Cow crackdown pushes India’s multi-billion dollar meat industry to the brink of collapse

Not a buffalo in sight as businessman Haji Shadab paced the silent abattoir, his meat shipments indefinitely on hold as India reels from a crisis threatening its reputation as the world’s largest buffalo meat exporter.

A zealous campaign to protect cows – considered sacred by Hindus – by a new right-wing government in Uttar Pradesh state has sent India’s US$4.8 billion buffalo meat industry into a tail-spin as slaughterhouses have closed and exports stalled.

Hindu hardliners have long accused abattoirs – largely run by Muslims – of covering up the slaughter of cows and passing off the meat as buffalo, which are not revered as holy.

In Uttar Pradesh, those radical Hindus have a new hero: Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand priest who took office in March promising tougher penalties for cow slaughter and a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses.

Just days after he was sworn in, three Muslim-run butcher shops in Hathras were torched – a bad omen for India’s largest meat-producing state, home to more than half its abattoirs.