

The Jamiat-ul-Qureshi scored a victory in a recent meeting with the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The meeting ended in a declaration that the meat-sellers would end their week-long strike. But that is not the message which percolated down the supply lines. The ‘ban on slaughterhouses’ remains in place, so does strike by meat and poultry traders against it. The reason is, everybody is mortally afraid ofgau rakshaks.

“The Constitution doesn’t say anything about who can raise meat, fish or chicken. Both Ram Lal and Abdullah can raise poultry. Faisal can do halal and Ram Avtar can do jhatka. Yet, I notice halal has shut but the Khateek community is still going on with jhatka,” said Haji Noor Mohammad, a Jamiat-Ul-Qureshi leader in UP’s Bulandshahr.

“The entire business has come to a standstill because gau rakshaks are catching them, taking their cattle. They are afraid for their lives,” he said.

 “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian, everybody eats meat,” says Shah Alam, who buys and sells buffaloes at mandis across the state. “If not Hindu farmers, who sells us buffaloes when they stop milking?” 

One buffalo fetches traders like Shah Alam Rs 100 to Rs 200 profit at the cattle mandi or market, after taxes and fees. The going rate is Re 1 profit per kilo of buffalo. Many buffaloes weigh 200 kg, fetching a tidy profit. “Now nobody wants to venture out to ferry buffaloes,” he said. “They have to bring cattle from Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab but the cow-protection groups are catching hold of them and beating them.”

This week only three farmers showed up with buffaloes to sell at Gulawti village, one of the biggest cattle markets near Hapur. The usual figure is 3000 heads of cattle a week. “Transporters are afraid of riding out with buffaloes. Farmers are afraid of selling. Traders have stopped work completely. Gau rakshaks (thugs posing as cow protectors) are pouncing on transporters and whisking away cattle and money,” said Haji Ikrar, a trader who supplies buffaloes to large exporters.

Of UP’s 1800 slaughterhouses all but four are closed. Thus retail meat sellers had thus been using ‘informal’ abattoirs, dilapidated or unhygienic. Now, even their supply chain of live cattle has been hit—there’s no animal to sell or buy, hence no meat.

Haji Mohd Haneef, a leather trader, says the closure of slaughterhouses has killed his business. All last year, he said, the traders were dodging the fiery gau rakshaks, taking occasional beatings. “Now the business is unlikely to re-start.” At slaughterhouses, once the buffaloes are skinned, leather traders like Haneef buy the hide, salt and sell it to tanneries. “Business was already half of what it was two years ago. Now it is all over.”

The UP government runs mandis for milk, sugarcane, food grains and vegetables, which charge fees and taxes. The state offers training, extension services and credit to farmers and dairy-owners. The meat and leather traders want similar facilities. “Retailers cannot afford their own abattoirs. The government should have modernized slaughterhouses. For twenty years I have been demanding this but nobody listens,” says Yusuf Qureshi, a prominent trader and Congress leader in the city. “Now the poor will pay the price.”

Hindutva groups have a conflicting relationship with non-vegetarianism, often calling meat-eating unhealthy and the butchers’ profession ‘cruel’ or ‘unclean’. Many consider the government’s move against “illegal” ventures a strategy to avoid accusations of targeting the Muslim minority. In UP, Muslims traditionally dominate retail trade in poultry, mutton or other livestock.

“I worry that the government is making thousands of young Qureshis jobless. That might shake the social fabric,” said Qureshi. “There will be food shortages—and vegetable prices will zoom.”

Prim in a black sherwani, Nizam, a middle-aged resident of Meerut city’s Jali Kothi area has steadfastly refused to eat vegetables, paneer (cottage cheese) or soyabean despite the continuing meat shortage. “He is living off milk and sweets,” says Mohd Abid, a poultry-shop worker, partly in jest.

“Bhindi is Rs 80 a kg, chicken Rs 160 and meat Rs 140-150. Why should I eat vegetables when meat is healthier and cheaper?” Nizam retorts. “These men are not running slaughterhouses,” he says of the seventy-odd poultry store workers whose outlets have been closed by the police. “They are bechara (unfortunate) chicken-sellers.”

Mohammad Ayyub, a poultry-seller, admits that most Muslims don’t relish going vegetarian. He says many are comparing the effect of cow vigilantism on their trade with 1947, the year India was traumatically partitioned to create a separate state of Pakistan. “Eighty per cent of our buyers are non-Muslim. Why else would meat sales dip during Hindu holy days? We don’t understand why the government is still against us,” he says.