On the face of it, it looks like the new UP government is merely trying to implement the law on illegal abattoirs. Meat traders think otherwise. They have gone on a strike ever since the government launched a crackdown with the help of local vigilante groups. UP chief minister Adityanath Yogi said no action would be taken against legal slaughter houses. UP health minister Siddhartha Nath Singh asserted that vigilantism by the police was not acceptable. He also said closure of establishments for minor issues like non-functional CCTV cameras was unacceptable. The noises being made by the government are of the right kind, but they are too feeble. The issue here is not of cow slaughter and hence one is tempted to point a finger at the Adityanath government. There are a lot of things that are illegal in UP but when a government focuses on a trade connected to a particular community one cannot blame that community for feeling threatened. If it was a health issue then the government could have given meat traders time to upgrade their shops and slaughter houses. There are ways of tackling the issue without disrupting the trade, but it appears the government is more interested in disruption instead of regulation.
