The Central
Government has added a few more rules to the existing Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals Act, 1960. The Rules attempts to regulate the sale of cattle (and only
cattle, as opposed to all animals) in
markets, stipulating that cattle cannot be sold for slaughter but only for
agricultural purposes. Many argued,
and rightly so, that the Central Government’s attempts amounted to a backdoor
restriction on the consumption of beef. And there are good reasons to believe
that the motives of an openly Hindu nationalist government are indeed to stop
the consumption of beef – one way or the other.
The Central
Government rules were challenged in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court through
a public interest litigation (PIL), filed by activists and lawyers S.
Selvagomathy and B. Asik Ilagi Bava. Based on the PIL, the Madras High Court
issued an interim stay for a period of four weeks. The period of the interim
stay will expire by the time this article goes to press and we will have to
await the Madras High Court’s further judgment on this issue. Nonetheless, it
would be profitable to examine the logic through which the Madras High Court
arrived at its decision to issue an interim stay.
Any basic civics
textbook that children use in schools will tell you that constitutional
democracy consists of three pillars of governance: the executive, the
legislature, and the judiciary. There is a separation of power between these
three branches so as to not allow one branch – let us say, the executive – with
absolute powers. Further, in India there is the Central, State, and Concurrent
lists which are areas of governance that are marked for the state and central
government to formulate laws. The petitioners in the Madras High Court submitted
that in addition to impinging on personal freedoms as regards consumption of
food and trade is concerned, the Central Government’s rules amounted interference
and usurpation of the powers of the state legislature. It should be noted that
while ‘cruelty to animals’ is listed in the Concurrent list wherein the state
and the centre can legislate, ‘slaughter of animals’ is listed in the State
list.
While this may
be the gray area through which the Central Government wanted to push for the
new rules that would make the sale and purchase of cattle tougher, as indeed it
argued that these rules were necessary precisely to prevent cruelty of animals
and the protection of the agrarian economy. The Madras High Court was clear
that the rules introduced by the Central Government were unconstitutional. The
High Court stated that in addition to interfering in the legislative powers of
the state, the Executive had transgressed its own constitutional powers – the
new rules appended to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 also went
against the framework, purpose and intent of the original or parent Act. The
High Court recognized that personal liberties and choices with regard to food
habits and trade were impinged upon by the new rules. However, it must be noted
that while the Madras High Court recognized personal choice and freedom, the
interim stay was granted only on technical grounds of the Central Government
transgressing its constitutional powers, and the subject of the law being part
of the State list.
Familiarizing
ourselves with the logic of the interim stay order brings one fact clearly to
the fore: it is actually the federal state which needs to legislate on the
slaughter of animals. In Goa various laws that, while not providing a blanket
ban of slaughter of cattle or the consumption of beef, have over the years nonetheless
brought in many provisions that restrict the choice of food and trade in
certain ways. Laws
such as The Goa, Daman and Diu Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1978 enacted by
the then MGP government prevented the slaughter of female cattle. The Goa
Animal Preservation Act, 1995, enacted during the Congress regime and amended
in 2003 and 2010 to give it more teeth, sought to regulate the slaughter of
non-female cattle by making it mandatory to obtain certification that the
bovine was fit for slaughter.
What we can
observe from the laws enacted by the governments in Goa is that, even while
keeping with certain constitutional provisions and rights, the legislative
assembly of Goa has slowly eroded the rights of Goans to trade in and consume
the meat of bovines. Which is why when, following the hate speech of Sadhavi
Saraswati recently made in Ramnathi, Ponda, Vijai Sardesai assured Goans that
their right to eat and trade in the foods they prefer would not be infringed
upon, his statement appeared to be half-hearted and cosmetic at best. The
reason is that well before such Sadhavis could make Ramnathi their preferred
base to spew hatred on Goans of all religious persuasions, the Goa government
was happily playing to the sentiments of Hindu (i.e. brahmanical) majoritarianism.
However, despite the oppressive cow politics there is no talk of re-looking the
existing laws, or changing/abolishing these laws. It is after all within the
constitutional limits of the state legislature to legislate justly on the
issue. Political parties and politicians come and go, but laws remain: case in
point, the 1978 law that the MGP brought restricting cow slaughter.
Rather than wishy-washy statements, or assurances that the Goa Government will object
to certain provisions in the Centre’s rules by writing to the Central
Government in this regard, the State of Goa should exercise its constitutional
powers in the interest of Goans and not just one community. Bringing a
substantial change through the state legislature is what Goans need to demand
now.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 21 June, 2017)
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