 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh has yet not completed one month of its tenure, but there has been a constant attack on slaughterhouses, minorities and livelihood of people. To discuss the issue we have with us, Komit Subashnayali, she is a Politburo member of the CPIM and a former MP from Kanpur. Welcome to NewsClick. So this crackdown on the meat sellers, slaughterhouses, while High Court has given a call that they can't do this, but the government is continuously pursuing it. What do we have to say on that? You see, first of all I would like to make one thing very clear that the moment we say this is an attack on minorities or see it as an attack on minorities, actually we are seeing a very small part of the picture and we also help some people who want to polarise society to effect this kind of polarisation. Actually what the government of Uttar Pradesh has done now and even what was happening earlier that is the attacks on people who were transporting animals etc. It is affecting lakhs and lakhs of people who do not belong to the minority community. They are mostly Dalits and also farmers. So I would just like to clarify certain things. First of all it is being projected that illegal slaughterhouses have been closed. So it is said that illegal slaughterhouses have been closed. So this is also absolutely wrong because all the slaughterhouses and the abattoirs are not from the private slaughterhouses. All the slaughterhouses are from the town areas of Nagar Mahapalika. And the Supreme Court has said that they should not be closed or transferred, but they should be brought up to the required norms and the required standards. It is their responsibility to do this. They have failed or they have not done it or they have started the job and it has not been completed. So why should the people who come there to slaughter animals be penalised? Why should their livelihood be brought to a complete standstill? It is wrong that it is the responsibility of the government and its institutions, but they are being punished by the people who come there to slaughter animals. Now I would like to say that there are three kinds of slaughterhouses. One is for buffaloes, one is for sheep, goats and one is for pigs. Now the ones that are for pigs are entirely used only by the Khatik community which is a Dalit community. So these three have the same kind of slaughterhouses that only use Dalit and they sell the goat meat. Now the second thing they are saying is that they do not have a license but the licensing authority is also the Nagar Mahapalika and the Palikas. Many of which are controlled by BJP. So what is happening since the last 1.5-2 years is that the Nagar Mahapalika and the Palikas, especially those who are in charge of the Indian People's Party, they are not renewing the license of the people. They are not renewing it. And now on the 31st of March, in 2017, all the licenses have been rejected. They have to all be renewed. And so now there is not a single person who has got a license. So it is not the entire picture. They are unlicensed because the licenses have not been renewed and the process for renewing the license has not been followed. So this also is the fault of the license issuing authorities. But apart from this, there is a very big area that is affected by this which needs to be looked at. In every district of Uttar Pradesh, every district of Uttar Pradesh has weekly cattle markets. And each district has between 7-12. In each market, between 500 and 1500 cattle are bought. And mostly they are buffaloes because obviously the selling and buying of cows has now become very dangerous. So cows are sold very little in these markets, weekly. But from 500 to 1500 cows, every day they are sold in some district. Now count how many districts there are. So there are more than 70 districts. And in every district, so many animals were sold daily. Now from the last 15-20 days, all these weekly markets have come to a complete standstill. So who is suffering? Number one, the owner of that place who used to earn money, they are all very wealthy, landlords and they are not Muslims. The government is losing huge amounts of revenue. The government money that used to come from there has also been shut down. But most of the buffaloes sold were farmers and there was a huge number of non-Muslims. So this is a matter of lakhs of people who have not been able to sell their buffaloes for the last 20 days. Now people say that those who are open for profit, they can go there. But the question is who will take them there? When people get scared on the way, when people are threatened of being attacked. So what is happening is that the farmers used to come to the markets but since there are no buyers. Now their income has also been shut down and the market has also been shut down. So the thousands and thousands of farmers who had bought buffaloes in 1 lakh rupees, for 3-4 years that buffalo gave milk, it was sold for about a lakh rupees each good milk producing buffalo. And they gave milk for say 4 years, 5 years. Now they can also be sold. And they are sold for a good price, 40,000, 50,000 rupees. The farmers used to get it and that is why they used to invest money in buying buffaloes for milk. Now when they cannot sell, they will not be able to buy it again. So the whole milk production is also going to take a severe beating because milk cattle will not be bought. And then we come to Chamla's Uddiyog. If they do not come to