The amendment of Ma-harashtra Animal Pres-e rva t ion Ac t ,
1976 came in for giving effect to the policy of the State to-wards
securing the principles specified in article 48 of the Constitution
of India. The act notwithstanding anything in any other law for the
time being in force or any usage or custom to the contrary, no
person shall slaughter cause to be slaughtered or offer for
slaughter any cow, in any place in the State of Mahar-ashtra.
However the current decree amendment has taken this law to its
progeny. The judgment is a resonance of the Bombay Animal
Preservation Act (Gujarat), 1995. The act permitted cows and its
prog-eny from being slaughtered on the grounds of it utility for
the countrys health and farmer wellbeing. Many of us are confused
whether the act is about banning cows from being slaughtered. No,
it is not. Cows had been banned long back this law is to pro-tect
bulls, bullocks, and calf. The argument put forth is that all these
animals are integral in provision of milch and draught in agrarian
country, India. In interest of the general pub-lic an ordinance was
passed in
1993 by the Gujarat govern-ment to prohibit slaughtering of cows
and progeny. This was done towards securing the principles laid
down in article 47, 48, and clause article 39 (a) and (b). The high
court of Gujarat felt that it was an un-reasonable restriction on
the fundamental rights and there-fore ultra vires the
constitu-tion. Hence slaughtering of cows and progeny above the age
of 16 was also allowed. The aggrieved parties, State of Gujarat,
Akil Bharat Krishi
Goseva Sangh filed an appeal. Shree Amihsa Armay Manaav Kalyan
Jeev Daya Caritable Trust had also filed an appeal by special
leave.
On 17th February 2005, a 3 judge bench in the Supreme Court was
filed on the terms that issue involved interpre-tation of the
provision of the constitution of India especial-ly in regards to
status of the directive principle vis vis to the fundamental rights
as well as the effect of the article 31C and 51A in the
constitution. The challenge to the above mentioned judgments were
found on the basis of three
grounds:1. Total ban offended the reli-gions of Muslims as
slaughter of cows is sanctioned by Is-lam on particular days.2.
Such ban offended the fun-damental rights guaranteed in article 19
(1)g to the Kasais and not a valid restriction on their rights and
that3. Total ban was not in the interest of the people.
The court referred some very important judgments for this case.
These were:
1. Mohd. Hanif Quareshi and ors. V state of Bihar and Ors. -
Bihar preservation and improvement of animals act 1956, imposed a
total ban on slaughter of all categories of animals belonging to
the bo-vine cattle.2. In Uttar Pradesh , Uttar Pradesh prevention
of cow slaughter act 1955 banned slaughtering the progeny of cows
which included bulls, bullocks(male or female, adult or calf), and
calves as well.3. In MP, C.P. and Berer An-imal Prevention act (Act
LII of 1949) which also included buffaloes.
The jury decided in favor of the government of Guja-rat banning
on the following grounds:a. The first challenge was rejected on the
grounds that that it was known that it was not necessary for cows
to be slaughtered on the day of Bakarid or any other day. No
specific verse from the Koran was shownb. The second challenge was
rejected on the grounds that cows and its progeny are im-portant to
the Indian agricul-
ture. They require more pro-tection. Male Buffaloes and cattle
are not half as useful as Bullocks and sheep and goat give very
less milk and have no utility as draught. Since the classification
of these animals is done on the basis of their usefulness the
classification of the butchers should also be done on the basis on
the effect that their work has on the society due to their
occupation. Whatever may be the objections against the validity of
the impugned act protection of law, prima facie, does not seem to
be one of them. (State of West Ben-gal and others. Vs. Ashutosh
Lahiri and others)c. The decision on whether the ban was in the
interest of the general public was affirmed as the lordships
concluded that if the purpose of sustaining the health of the
nation by the usefulness of the cow and her progeny was achieved by
impugned enactment the re-striction thereby could be held
reasonable in the interest of the general public. The judg-ment
will be referred to again in case of Maharashtra.
One of the major draw-back of the case seemed that there was no
discus-sion over losses incurred by the government or the
livelihood and indemnifica-tion of the workers. There still has
been no rehabil-itation plan rolled out by the government. It is an
in-considerate and insensitive move against the kasais hereditary
and others en-gaged in the red meat busi-ness. We may also think
that skills are not easily acquired. Hence pushing them in new
areas could be economically losing out. While we can only suggest
and protest, we wait till the decisions are made.
