As protests spread from Kerala to Bengal, Centre mulls tweaking its order on cattle

After protests from several states, the Union environment ministry is examining changing the definition of cattle in its new rules to exclude buffaloes from a ban on sale for slaughter at animal markets, sources said. Chief ministers like West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee and Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan have called the Centre's order an attack on state powers and said they would challenge it legally. Protests have spread from Kerala to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

On Monday, Mamata Banerjee spoke in rare consonance with the Left when she described the central government’s move as “an attempt to encroach into state power…It is unconstitutional; we will challenge it legally”.

“What we eat cannot be decided by Delhi or Nagpur,” Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan asserted, referring to the BJP and the party's ideological mentor, the RSS.

Eating beef is part of the culinary tradition in Kerala and most parties in the state have strongly opposed the new rules. The Congress is observing a “black day”, while the ruling CPI(M) has hosted “beef fests” at about 200 places in the state to protest the Centre’s order.

MK Stalin of Tamil Nadu's chief opposition party the DMK, will lead a protest in Chennai on Wednesday.

At the Indian Institute of Technology or IIT Madras, around 80 students participated in a beef fest and accused the ruling BJP of "imposing its communal agenda on the masses."

States have the power to pass their own laws on cattle slaughter and beef consumption. But the Centre's recent notification makes changes in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, which is applied across India.

The Congress has suspended three Youth Congress workers who were caught on camera slaughtering an ox in public and distributing its meat among the people. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has called the incident "barbaric".