What’s at Steak?
India has been a pro-Hindu nation since its conception, and partition. The country’s population is majorly Hindu, and minorly Muslim. This disparity is becoming increasingly prevalent in India as the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) party continues to govern the city’s affairs. The party continues to practice Hindutva Politics which basically means they govern the country based on pro-Hindu politics, or politics that appeal to the majority of the population. Based on this majoritarian method of politics, BJP introduced a ‘beef ban’ in India in 2017 preventing the slaughter, consumption, and selling of cows all over the nation. Some might say that the slaughter/consumption of cows carry immense scientific and climatic consequences and specifically invoke riots within communities in India thereby disturbing the society as a whole; however, I believe that the ban will worsen scientific and climatic consequences coupled with impacting the economy negatively, and, in fact, increase communal riots. In my opinion, the ban was implemented because of India’s paradoxical and the prime minister’s personal views regarding beef. India is one of the largest exporters of beef surmounting to 20% of total global exports (Nason), hence the ban is surely set to cause a global shift in beef trade and impact the global economy.
Even though, the fundamentals of the Indian constitution are deep-rooted in secularity and peace, the beef ban is an anomaly that’s causing distress within the nation. The holiness of a cow in India might be a cliché, however it is deep-rooted in Hinduism, yet beef was readily available in India reflecting the nation’s diversity and inclusion of cultures and identities. “Thousands of butchers and vendors, their livelihood abruptly suspended, have protested in Mumbai. The leather industry is in turmoil. Beef is consumed not only by Indian Muslims and Christians, but also by many low-caste Hindus” (Suri). Mr. Suri, hints at the multiplier effect of the beef ban and how it affects various stakeholders within and outside the food chain. He further suggests that the policy affects low-caste Hindus, who comprise of 60% of India’s Hindu population (Pew Research Center), and therefore doesn’t accomplish its innate goal of making India a primarily Hindu nation. I believe that Mr. Suri tries to explicate a larger issue through his article; he implies that the government is functioning unjustly and thus, its actions are going to cause unexpected reactions from all directions.
The effects of the ban resulted in various communal riots, and protests thereby widening religious and economic inequalities in the nation. Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said “Calls for cow protection may have started out as a way to attract Hindu votes, but it has transformed into a free pass for mobs to violently attack and kill minority group members.” Ms. Ganguly illustrates an alternative multiplier effect: one causing death and violence within communities. In my opinion, Ms. Ganguly tries to inform readers that the Indian government has made beef illegal and therefore it has become a ‘taboo’ of sorts to be a beefeater. She suggests that the government has openly triggered a riot against Indian minorities. Thus, various “cow vigilante groups” (et. Al) are prosecuting and harming innocent people out of suspicion — primarily based on caste or religion. Yes, I understand that political ploys to gain votes are a very common aspect of politics, however, not at the expense of increasing religious polarization between an already polarized country. To the world, Prime Minister Modi’s actions are considered religiously racist, and as Al Jazeera reports, “this could cause various pro-Muslim nations to seek revenge for their community members” as they are the “primary beef eaters and sellers in India” (Anand, Roshan).
Various nations that have a majority Muslim population saw this policy as an act of religious racism. Thus, various activists stepped up to address their concerns. Reporter, Mehr Tarar consolidates the Pakistani sentiment and says, “there is no justification for hurting or insulting or acting against the religious sensitivities and sensibilities of anyone.” Tarar elucidates that the pro-Muslim nation feels like the Modi government is being religiously insensitive and is provoking a reaction from the Muslim community by specifically hurting them economically and socially. Dr. Hussain Madavoor of the Saudi Gazette says “India’s beef ban is no different from us not wanting Idol worship in our country. We recognize the Hindu minority in our nation, and thus allow temples with idols to function safely, shall we stop this?” Mr. Madavoor’s statement is incredibly meaningful and describes the effect on global Hindus who aren’t residing in India. The beef ban is causing hatred by Hindus in India, and to Hindus outside India — overall it has increased polarization and violence therefore resulting in an unprecedented shock to India’s international trade market.
India’s overall international trade market took a hit for two reasons: beef exports stopped, and various countries reduced their trade with India due to religious sentiments. Cows began to be seen as a lost economic opportunity and hence farmers began to abandon their cows because they became liabilities instead of assets overnight. Ranjan of Hind Acro calculates that “20 million Indians work in the industry, and it yields over $3 billion in foreign exchange” (et. Al, 7), therefore the ban will increase overwhelming Indian unemployment by 20 million people and reduce the GDP for $3 billion; authors of a research paper on the beef ban believe that “Such a ban has the potential to pull down India’s annual GDP growth rate by about 2 per cent and reduce the global beef market by 0.91%” (et. Al, 9). Additionally, the leather trade, which primarily depended upon cow skin, was disrupted and hence countries like Italy, the Middle East, France, and USA had to find alternate suppliers like Australia and China who charged higher prices for the same cow skin. This caused a global increase in leather goods, specifically fashion goods. Yes, I agree that wearing animal skin is openly accepting animal cruelty, however, everything in this world comes with an opportunity cost. Making arms and ammunitions indirectly does cause loss of life, doesn’t mean we ban it! We license it, impose a quota on it, and regulate its prices. I feel like the government of India should’ve taken a similar approach with beef instead of disrupting global markets and prices, directly causing a loss of jobs and business. All these shocks to economy, happened at the same time, thereby causing significant economic distress for the nation in the short and long run.
