U.P. Meat Sellers on Indefinite Strike

The meat sellers in Uttar Pradesh (UP) have decided to go on an indefinite strike from Monday, 27th March. Fish traders are likely to join the strike. It is to protest against the crackdown on meat business by the orders of the newly appointed Chief Minister of UP, Yogi Adityanath. Immediately after becoming CM, he acted upon his pre-election promise to curb illegal slaughter and smuggling of pashudhan. The hindutva translation of pashudhan is cow.

Government has shut down three slaughter houses- Al Yasir Exports, Al Kaif Industries, and Al Aqsa Frozen Food Exports- claiming they were illegal. Reports later showed they were legal. Apart from these actions taken by district authorities, many small meat shops are reportedly burned by mob. Consequently UP saw a shortage of meat. The famous tunde kabab in Lucknow, shut down its shutter for a day. There is no meat to feed the animals at zoos. The current UP government is adamant on destroying the meat business and the livelihood of lakhs of people who are dependent on it. This move wreaks of the RSS’ anti-Muslim politics.

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has repeatedly talked about the “pink revolution”; which means the meat business. According to him, the population of cattle in our country has gone down and pink revolution is to be blamed. There are no evidences to support this claim. In fact, the figures point to the opposite.

RSS and BJP work to make Indian society a majoritarian one. Their plan is to push minorities to the margins, rendering them invisible. They have effectively instilled fear in minorities especially Muslims through orchestrated communal riots. But the task requires attacks on financial and economic front as well. The whole narrative of pink revolution and protecting cows is precisely that. The meat business in India is mostly run by and employs Muslims. By demonising the business, they are demonising the whole community. This will have adverse effects on India’s large meat export business. In 2015 India became the largest beef exporter in world; retaining the position along with Brazil in 2016. 

Interestingly, BJP MP Sangeet Som reportedly had connections with a meat exporting company. BJP’s hypocrisy is evident in the fact that on the one hand they are banning meat in some states, on the other they claim to do no beef ban if they come to power in the north east states.

In this endeavour they have declared India as a vegetarian nation, when there are surveys and reports which shows that majority of Indians are non-vegetarians. They try to create a binary of meat eaters and non-meat eaters, where the meat eaters are anti-national as they have “Un-Indian” eating habits. We have entered the dark times where our nationalism is directly proportional to the absence of meat in our plates.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick.