The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in India’s northeastern Assam state has banned the consumption of beef in public places, including in restaurants and at social and community events.
Announced earlier this month by state chief minister Himanta Biswas Sarma, this proscription was an extension of an earlier fiat prohibiting the sale or eating of beef near the state’s Hindu temples.
India’s majority Hindu community customarily venerates cows, but the sanctity surrounding them gained increased prominence after prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP-led government was elected to federal office in 2014, and re-elected twice thereafter in 2019 and in June 2024.
Within weeks of first assuming power the BJP launched nationwide campaigns against cow slaughter and beef consumption as an integral part of its long-standing agenda of foisting Hindutva or Hindu hegemony upon the country, and enacted various legislation with severe penalties to enforce it.
Consequently cow slaughter remains banned in 20 of India’s 29 states ruled either directly by the BJP or in coalition with like-minded parties, with jail terms ranging between two and 10 years for all infringements as well as heavy fines.
In tandem with these decrees extremist Hindu vigilante groups have frequently targeted Muslims and low caste Dalits – who trade in beef and consume it. In a 2019 report Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that between May 2015 and December 2018 at least 44 people – 36 of them Muslims – were killed by such “cow protection” groups across 12 Indian states. “Over that same period around 280 people were injured in over 100 different incidents across 20 states,” it said.
In the same report HRW said these vigilante groups received support from “law enforcement agencies and Hindu nationalist politicians”. It also accused the BJP of increasingly using communal rhetoric which, in turn, had spurred a violent crusade against beef consumption and the many Muslims linked to it.
Little has changed since then, and the BJP’s age-old and well recorded hostility towards India’s 200 million-odd Muslims, comprising about 15 per cent of the country’s population of more than 1.4 billion, is steadily proliferating. Hindus, who form the bulk of BJP voters and supporters, constitute some 80 per cent of India’s populace.
The BJP’s policies on cow preservation have resulted in the construction of tens of thousands of gaushalas, or cow shelters, to house millions of unproductive animals. They have also triggered a financial crisis for farmers and adversely impacted India’s earnings from beef exports.
Over decades farmers had relied heavily on selling “dry” or aged cows to financially sustain their active milk herds, but a slaughter ban has seen this source of income dry up, leaving them with no option but to manage non-productive cattle.
Analysts have pointed to the economic burden of maintaining these animals for an average of 10-12 years, estimating the annual cost at between 36,000 rupees (€400) and 117,000 rupees €1,300).
Abandoned and hungry animals have ended up ravaging ripening fields of wheat, rice or vegetables across India in their search for fodder. These stray cows have also forced many farmers to erect costly fencing and to spend sleepless nights guarding their fields.
The situation across urban India is equally dire as most municipalities are monetarily ill-equipped to manage the growing numbers of stray cattle overtaking cities and towns, resulting in overburdened shelters and inadequate care for the animals. Thousands of cows end up foraging in city garbage dumps, where many die after consuming plastic bags and other toxic waste.
Herds of stray cows squatting on ill-lit city roads, including in the capital New Delhi, have posed grave risks to speeding vehicles, especially at night, and serious accidents and traffic disruptions involving cattle criss-crossing busy motorways are mushrooming.
Undaunted many state BJP governments have expanded their cow-protection measures, launching ambulance services for them and getting people to assist local authorities in rescuing cattle in distress.
Some northern states such as Uttar Pradesh and adjoining Uttarakhand have initiated pharmaceutical projects making traditional Ayurveda or Hindu medicines using cow urine.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic several BJP lawmakers extolled the medicinal properties of cow urine to counter the virus. Then BJP MP Sadhvi Thakur admitted to daily consuming cow urine as an antidote to the virus. “It purifies my body and lungs and saves me from Covid-19 infection,” she said in May 2020, specifying that the urine had to be from a desi (Indian) cow.
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