There occurred a global shift in the demand and supply of beef, thereby changing the fundamentals of the global beef economy, causing global prices to rise. The aforementioned economic changes created a global shortage of beef demand, therefore importers turned to alternate exporters who used this time as an opportunity to hike beef prices. “Indonesia has about 40,000 tonnes of beef still in cold stores so there is certainly no reason for concern about supply for quite a while yet,” (Nason) and this is exactly what happened. Indonesia became one of the largest suppliers of beef in the year 2018, helping the beef economy recover from the ban in India. Moreover, South Korea exported an extra $500 million worth of beef in 2018 (USDA), reacting to India’s ban. However, since the ban was out of the blue, and caused a supply shock to the beef market, the increased supply from various countries couldn’t come close to the $4 billion lost annually from India’s beef ban. WSJ estimates that beef prices rose by 3.3% since the market had an incredible shortage. Tobin Gorey, an analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said “there is a reason we as humans eat meat. It’s a food chain, why disrupt it? Regulate it.” He then suggested that the “Australian market has been bid up” because Australia never exported low-cost beef for frozen or fast foods, they only exported fine dining meats. However, now Australia got the opportunity to tap into a huge market with great upside potential, and hence Australian international trade saw an increase of “more than 20% in 2018” (Reserve Bank of Australia).
The $4 billion void India has left in the beef market is going to be a hard task to fill, therefore, I believe for the betterment of India’s international trade and global trade India must amend this policy and instead of taking away the right to consume or sell beef, impose a quota on the amount, or hand out certain licenses to create a ‘cap-and-trade- scheme’ for beef. Much like various governments around the world regulating carbon consumption in their countries, India must do the same for beef. We cannot ban the consumption or production of carbon because it is a necessity, and beef, too, is a necessity for various Indians. Therefore, I feel like India could have a privatized company, produce, and export beef around the world. This way the government gets to control the supply of beef, there won’t be a surplus of unused and useless cows on the streets of India, and the global market will have a considerably lesser shock than what it is already going through. Alternatively, India could implement a cap-and-trade scheme for beef: the government issues a few licenses randomly to various private companies and farmers, now these farmers have a choice whether to use their license and produce beef or sell their license to another entity and enjoy the profits. This creates an additional market for the licenses and therefore an additional source of revenue for Indian producers. Moreover, farmers who identify as Muslim and don’t feel comfortable exporting beef due the social scenario, don’t have to drown in debt, instead they can sell their license and cattle to another producer. This way, beef consumption and production in India is reduced as part of the “nation’s” (or government’s) sentiment and the economy benefits without minorities feeling neglected.
Alternatively, privatization or cap-and-trade schemes involve have a certain set of limitations that must be evaluated. Privatization leads to the occurrence of a natural monopoly which can harm the beef market globally and in India as the price will be controlled by the government and they may manipulate the price strategically, during a time of recession to revive the economy. Moreover, privatized companies don’t make profit as they produce below their average cost to be fully efficient; therefore, the firm and its workers don’t have an incentive to improve their product or even work on it 100%. This could lead to uncleaned beef, unchecked beef, and overall lead to an unhygienic product being consumed by the end-consumer. Cap-and-trade schemes encourage big companies to persuade smaller companies or entities (such as farmers) to sell their permits to them for a price below market value but above their expected value. These big firms tend to take advantage of a smaller company or entities financial situation and exploit it to maximize their profits. This is likely to lead to various protests and widen the income inequality gap in India, especially when the economy relies heavily on corruption. Moreover, the RSS, which is a Hindutva group in India, came on live TV and said, “every license, and every permit will be taken by us, forcefully or gracefully, beef is banned, that’s it.” Their extremist actions against the thought of a cap-and-trade scheme scare various producers who’d benefit, and therefore make them reluctant to act with their permit even if their issued one.
To conclude, the innate problem with India as a country is that the government plays on national sentiment, not for national interest, but, in fact, their own. The BJP’s methods to increase polarization between Hindus-and-Muslims has led to various Muslims moving to the middle east to live a happy and healthy life. The beef ban shows the world that the BJP does not care about the global economic repercussions of their policies; they want votes, that’s about it. So, what’s at steak? India’s reputation as a secular nation, and India’s international trade market.