Khaal, then how will Chamla's Uddiyog work? So I can tell you about Kanpur. In Kanpur, there are 203 small tenders which are on the verge of closure. Because number one pollution control and so on and so forth, lack of demand from outside and now the lack of availability of skins. Now who does the actual initial treatment of hides? They are all Dalits who do the salting of the hides to make them semi-finished. And after that the small tanneries, 75% of their workers are Dalits. So if they are 203 with an average of say 100 workers each, you can understand how many people have lost their livelihood. And the larger tanneries which are about 100, which employ all together thousands of people. Now they are also laying off because the price of hide has gone up to 15% in the last 15 days. And the availability is absolutely without any guarantee. Since you have pointed out so many things, do you think they didn't consider all these facts, they didn't consider all these matters? Because if you look at the different spokesperson of the BJP, the ministers, people are also linking out protection to freedom struggle. So what's the agenda behind this? You see the problem is that it is not only the BJP which looks at it in a very, very short sighted manner. But unfortunately all the people who oppose it, they also look at it in the same way. The picture that the people of BJP see, it also shows the people who are opposing it. The matter is very big and until all the farmers, all the workers, all the workers are connected to it, it won't be able to oppose it and we won't be able to influence the government on the right path. Do you think this whole process is the way to push the entire Brahmanwadi agenda, the upper caste agenda? Yes it is. And that's why they are doing their work with their agenda. Right now they have said that killing a cow in 36 homes would be equal to killing a man. So this is human nature. In human nature, the value of Brahman and the value of cows is the same which can be given death penalty. The rest, if you are killing different men, you will be punished in different fields. So it seems that the problem of harming human nature is the first step. But in doing this, the whole society and the whole country is different. But then how much are they harming and how many are they playing with the lives of millions of people. This needs to be understood now from all the people. The whole issue that is coming forward, along with it, the Vigilante groups have also taken control of the streets, what happened in Alwar, it is in front of us. So is there no control over the government or are they being released? There is no control over the government because all the family members say that they are part of it. They are part of their family. Some people are running the government and some are doing all these things. That is why they do not see it as separate from themselves. But then when they have to run the government, if they have to run the administration, then some of them have to see that yes, this is a matter of breaking the law, what will be the effect of it, etc. So from their side, some people say that there is no control over the law. Some people say that this is a matter of our hearts and emotions, then we cannot see the law. So this is a control over the government because running the government, running the administration and taking this very important agenda forward is a violation of the law. And it is becoming very clear every day. Now in Kerala, the candidates in Malappuram District, they are saying that it is very good to eat cow meat. And if you vote for me, I will get very good quality cow meat in Malappuram. So they can say that in other places. They are saying about North East. They are saying that they are doing parties there, that we will never stop it. So these are the organizations of our country, the organizations of our society, while watching them, they do different things, they do different things at different times. But their strong agenda, whether it is to establish a Hindu nation, or to establish a human race, or to increase the emotions of the people, it keeps going on. That is their main agenda. The rest of these places are on Hashiha, that Kerala is far away, North East is far away. The rest of what is happening is the Indian, which should be said, the main part of it is happening in a global way. As far as I remember, the answer to the Communist Party, it wrote a letter to the Chief Minister 3-4 days ago. You were also a signatory. So what are the main demands? The same demands that we have just said, we have written them, put all these down. And in that, we had said that the law, by taking it in our hands, that people's shops are burning, people's shops are closing, it should be done against them. There should be action taken against vigilante groups. And the police is also harassing them, taking money from them. We have said something about police stations, some districts. Anyway, I know that some high officials have talked to these district chiefs and all that. So these are the things. But the main demand is that they should start working. And you keep improving yourself. So we have heard that the Chief Minister has seen it, has taken it in his favour, but what will he do now? But there is no reply yet. There are some replies like this, that he is not saying that we are thinking something, we are doing something, because he has to answer some of the questions quickly. So let us see.