Worshipped And Abandoned

The circular economy of cattle has been ruptured. Restrictions on cattle trade are forcing cattle rearers to abandon the cows, and therefore, their livelihood. Jitendra and photographer Adithyan P C travel across the cow belt in the country and neighbouring Nepal to understand how it has hit the poorest

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RAHAMDIN KHAN has not slept well for over a year. Resident of Khoabas, a bucolic village of 500 households at the foothills of Aravali mountain range in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Khan witnessed a cruel turn of fate. Life has undergone a change, and nothing but his traditional white kurta and pyjama remains the same. Goats and buffalos ramble around his house, but cattle, that once dictated his family’s economy, are conspicuously absent. For centuries, villages like Khoabas have depended on cattle for their primary economy and have lived a fairly sustainable livelihood. Food crops here drive the secondary economy.

In 2017, when Khan was on way to a local cattle fare, cow vigilantes thrashed him and took away his two milking cows and two calves. “Between 2014 and 2017, I have been arrested twice,” he says, alleging that 40,000 was extorted from him to be freed. Bruised, battered and humiliated, Khan abandoned his cattle. And with that he gave up what was driving his prime economy. “From being the caregiver, I was branded as the enemy of cows, and called a cow smuggler,” he says staring blankly at the floor. Police raided Khoabas several times, charging dairy farmers like Khan with cruelty against animals and putting them in jail.

“A strange restlessness has gripped me since I abandoned my 65 cattle. It singularly defined the prosperity of my family. I cannot imagine financial growth without it,” he says. Once a prosperous farmer, Khan now lives below poverty line. “I don’t get sleep without my cattle,” he says.

In the backdrop of rising threat of violence over cattle movement and stringent anti-cow trade laws in Rajasthan, many Khoabas residents, like Khan, have started quitting cattle rearing as a profession. Some households keep buffaloes while others either have goats, or both.