Lucknow: Sadhu Shukla, a farmer in Arjunpur village in Sultanpur, was a happy man till last week because his paddy crop was exceptionally good.
Today, tears cannot stop trickling down if he was asked about his condition. He said he can’t help but blame ‘gau mata’ for destroying his crop.
“Gai hamari mata hai, magar ab isse nahin koi nata hai (Cow is our mother but I have no relation with it anymore),” he said angrily. On further prodding, he said, “There has been a spurt in stray cows in almost all the villages and these stray cows get into our fields and trample the crops,” he says.
Uttar Pradesh is apparently facing a problem when it comes to the large population of cows.
After the Yogi Adityanath government imposed a ban on cow slaughter and thanks to cow vigilantes, old and ailing cows that can’t give milk anymore are being abandoned by their owners. These cows now roam free in the fields, damaging crops. “Each cow entails an expenditure of at least '6,000 to '7,000 per month and we cannot afford to feed it if it does not give milk.
Earlier, we would have no problem in selling ‘dry’ cows but now no one wants to buy them because of the fear of ‘gau rakshaks’. So we simply leave them to fend for themselves,” said Rakesh Singh, a farmer from Achalpur.