What to preserve? Animals or Work
thesabha
Sanjay KumarA Student from Community Organization and
Development Practice, TISS Mumbai
BAN CHOR Government : TO BEEF or Not to BEEF is not the ? ? is
LIVELIHOOD
rishi kapoor @chintskap Mar 16Please don't get me wrong I do not
advocate killing of animals I am against this shit of double
standards of politicians to suit
themselves---------------------------You may be an undigested bit
of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of
underdone potato. Theres more of gravy than of grave about you,
whatever you are! - Charles Dickens
RIGHT to Livelihood.Do you respect the freedom of
choice !!Join US
24 MARCHat 2 pm
MAHARALLY in
AZAD MAIDANfrom workers, farmers all over
Maharashtra againstBEEF BAN
Cow Slaughter was already banned by Supreme CourtThis ban is
against Bull and Cows progeny
STUDENTS AGAINST BEEF BANUniversity students of Mumbai are going
to rally
from Deonar Abbatoir to Amedkar Garden, Chembur in MUMBAI
on 24th March at 12 :15 p.m
Participating Students are from:IIT Bombay, TISS. IIPS, MILS,
St. Xaviers, Nirmala Niketan Acharya College.For More info Contact:
Baljeet: 9167123649 , Sanjay: 9920235384
Student + WorkerYear : 1: Issue : 3 : Price: Rs 1 English |
Fortnightly | Mumbai
RNI No: MAHENG/2014/59661 16-31 March 2015 | Page : 2
quickEDIT contd. pg 2
Kasaiwada, also known as Qureshi Nagar in Kurla east is home to
a large number of Khateek community, most of who work in the
slaughterhouses in Mumbai. Since the 2nd of March, with the
Presidents assent to a 20 year old Bill preventing the slaughter of
bulls and bullocks in addition to the already existing ban on cow
slaughter, thousands of slaughterhouse workers have been left
without any work. Many of them live in already pitiable condition,
struggling with supply of water and electricity. In addition to
their present conditions, the recent ban has left the men without
work, and unable to meet ex-penses of the house. Sultana Qureshi,
who lives
with her aged mother-in-law, is suffering from cancer. She hasnt
been taking her med-ication for the last ten days, as she is unable
to afford them anymore. Its been one month, and the government has
not been listening to us. What did we do wrong that they are now
taking it out on our stomachs? This is what our men have been doing
for generations. If it was some-thing new, we could have eas-ily
switched to another job. This is true in a sense for these women as
well. Most of them do not work, but rely on their husbands earnings
in order to look after the run-ning of the household. It has been
this way for many years. They do not have the option of looking out
for alternative employment because they do not have any such
experience.
They do not have a sense of agency, and depend entire-ly on
their men. Shammo Qureshi, a 25 year old house-
wife said that- Our women dont work. They hardly get out of
their homes. We do not talk about our problems out-side. We live
off our men. But these women cannot stay within their four walls
any-more, with the kind of posi-tion their husbands and sons are
in, and which was why they wanted to talk, and let people know how
they have been struggling. They lament-ed the lack of media
attention on them following the ban, despite them being a very
large community affected by it. For these women and their families,
the biggest strug-gle right now is with meet-ing their daily
expenses, es-pecially with regard to food for their children. Among
the older women, there are quite
a few who require medicines to be bought, which they can-not
afford anymore. Yasmeen Quresh i , whose husband Saleem used to
work in the slaughterhouse, has a 19-year old mentally challenged
son to look after, who has a heart problem. Faisal, her son, who
does not talk, keeps crying for food. Some of the families have
taken their children out of school because they can-not afford the
fee any longer. They struggle with paying the bills for water and
elec-tricity and are illegally fined large sums of money in order
to have these restored. There was a common resounding among the
women of an ap-athetic government that has only been saying things
but has done nothing for them since coming into power.
Haji Bashir Qureshi, who is the leader of the Qureshi community,
pointed out that the decision, however polit-ical it may seem, is
not af-
fecting only Muslims. There are over 3 crore Hindu farm-ers as
well who are selling their animals in order to buy younger, fitter
ones. There are so many leather workers in Dharavi who arent Muslim
and have also lost their live-lihoods. We are a big number of
people who have been af-fected by this ban. He spoke about the
danger of having such a large number of people laid off their work,
it could lead to increased crime and anti-social elements. People
in their frustration will not even fear punishment, which is how
bad the situation can get.
