From vigilantes to racketeers

Towns and cities in India have been grappling with the stray cattle menace for long. They stray on to roads causing accidents and other civic disorders. A new dimension has been added to the problem with reports from Haryana saying groups of persons with suspect bona fides are helping transport cattle to towns from villages, claiming to have the authority from gaushalas and gram panchayats, charging Rs 2,100 per cow. Fed up with the unproductive cattle destroying crops, the villagers find it convenient to pay up and send them away. It is ironical that it should happen in Haryana that had set itself the target of becoming stray cattle-free two years earlier. It had plans for rehabilitating abandoned cattle and tried to implement a community-driven model to cover its 22 districts. Districts like Fatehabad, Yamunanagar and Nuh were declared stray cattle-free, the last being the place to which Pehlu Khan, lynched by cow vigilantes, belonged.

Cattle in general, cows in particular, have been part of the agriculture-based rural economy. In India, they are regarded as agahnya or that which should not be killed. Cattle wealth is revered and cows are part of rituals. With the nature of economy changing, it is time for a reality check. The shrinking of pasture land, increasing urbanisation, migration of workforce from villages coupled with inadequate resources has made cattle rearing tough, especially in case of dry cattle. Leaving them to roam around saves the costs for owners, who are difficult to identify.

A government panel in 1947 studied how gaushalas can preserve cattle wealth and house uneconomic cattle where they could die a natural death. In 2005, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of anti-slaughter laws, which, coupled with the belief-value system, compound the problem. Community participation perhaps is best to salvage stray cattle, dwelling on their uses other than milk and meat. Links with agricultural and veterinary institutes and focus on research should also help show a way out.