Beef Ban | Pros Cons

Why in news?
Meanwhile, as the ban spreads like a virus to neighbouring municipalities, the Bombay High Court has questioned the very practicality of enforcing a meat ban in urban areas with a varied population and modern retailing. But that has not prevented the bug from leapfrogging state borders to flourish in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where, again, Jains must be surprised to find themselves set apart from the population claiming local provenance. And, in a parallel development, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has banned the slaughter of bovines and the sale of their flesh. Predictably, separatist groups are defying its ruling. 

Points in Favour of Banning:

• cow protection 
• preservation thus bringing in an improvement in bovine population.
• upholds the Directive Principles of State Policy - Article 48 
• animal rights

Arguments against THE BAN:

• livelihood of large number of beef producers, traders and farmers
• affects India’s thriving animal husbandry sector (second largest beef exporter)
• adverse impact on the cuisine tourism, business of restaurants
• inflation in other meats
• poor man’s meat and worsen the malnutrition scenario.

• Meat bans violate fundamental liberties, erode state’s secular character, harm the cause of vegetarianism.
  

•   liberty cannot be held hostage to someone else’s beliefs.
•  The more you ban in the name of religion, the more derision you will evoke for it. 
• Respect is not something that’s imposed. Coercion is the antithesis of respect.
• They tie issues like vegetarianism or non-violence to sectarian identities, not to ethical values; they relocate them from the realm of rational and moral argument to the domain of cultural politics.
• religious sentiments  - pro-Hindu and might widen the communal differences
• It might lead to increase in old and infirm cow population 
• Supreme Court in 1958 judgment held that keeping “useless cattle” alive would be a “wasteful drain” on the nation’s cattle feed
• no genetic improvement through selection by culling of under-performing animals and breeding high-yielding varieties.
• snatches alternate income to drought affected families

Conclusion:

• In an era of individual liberty, the mere fact that something is imposed does and should make it an object of suspicion. Paradoxically, it is easier to discuss, even proselytise, these values when there is no threat of a ban. Similarly, there are issues with bans on liquor. There are genuine social issues with drinking in India, and the violence and devastation it brings. But the minute the spectre of massive state intrusion is raised by the prospect of a ban, it becomes harder to sensitively confront these issues. The more you use state power to ban things, the more they will be contested. Like our demands for bans on books, the intent is to assert community power and draw attention, not solve a real problem.
• Balance between - White revolution + pink revolution+ leather revolution