Cattle theft, more commonly, cattle raiding, or cattle lifting is a property crime in India. In the ancient and medieval era India texts, stealing cattle is described as a crime and sin, a motif that appears in Hindu mythologies.
In colonial- and postcolonial era, it has been a common crime but one marked with contradictions. According to David Gilmartin, the crime of cattle theft was perceived by the colonial era British officials are "potential political danger" that threatened "to corrupt the whole structure of the administration, for its pervasiveness threatened to undercut the position of the state as the protector and legal guarantor of the individual as a productive owner of revenue-producing property". In contemporary times, the demand for meat has led to cattle becoming a target of mass-theft. According to The New York Times and other sources, cattle theft for beef production is a lucrative business in India.
India has over 30,000 illegal slaughterhouses that operate in filthy conditions. According to The New York Times, cattle theft is partly a source of supplies to illegal slaughterhouses.
Video Cattle theft in India
Mythology, rituals and texts
Ancient myths in India such as those found in the Vedas mention cattle raiding, where it is described in terms of cosmogonic significance. These cow-theft myths trigger war and a cycle of retaliations such as in the story of Parashurama, a warrior Brahmin avatar of Hindu god Vishnu, who kills numerous Kashatriyas (warrior caste) after the theft of his father's mythical cow by the king.
In the Ramayana, states Alf Hiltebeitel, a myth speaks of the sins of "murdering children, sages and cows" leading to war, migration of communities and social upheavel. The story, states Hiltebeitel, not only condemns the murder of a sage and the theft of a cow, but also extends its analogy between calves and children. The Kamadhenu and Vasistha-Visvamitra conflict legend found in the Ramayana, states Adheesh Sathaye, is based on cattle theft motif, where Visvamitra fails to steal the mythical cow, repents and transforms himself into a Brahmin sage.
Cattle are mentioned in the Vedas more often than any other animals. In the Rigveda, the term Gavisti is mentioned in the context of conflict or battle, and this may be related to cattle raids state Macdonell and Keith. The penalty for injuring a bull was ten cows, according to Calvin Schwabe, for the theft of a cow, death. Stealing a cow, states Patrick Olivelle, is one of the crimes and sins in Manusmriti.
Maps Cattle theft in India
History
Cattle looting is mentioned as a form of warfare among pastoral peoples in the history of India. Competitive raiding a means to show prowess by youth and community solidarity in colonial era Punjab.
David Gilmartin states that "cattle were among the most ubiquitous and important forms of moveable property in India, and cattle stealing was among the most prevalent crimes in northern India during the colonial period" in the 19th century. However, adds Gilmartin, cattle thefts in India were "marked by contradictions" with many village and clan chiefs involved in cattle theft networks and shared in the profits in western Punjab. These were recognized by the colonial government as "key administrative intermediaries". The crime came to be known as "cattle lifting" (like shop lifting), and it was practiced by thieves, by organized mafia and by armies during conquest. Cattle theft were a source of riots and civil disturbances. Hundreds of riots erupted in colonial India over cow slaughter. The village "muqaddam" (chiefs) pursued peace in the village, and British administrators added laws aimed at preventing cattle theft.
According to Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of South Asian History, cattle theft (or languri) was the "most widely reported crime investigated by the Uttar Pradesh police in the 1880s and 1890s, and was considered the most organized and widespread agricultural crime because cows were regarded as the most valuable animal in Indian society." The convicted cattle thieves were from various Hindu castes such as Thakurs, Ahirs, Gujars, Kurmis, Brahmins, Chamars, as well as Muslims. During this period and through the early part of 20th-century, the British administration routinely accused Chamars (untouchables, Hindus) of large-scale cattle deaths by poisoning and of theft for the purposes of obtaining skins for leather trade. According to Rawat, these accusations were "standard bureaucratic response" that continued after the British rule ended.
In 1930, an elderly Hindu woman alleged that Bengali Muslims had stolen her bullock, for sacrifice during the Islamic festival of Bakri-Id, when she saw her bullock in the Digboi market place. Hindus with sticks and Muslims with stones collected, triggering waves of riots in this part of Assam, accompanied by looting and killings.
According to David H. Bayley, a professor of Criminal Justice, the crime of "cattle theft is a matter of deadly seriousness in India," because it is an agrarian society where "many people live on the cheerless threshold of starvation". Cattle, states Bayley, are as important as children and grown adults "weep bitterly over the loss of their stock". In 1963 alone, over 20,000 cases of cattle thefts and arrests were reported in India.
Contemporary situation
The above graphs show: (a) the amount of cattle theft in India per 100,000 people, also called the rate, during the years 1953-2015 (shown in colour seagreen) and (b) the share (as percentage) of cattle theft in total major (cognizable) crime during the same period (shown in colour orchid). The graphs are based on tables of statistics from NCRB reports 1953-2015, India.
According to Roshan Kishore, writing in Live Mint, analysis of data published by India's National Crime Records Bureau shows that the proportion of cattle theft in overall theft in India declined during the period 1990-2014 both in the number of incidents reported and the value of the property taken.
The above graph shows the annual numbers of reported cattle theft in India during the years 1953-2015, also based on tables of statistics from NCRB reports 1953-2015, India.
