[They were celebrated by far-right Hindu groups as the latest in a series of legal measures intended to protect cows, which many Hindus consider sacred. A high court in the southern state of Tamil Nadu quickly imposed a four-week stay on the measure, saying it violated Indians’ constitutional right to freedom of religion and encroached on states’ rights.]
By Ellen Barry and Suhasini Raj
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Passengers
with cattle waited for boats on the bank of the Ganges in Sahibganj,
India.
Credit Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
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NEW
DELHI — India’s Supreme
Court on Thursday called on the government to answer charges that stringent new
restrictions on cattle slaughter violate constitutional rights to freedom of
religion and would impose a “huge economic burden” on some of the country’s
poorest families.
Taken aback by the protest that greeted the
regulations, a top official said the government planned to pre-empt the legal
challenge by revising the new rules.
“Whether we change the language or change the
rule, we are doing this on an urgent basis,” said the official, Dr. Harsh
Vardhan, union minister of the environment. “We want to set this issue to rest.
It should take a few days, a few weeks, not long.”
The rules, announced late last month as part
of an act to punish animal cruelty, require anyone selling livestock, which
includes buffalo and camels, to produce a written guarantee that animals would
not be slaughtered.
They were celebrated by far-right Hindu
groups as the latest in a series of legal measures intended to protect cows,
which many Hindus consider sacred. A high court in the southern state of Tamil
Nadu quickly imposed a four-week stay on the measure, saying it violated
Indians’ constitutional right to freedom of religion and encroached on states’
rights.
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the
government to defend the new regulations ahead of a July 11 hearing.
Even with the stay in place, the rules had a
chilling effect on livestock markets, already jittery over the proliferation of
Hindu cow-protection vigilantes. Representatives of the leather and buffalo
meat industries — which together account for around $10 billion in yearly
exports — warned that the restrictions would lead to a catastrophic drop in
supplies, as well as job losses and company closings.
There was also a political cost. The
Bharatiya Janata Party, already popular in the so-called cow belt, has been
eager to expand its support in the south and northeast, areas where meat is
commonly eaten. B.J.P. leaders in two districts in Meghalaya State announced
their resignation from the party, saying that eating meat was intrinsic to
their culture.
Dr. Vardhan said the regulations had been
widely misunderstood, and there had been no intention to discourage the eating
or export of meat. “We do not want to either influence or change the food
habits of anybody, neither do we want to affect the slaughtering business in
this country,” he said, adding, “We will facilitate their growth, instead of
hampering it.”
He said feedback had been solicited from
representatives of the beef and leather industries early this year. “We never
anticipated that people would have some misunderstanding,” he said.
But industry executives said they had been
caught entirely by surprise when the new rules were made public on May 23.
“We were not invited — neither we, nor anyone
from the leather industry, nor those who take part in the cattle market — for
any discussions before the notification was issued,” said Yusuf Qureshi, who
heads an organization in Uttar Pradesh of traditional butchering families, many
of whom own large plants that package and export flash-frozen buffalo.
“Nobody was informed or invited to sit across
the table for any suggestions,” he said.
Mr. Qureshi said Dr. Vardhan’s comments
encouraged him. “We want to be invited on board for a road map which lets us
function with peace and respectability,” he said.
It was unclear, however, when or how the
rules would be amended. Some officials of the governing party continued to rule
out any softening.
“There is no question of withdrawing the
notification,” Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi, the minister of state for drinking
water and sanitation, said in an interview. “We Hindus have been worshiping
cows for so long and we should do something for them. Those who are objecting
within the party are doing it at their individual level.”
