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Kanpur's Leather Industry Shrinks As Controversy Over Cow Slaughter Grows

Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 10:45 by admin - Under NEWS

Kanpur: The controversy over cow slaughter had an unexpected spin-off. One that's not pleasant for Kanpur - one of the biggest leather manufacturing centres of Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are due next year. Over the last few years, nearly half the units have shut, others have been making losses. And the Dalits, who form a chunk of the workforce, are heading back to their villages.

At a small tannery in Kanpur's Jajmau industrial area, 42-year-old Manoj Ram, a Dalit from Bihar's Vaishali, says many of his co-workers, who had worked with him for over 20 years, have left.

51I saw on television that Dalits were beaten up in Gujarat for skinning a dead cow. Tomorrow things may happen here too, I may be targeted. Anyway, there's too much propaganda happening over cow slaughter,51 he said.

Jajmau industrial area is one in nearly 400 tanneries at India's largest centre for buffalo-based leather. The owners here are mostly Muslim, the workers -- mostly Dalits from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and elsewhere.

At the tannery, a group of owners say over the last few years, business has gone down by as much as 70 per cent and the reason is not just crackdown on pollution in the Ganga. It is also the fear of backlash in the controversy and political propaganda over cow slaughter.

51I was in Europe to source orders and for the first time in 25 years, I did not get a single one. Maybe the people there watch news and feel we will not be able to deliver because of all that's happening,51 said Rafat Qayoom, an exporter.

At Old Kanpur's Pech Bagh, a street once famous for raw hide godowns, more than a third have shut in over the last two years. Around 100 remain, struggling against mechanised slaughterhouses and harassment of truck drivers who transport animals and hides.

51All in the name of cow protection,51 scoffed Mohammad Aslam, who deals in buffalo hides. 51There is too much harassment on the roads. It has become very difficult to do this business,51 he said.

Source : ndtv.com
Written by Alok Pandey