Political and Economic Notes:
BJP Government Penalises People for Its Fault
On coming to power in the
states and at the centre the B.J.P.
has been aggressively pushing its
Hindutva religious agenda, even
using state coercion against people
besides using its lumpen forces to
make physical attacks, violence
and even murders on the people
arbitrarily.
One of its brand politics is
‘gauraksha’ (cow protection). With
such a ruse it has been deliberately
making every effort to suppress
and oppress the minority people
that do not belong to Hindu religion
or who differ with the opinions of
Hindutva bigots.
Many state governments gave
free run to cow vigilantes resulting
in the right-wing Hindutva groups
attacking cattle traders, in some
cases lynched them and even went
to the extent of murdering cattle
traders as happened in Alwar,
Rajsthan in 2017 with the
connivance of police who are
supposed to maintain law and order
against violence including mob
violence of any kind.
With
a
zero-tolerance
approach to cow transportation,
banning and shutting down
slaughter-houses traditionally run
for a very long-time, terming them
as illegal slaughter houses. The
problem of stray cows in the
country has been considerably
increased. These stray cows roam
the street of villages, towns and
even metros and even destroy
crops in their wake. It is estimated
that there are around 5 million
stray-cows in the country.
20
With shutting down the
slaughter-houses the U.P. state
government not only did nothing to
find any alternative means of
livelihood for the marginal small
traders, business men and their
employees of meat trade, but had
closed the avenues for the cattle
owners
to
dispose
their
unproductive animals. In the past
they used to sell unproductive
animals to slaughter houses. The
illogical decision of the U.P. state
government upset the dynamics of
the meat trade in the state with
backward linkages.
Under these circumstances
the cattle owners left with no
alternative found it more
convenient to simply abandon the
unproductive animals on the roads.
The end result of the
government’s decision is while
small traders associated with meat
industry got a severe jolt, farmers
also suffered. Desperate farmers
especially in western UP, started
locking-up abandoned cattle in
schools and government buildings
for fear of crop damage. Naturally
these cattle are dying of starvation
or asphyxiation. This is the un-
denying result of the U.P.
government’s zealous policies of
‘protection of sacred cow’. This
illogical decision has destroyed a
cultural affection for cows that has
happily coexisted with trade in
cattle for ages.
Now, instead of rectifying its
illogical policies and decisions of
‘gauraksha’ the BJP’s state
government has chosen to
penalise people by imposing
‘gauraksha’ cess of 2 per cent on
excise items. This apart, a 0.5 per
cent is levied on state operated
tolls. The government has also
increased levy on the tax revenue
of UP agricultural marketing board
or Mandi parishad from 1 per cent
to 2 per cent. The money is to be
used to set up and run “gauna-
nshashrayasthals” (or cattle
shelters) in villages, panchayats,
municipalities, municipal corpo-
rations, that will be run by civic
bodies and are aimed at tackling
the ‘growing menace of stray cattle’
in the state. Additionally, money
from the MNREGA scheme
intended to provide employment to
the rural poor, will be used to fund
these cow-sheds. Also, eight profit-
making public-sector undertakings
like Setu Nigam (Bridge
Corporation) and UP state
industrial development corporation
(UPSIDC) will now have to
contribute 0.5 per cent of their
corporate social responsibility
(CSR) kitty towards this cow-shelter
scheme.
Mohamad-bin-Tughluk
imposed Jijia Tax (tax on hair
growing) has remained as a mad
emperor and anti-people ruler
forever.
Now the BJP rulers in their zeal
of implementing one brand of their
politics of Hindutva bigotry are out
doing the ‘mad’ emperor with
unheard irrationality in the history
penalising the already suffering
people with umpteen irreconcilable
problems created by these rulers!
Such irrational anti-people
policies of BJP rulers shall not only
be abhorred but shall also be
vehemently opposed by people!
Class Struggle