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Will slaughter curbs lead to cattle surplus? Indian academicians have been debating this since 1926 -Himanshu Upadhyaya
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As the Centre looks to modify the rules on cattle trade, it would do well to consult experts about how the changes would affect farmers.

With the government’s assurance to the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it would suspend implementation of new regulations on cattle trade, the nation’s cows, bullocks, bulls and buffaloes are back on the front page. The new rules, notified in May, had been greeted by vociferous protests from some state governments. As many pointed out, the regulations made it virtually impossible for cattle to be sold for slaughter – leaving farmers with the enormous burden of feeding old, fallow animals that are of little economic value.

In the intense debate around the new regulations, it became clear that the government had failed to consult livestock economists and animal husbandry experts before notifying the new regulations. There are indications even Chief Economic Advisor was taken by a surprise, when the Livestock Market (Regulation) Rules were notified. As Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanyam noted in a recent interview, “If social policies impede the workings of the livestock market, the impact on the economics of the livestock farming could be considerable.”

As it turns out, the nation’s surplus cattle have been a focus of study for Indian academicians for more than a century. They seem to have debated them almost as much as they’ve discussed the sacred cow. The two ideas are closely related. Livestock economists have frequently suggested that India’s social attitudes towards the cow are linked to cattle that livestock experts during the British Raj classified as surplus – animals that were viewed as useless, failing to offer any economic service to a farming household or society at large.

‘Standing...menace’

Perhaps the first academic study of India’s cattle was undertaken in 1893, when John A Voelcker of the Royal Agricultural Society of England submitted his “Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture”. He referred to free roaming Brahmani bulls as a “standing religious menace” to crops in the country.

The concerns over whether surplus cattle were consuming resources that could be used to feed more promising milch and draught animals were reiterated in 1928 by the Royal Commission on Agriculture. It said that even as there had been an increase in area sown, this had been accompanied by subdivision and fragmentation of land holdings. This had led to a greater demand for draught cattle or beasts of burden,which in turn meant more competition with humans for the food resources.

During the second phase of surplus cattle debate between 1920 and 1950, the arguments were followed by estimations based on available statistics and experimental data. Economists CN Vakil and SK Muranjan wrote in 1927 that slaughter of one-fifth of existing cattle would not have any detrimental effect on foodgrain availability. However, in 1926 a book written by Nilanda Chatterjee had attributed the deterioration of cattle to “excessive rather than insufficient slaughter”.

During this period, concerns about cattle slaughter did not rest on religious and cultural logic only and the lobbyists were not motivated by cow worship arguments alone. There were diverse groups that wrote and spoke about cattle slaughter. For instance, members of the Humanitarian League argued that milch stables in cities operated in such adverse conditions as to effect drain of the best indigenous milch breeds of cows and buffaloes.

The policy discussions during 1920s suggested not a legislation to ban cattle slaughter and beef consumption, but an effort by municipalities to remove the milch stables out of the city limits and encouraged the establishment of milk supply routes from rural centres.

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