Hindustan Ka Shahzada

Hindustan Ka Shahzada

Cow slaughter : Crime or business?

Firdaus Khan

Certainly, India is a land of striking contrasts and paradoxes. While Indians ostensibly worship cows, they also butcher over 30,000 of them daily, usually in unsanitised, ill-managed torturous chambers euphemistically called abattoirs. There have been several protests against the evil practice of cow slaughter.

Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to any significant result.

Perhaps, the biggest lacuna was lack of a mass movement. Al Kabir slaughter house is one such place, where thousands of cows are slaughtered on a daily basis. Few years ago, Hindutva organistations stood against it. But soon the issue lost its significance as they got to know that the owner of the house is a non-Muslim.

Obtrusively, cow slaughtering is practiced on major level. Prominently for flesh and its remains that are of huge profit. Cows are even smuggled to neighboring countries for their meat. In essence, there are 16 crore dairy cattle. According to the department of livestock, in Uttar Pradesh alone there are 314 abattoirs.

Every year lakhs of cattle are butchered. Despite the demands to abandon this atrocious practice, it still continues. During the reign of Muslims, cow slaughtering was strictly banned. Interestingly, there were no differences among Hindus and Muslims.

In the 1700’s such practice was not prevalent. Hindus considered cow pious and in Islam pigs were considered as dirty animal. On the other hand, British were in need of flesh of both these animals. Besides, they also wanted to establish their rule in India. It was them who provoked Muslims by claiming that it is nowhere mentioned in Quran that slaughtering a cow is immoral. So this practice took a spur in 18th century, creating a rift among Hindus and Muslims.

The largest benefit in the business does go to non- Muslims. The government needs to take immediate steps before it is too late.

Courtesy : Afternoon