To simplify it, the beef trade begins from the level of the
farmers, who sell their aged
cattle to the traders in order to buy younger ones as
re-placement. The traders have their own workers in the abattoir
who are do the job of slaughtering. The useful by-products after
the slaugh-ter are sent away to respec-tive industries (fat, bones,
blood and so on). Much of the meat is sent to companies that
package it for export. In Sanpada, Navi Mumbai, there a number of
these companies, like Allana, Al Kabeer and Altamas which carry out
the exports of the meat. Workers here easily number from 300 to 350
per factory, who carry out a range of responsibili-ties ranging
from butchers to packers and cleaners. For the last couple of
months, many of these contract based work-ers have been staying
home, because there is no work at the company. Their bosses tell
them that they will be called back whenever there is work.
Most of the women working in these companies are the sole
breadwinners in their family. Mumtaz is a widow, having three
children of her own. Sabarunissa, too is a widow, who is providing
for herself and her two daugh-ters. They do not know how they are
going to make ends meet, with their rents still due.
Rizwana, 30, who works in the cleaning department at one of
these companies is to be married next month- I have no siblings,
and my parents have passed away. I dont know what is going to
happen. These women began to speak only after a little coaxing, out
of fear of their bosses. Rizwana says,
what if my face appears on TV at the gathering in Azad Maidan on
24th of March? I will lose my job. Coupled with the fear of raising
their voice against their struggle to make ends meet, these wom-en,
a large majority of who are daily wage workers still come daily to
the company, in the hope that there will be some work to do.
Even before President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the
Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill of 1995 on the 2nd
of March 2015, those who have been working in the business had been
facing immense hurdles. Prithvi and Pratap are brothers who along
with their father who are a part of the transportation aspect of
the trade. They, like many other drivers that are a part of the
entire chain, transport the animals from where they have been
purchased, to the abattoir in Mumbai. But even
this seemingly simple task has been a painful experience for
them. In the past three to four months, they have been beaten up by
goons who they state are from the Bajrang Dal, for carrying the
animals to the slaughterhouse. They know the names of their
at-tackers, but are fearful of backlash and do not want state it
out loud. Filing a police complaint is not even an option because
they say police themselves fear these men.
Anita Chavan, whose hus-band and two sons are drivers that
transport the animals to the abattoir asks me- If this is about
religion, should they not stop the vehicle and just let go of the
animals? Why
do they have to beat up some-one who is trying to earn his
living? You say this is your God? What kind of rule of law is this
which allows these men to go on doing this? In-stead of rescuing
the animals, these mobs which range from 25 to 50 men at once drag
the drivers out of their vehicles, steal their phones and cash, and
chase after them into the forest, later on setting the ve-hicles on
fire. While they talk about their ordeal, they show me a video of a
group called Gau Raksha Dal, an armed unit that carries out brutal
at-tacks on vehicles transporting animals to slaughterhouses,
records these and put up vid-eos online in the name of gau raksha.
But as the brothers mother says, We also be-lieve in gau mata. Cows
are not brought to slaughter hous-es, and they are not being
slaughtered, for many years. It is all lies. Sab inke naatak
hain.
CowBias : Sab inke naatak hain
Owner,Publisher. Printer : Abhishek Kumar Tiwari, published at
Ekta chawl, Annbhav Sathe Nagar, Mankhurd-400043, printed at New
Millenium Printers, NM joshi Marg, Lower parel
Editor-Abhishek Kumar Tiwari | www.thesabha.in | 8454073328|
[email protected]
If this is about religion, should they not stop the vehicle and
just let go of the an-imals? Why do they have to beat up someone
who is trying to earn his living? You say this is your God? What
kind of rule of law is this which allows these men to go on doing
this? Instead of rescuing the animals, these mobs which range from
25 to 50 men at once drag the drivers out of their vehicles, steal
their phones and cash, and chase after them into the forest, later
on setting the vehicles on fire.---
- Lydia Thomas, Student- Social Work, TISS, Mumbai
EDIT
Government stole the idea of BAN, an idea which is for welfare
of citizen, a law which can be used to protect the rights of
citizen in times of crisis. The BAN, Baza and Baarat of this
government at centre and now at various state has been fa-mous for
BAN. From banning books, to banning words of mouth, from banning
the idea of India
to the freedom of choice. The ban culture which kills the
diversity across caste, religion, gender and geography of India ,
must be opposed by the young demography by taking on to tweets and
to the streets. But will they !! The music of MANN ki baat has
become only MAN ki baat, with one sided decisions and talks
leaving the poor to clap on it. These forceful de-cisions are
penetrating down to the unsalaried unorganised households, and
worst affected are none other than children and women.
Hope the government provides freedom from maximum BAN and
minimum Governance.
2
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