To
The Editor,
Lawyers Update,
80, Gokhale Market,
Opp.Tis Hazari Court,
Delhi-54
Sir,
Comments on Note in Lawyers Update, Delhi (March, 2009) on Article 48 of the Constitution on Organisation of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.
The note quotes a Delhi Session judge who has prescribed compassion for living creatures as a fundamental duty of citizens to ‘protect and improve the national environment’ and have compassion for all living creatures.
I am not aware of any fundamental duty which covers all animals. He is also quoted to state that animals have the right to live in harmony with humans. This does not amount to an absolute right to life but subject to their use for the preservation of the human race. Finally, he is said to have instructed the government that provision for grazing ground be included as an essential element of town planning. There is a limit to the land to be allotted for
grazing. Therefore, unlimited growth of animals will finally out-strip the grazing grounds and ultimately affect the capacity of the earth to feed human beings.
This explains why there has been much pressure on the government to intoduce a total ban on the slaughter of the cow and its progeny but not about other animals.
Total ban goes beyond the scope of Article 48. In any case the prohibition on slaughter of milch or draught cattle under article 45 cannot be extended to other animals which are presently and potentially capable of yielding milk or serving as draught cattle. In fact, the very specification of ‘milch and draught’ shows that the Constituent Assembly did not consider a total ban even on the slaughter of all such animals when no longer useful. In any case, unrestricted rise in cattle population would not only out-strip grazing facilities but compete for food and fodder, available for useful cattle.
For many citizens meat, even beef, is an essential food. The court can place restriction on slaughter of useful cattle but how can it place a ban on consumption of cattle meat? I recall in one presidential election, the presidential candidate claimed the ‘right to beef’.
At the end of the note, killing of animals (a much larger category) is depicted as a sin. That is a religious view which is not shared by a majority of the people. Indeed, while the general perception is that only Muslims and Christians consume beef, the fact is that a very high
proportion of consumers belong to the lower castes of the Hindu community and to the tribals. Secondly, compassion apart, the killing of all living creatures is not a crime under Indian law. Otherwise, how can we kill flies or mosquitoes? On even bed bugs?
It is obvious that ban on cow slaughter is basically a religious demand of a section of the people who believe in the divinity of the cow. This religious belief cannot be imposed on the rest of the population in or by a secular state. Nor should the secular state protect or provide for the upkeep of the cow and its progeny at public expense. It is for those who worship the cow and its progeny to acquire the old, decrepit and economically useless cattle and maintain them to the end of the natural life at their own expense, undividedly or collectively. I am advised that such maintenance is now a commercial proposition.
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