Modi’s Push for a Hindu Revival Imperils India’s Meat Industry
Three years into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s term, the two agendas
that were woven together in his 2014 campaign — economic development and Hindu cultural revival — are becoming more difficult to reconcile, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, which was India’s top meat-producing state.
In March, when the governing Bharatiya Janata Party named a far-right Hindu cleric, Yogi Adityanath, as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, among his campaign
promises was to shut down "illegal" slaughterhouses, a simple enough task in a country with dozens of overlapping laws governing the handling of meat.
Membership in the far-right vigilante organization founded by Mr. Adityanath, the Hindu Yuva Vahini, has expanded rapidly in the western part
of the state, with the organization adding 2,000 new members in the past two months, said Anoop Rastogi, who leads its Meerut chapter.
By SUHASINI RAJ and ELLEN BARRYJUNE 5, 2017
MEERUT, India — When Uttar Pradesh’s state government began a crackdown on unlicensed slaughterhouses
in March, Sanjay Chaturvedi, a local veterinary inspector, celebrated.
"Instead of using state machinery to shut down the industry in a roundabout way, why not shut it down openly?"
Far-right Hindu groups have long opposed the slaughter of cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.
Of the 10 slaughterhouses and meat-processing factories operating in March on the stretch of road he patrols in Meerut,
seven have shut down, putting much of the local population — 10,000 people, by his estimate — out of work.