A 2013 report by Gardiner Harris's in the Delhi Journal of The New York Times stated that cattle theft had increased in recent times in New Delhi, linked to an increase in the consumption of meat among Indians. The meat was primarily chicken, but included beef. Harris argued that cattle were left free to roam the streets, making them easy targets. According to The Hindu newspaper, analysis of data published by India's National Sample Survey 2016 shows that less than one per cent of Hindus in the Hindi belt consume beef or buffalo meat. Over the ten year period, 1999-2000 to 2011-2012, the consumption of beef or buffalo meat by Hindus in India declined from 19 million to 12.5 million.
According to The New York Times, organized mafia gangs pick up the cattle they can find and sell them to illegal slaughterhouses. These crimes are locally called "cattle rustling" or "cattle lifting". According to media reports, India has numerous illegal slaughterhouses. For example, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the officials in 2013 reported over 3,000 illegal slaughterhouses. According to Nanditha Krishna, there are an estimated 30,000 such illegal slaughter sites in India, typically operating in filthy conditions.
The theft of cattle for slaughter and beef production is economically attractive to the mafias in India. In 2013, states Gardiner Harris, a truck can fit 10 cows, each fetching about 5,000 rupees (about US$ 94 in 2013), or over US$900 per cattle stealing night operation. In a country where some 800 million people live on less than US$2 per day, such theft-based mafia operations are financially attractive. According to Andrew Buncombe, when smuggled across the border, the price per cattle increases nearly threefold and the crime is even more attractive financially. Many states have reported rising thefts of cattle and associated violence, according to The Indian Express.
Smuggling into Bangladesh
Government authorities and local residents in areas surrounding Bangladesh have stated that frequent cattle-smuggling across the border from India is causing an increase in cattle theft."
Hundreds of thousands of cows, states the British newspaper The Independent in a 2012 article, are illegally smuggled from India into Bangladesh every year to be slaughtered. Gangs from both sides of the border are involved in this illegal smuggling involving an estimated 1.5 million (15 lakhs) cattle a year, and cattle theft is a source of the supply, states Andrew Buncombe. According to a 2014 report by The International Business Times, criminal gangs steal and smuggle cattle from India into Bangladesh, an operation that yields them "hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits". Not only it hurts the cattle owners, the activity is dangerous as it leads to deaths of the "perpetrators and innocent bystanders", states Palash Ghosh. According to a 2014 report by Palash Ghosh of International Business Times:
(...) the illegal mass-theft of cattle is a huge problem thousands of miles away from the Chisum Trail - on the border between India and Bangladesh. Along the largely porous boundary between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, cattle-raids and cattle-smuggling, often conducted by criminal gangs, raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits. The activity is so lucrative and dangerous that it often costs the lives of the perpetrators and innocent bystanders. (...) Bimal Pramanik, an independent researcher in Kolkata, told the Monitor that Bangladesh has an insatiable demand for beef. 'Bangladeshi slaughterhouses cannot source even 1 million cows from within the country. If Indian cows do not reach the Bangladeshi slaughterhouses, there will be a big crisis there,' he said, adding that he estimates three-fourths of all cows slaughtered in Bangladesh originated in India. In this thriving trade, [herds of] cows worth 50 billion rupees are sent across to Bangladesh every year. (...);
Incidents
- In November 2015, a man in Manipur was spotted by locals walking with a missing calf. They accused him of theft and lynched him.
- In Uttar Pradesh, four people were arrested after they threw away bovine carcass and confessed to stealing and slaughtering of cattle.
- In March 2016, villagers near Nagpur (Maharashtra) reported 60 thefts of cattle within a year. The cattle owners alleged that gangs were behind the theft and they were selling the stolen cattle to slaughterhouses.
- In January 2017, villagers in Karnataka chased a truck carrying stolen cattle, caught two cattle thieves and handed them over to police. The truck toppled over, killing one of the cows inside the truck.
- Riots broke out in Gujarat when local people discovered a partially decomposed calf head near a road side butcher shop.
- In West Bengal, according to a June 2017 Indian Express report, villagers of Durgapur showed "copies of nearly two dozen police complaints of cow thefts", then claimed that the police asked them to take care of such "petty matters" themselves. Further poor farmers complained of economic calamity from the thefts and a willingness to beat anybody they catch with stolen cattle. In northern region of the state, a gang of about 10 men came in a van in an alleged attempt in a village to steal cows, and a few of them were shot dead after they had entered a cowshed and had already taken cows from two homes.
- In Assam, two Muslim teenagers were killed, after they were caught untying two cows in a pasture and then suspected of trying to steal those cows. According to The Financial Express, cow smugglers use cruel methods such as dumping them in fast flowing rivers to transport cows into Bangladesh.
- In Uttar Pradesh, three suspects were caught stealing a buffalo by villagers and beaten up according to a April 2017 report. In June 2017, a farmer was killed by a gang of cattle thieves near Agra at night when the farmer protested.
- Thieves were caught on a CCTV stealing a cow in Gujarat from the street by shoving it into a hatchback in October 2016. The car and the gang was later located, but cow was gone.
- In Delhi, a 5-member gang was arrested on charges of cattle theft after tip off and surveillance in July 2017. The police accused the gang of "sedating the cattle, piling more than 10 of them in one vehicle, filling the edge of the vehicle with stones and making two people stand at the back to mislead the police", and they shot at the police when challenged. A cattle theft gang was caught with illegal weapons and was reported to have been involved in over 100 cattle cases.
See also
- Cattle slaughter in India
- Cow protection movement
- Cow protection-related violence
References
Footnotes
Citations
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments