Indian Buffalo Meat Facts XI

As we noticed in our previous note, nearly half of the buffalo meat produced in India comes from young calves. A Google search on ‘veal meat exporters in India’ throws up a long list of manufacturers and exporters advertising their wares with disgusting details and pictures. They also offer ‘Bobby Veal’, which is defined as meat of calves younger than 3 months. Often the calves are slaughtered when just a few weeks old.

This business of killing young calves for export has become big in recent years even though many States have imposed a ban on the killing of calves of all bovine animals, including buffalo calves. Some States also have a blanket ban on the killing of all bovine animals including buffaloes.

Unfortunately, Uttar Pradesh, though it has a strict ban on the killing of cows, puts no restrictions on the killing of buffaloes, not even on the killing of their young calves. That State has emerged as the hub of buffalo slaughter, with buffaloes and calves from the neighbouring States also finding their way into the slaughterhouses of UP.

A nation that revers the cow cannot possibly be encouraging or profiting from the business of export of meat of other animals, much less of the meat of calves that are no more than a few weeks old.

It is well known that the cow in India is a symbol of the whole non-human world; to worship and protect the cow is to empathise with and protect all of the living universe. Mahatma Gandhi stated this beautifully, saying:

“Cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It takes the human being beyond this species. The cow to me means the entire sub-human world. Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives.”

It is indeed odd for a State to pass laws banning the killing of cows while facilitating and promoting the killing of buffaloes and their young calves for export.

We may or may not ban, but we must not subsidize, encourage, guide, promote and facilitate the killing of buffaloes.

Unfortunately, there are many of the ‘rightist intellectuals’ who have taken upon themselves to offer arguments in favour of the gory business of meat and veal export that the UPA governments have created from scratch in their ten years of rule. The Swarajya Magazine has recently weighed-in against obstructing the business any manner. It repeats all the arguments that are advanced by the liberals and libertines in favor of allowing free flow of meat and alcohol, etc.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself explicitly campaigned against this ‘Pink Revolution’ of the UPA. That promise should not be taken lightly.

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