Reasons why beef should not be banned

1.       A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state orcountry purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion,

By the very definition of secularism, the state cannot ban cow slaughter citing the reason to be: "Banned in Hinduism". The state has no right to ban cow slaughter simply because it is banned in Hinduism just like it has no right to ban idol worship simply because it's banned in Christianity/Islam. (Before you accuse me of pseudo-secularism, know that I support Uniform Civil Code as well)

2.      Coming to economic arguments, what is the economic benefit of keeping bulls or dried up cows? (If the cows are artificially inseminated and the fields are ploughed by machines, it is a burden on the farmer to feed bulls). The cows slaughtered for beef are not the milk-giving ones. India leads the world in beef export and it fetched India Rs.13725.23 crores in 2012. So in purely economic terms, it is an unsound decision to ban cow slaughter.

3.      Now let's come to how the lifestyle of the people is affected.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation UN (FAO) report titled Livestock Information, Sector Analysis and Policy Branch says the largest consumed meat in India is beef (Note: meat does not include chicken) . The total consumption of beef in India per year is 26 lakh tonnes[1], as compared to 6 lakh tonnes of mutton and 14 lakh tonnes of pork. Given that this is the case, a nation-wide ban on cow slaughter will have a considerable effect on lifestyle and is an encroachment on the fundamental rights

One can imagine how the price of

4.      If it's about animal rights, why be partial to cows? What about pork or mutton?

Cow slaughter only happens when:

1.       The cow is no longer capable of producing milk - this is usually after it has passed a certain age and can no longer birth calves. Keeping a cow alive in such a circumstance makes it negate its usefulness. Cows were domesticated over a few thousand years to be useful to humans which means that they have no higher function than provide milk to humans. When it cannot produce milk it is of no use to us. Now, one might point out that its dung could still be used as a fertiliser. That's flawed thinking. While it is true they provide fertiliser, it's nutrition value is far less than the resources it consumes. Most of the energy it gets from consumption gets used in keeping itself alive among other things. It would make far more sense to just dump the fodder into the ground and infest it with worms to make it fertile while we just consume the cow out of existence.

2.      The cow is specifically bred for meat. This means that there is no real impact on the milch cows. The cows bred for meat aren't used for milk and the milch cattle are left alone. At best the cows would provide milk to its offspring and be slaughtered after they've borne and birthed a few calves. India is the second largest exporter of beef. The cows had to come from somewhere - that's where they came from.

If there are any deviations from the above mentioned slaughter pre-requisites, its only because there don't exist any proper regulatory measures to look after such a thing.

There isn't coherent argument in existence for why cows specifically shouldn't be slaughtered while others can. Many hindu rituals involve brutal slaughtering of buffalos and goats and they don't even do it for the meat. If cow slaughter is banned, so should the slaughter of all animals.

If you're pro-animal-life then don't stop there. Ban consumption of food altogether. There are far more plants that die in sheer numbers than an animal to feed a person. Make it illegal to eat fruits. The seeds clearly don't all go back into the ground. Just wipe humans out of existence altogether.

Yes, that looks like a slippery slope argument and it is. See, no one should be told what they ought or ought not to do. When you ban beef, you're not really going to prevent it from happening. You'll just cause beef-eaters to innovate and find shadier methods to do whatever the heck they want to do...

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1.       Banning beef consumption will probably not reduce the number of cows being killed (unless the ban is specifically against cow slaughter and not just against beef consumption). India is one of the largest producers & exporters of cowhides. Cows will still be killed for the leather industry, and their meat will be used in low-value ways instead of as meat.

2.      It will wreak havoc on India's leather industry. The economics of cow slaughter involve getting value from the meat, which will no longer be possible. If you notice, all the states that have banned beef are states with no local leather industry. The overall effect will be in the increase of raw material costs for the industry, making it less competitive.  India is world's 3rd largest producer and exporter - mainly made from cattle hide - byproduct of beef industry

3.      If the ban is against cow slaughter, it will put lakhs of extremely poor people on the street. One factor to consider is that most of the poor people working in this industry are Dalits and Muslims.

A case can be made that the upper-caste Hindus who love this cause seem to prioritize the well being of cows over that of their fellow human beings. Increasingly, we are consuming a lot of leather products, not just in the form of footwear and belts, but increasingly in furniture and car interiors as well. If we ban cow slaughter, exactly where will these products come from? Why should we sacrifice an existing Indian industry that employs lakhs of poor people and substitute that with some kind of foreign dependency? And, eventually someone's going to be killing cows to satisfy our growing use of leather products anyway.

Some statistics about India's leather industry: 

·  Employs 2.5 million people

·  Turnover of USD 7.5Billion, growing 8.22% yoy

·  30% of employees are women

·  2 billion sq ft of leather produced by India annually

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Contrasting views within Hinduism about cow slaughter
The verse in Hindu scripture which is said to ban cow slaughter is:

Rig Veda 10.87.16: “yaḥ pauruṣeyeṇa kraviṣā samaṅkte yo aśveyena paśunāyātudhānaḥ,yo aghnyāyā bharati kṣīramaghne teṣāṃśīrṣāṇi harasāpi vṛśca"

which specifically mention horse (asva) and not cow, and asks Agni to cut off the heads of those who eat horse and human meat.

But another verse which speaks about slaughtering bulls as food,

Rig Veda 10.86.14:  uksnó hí me páncadasha sakám pácanti vimshatím, utáhám admi píva íd ubhá kuksí prnanti me v’shvasmad índra úttarah

Translation: Fifteen in number, then, for me a score of bullocks they prepare, and I devour the fat thereof: they fill my belly full with food. Supreme is Indra over all. (Indra eating bulls)

and another on sacrificing ox & cow to Agni,

Rig Veda 8.43.11: uksánnaya vashánnaya sómaprsthaya vedháse stómair vidhemagnáye

Translation: Let us serve Agni with our hymns, Disposer, fed on ox and cow, who bears the Soma on his back.

Swami Vivekananda writes in “The complete works of Swami Vivekananda (volume-3 page 174) : 

“There was a time when a Brahmin without eating beef could not remain a Brahmin”. 

(and on page 536)

“You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to the old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.”

Having said all this, it is irrelevant to me whether Hinduism prohibits cow slaughter or not. I am a Hindu who eats beef (it's pretty common over here in Kerala). Hinduism is a pretty inclusive and tolerant religion. My whole family does and I don't think the secular state has any right to tell me not to eat it.