It is not just farmers who face problems with stray cattle, the Vande Bharat Express, has had problems with it, too

Unsurprisingly, the impact of the banning of cattle slaughter and its strict enforcement is having some serious consequences. Reports have emerged that farmers across northern India are staying up at night to guard their fields against large herds of stray cattle. In some cases farmers have locked up large numbers of bovines in school classrooms in order to prevent the destruction of their crops. Of course, one could make the argument that the crackdown by the Yogi Adityanath led state government in Uttar Pradesh against rampant illegal slaughterhouses has created the situation. The fact is while the cow is revered in India, many farmers turned a blind eye to slaughter of particularly of old ones. Indeed selling such to slaughter houses was the only way for them to monetise that asset.

But once that was stopped and with hundreds of thousands of older cattle remaining with no productive economic use, owners find themselves left with no option but to release them. And despite hundreds of crores of rupees being poured into gaushalas across this country, they do not have the capacity to deal with the incredible numbers of strays nowadays. So, across northern India, instances of huge herds are becoming more commonplace and it is not just farmers and fields where they are impacting daily life. On highways and roads across India, stray cattle are becoming a safety hazard. The latest problem though might bring the problem into the spotlight with the Indian railways’ flagship new Express train, the Vande Bharat Express, stalled after hitting stray cattle. The irony of this happening to this train was not lost on some, and news of the train defect even made the international media. But cattle hits by train are more common than most think, although most locomotives do not suffer much damage.

The fact that cows are revered in Hinduism and Indian culture should not influence our thinking to the extent that we cannot find a sensible solution to the stray and ageing livestock. And while the solutions may not be palatable to all initially, we do need to find one. Because what started out as a small problem a couple of years ago, is reaching epidemic proportions and is threatening human development now and we cannot treat the lives of cattle to be more important than human life.