"We have been writing to various government departments for four years now but got no response. Now we are at the end of our patience. We have informed the departments that we are building this shelter. Now it is up to them what they do," said Omveer Singh Tewatia, a retired government officer who took the initiative. Dr Varshney, however, said the temporary set-up has the administration's nod.

Both Singh and Tewatia said that given their struggle with various government departments all these years, they have no hopes from the solutions put forward by the Yogi Adityanath government. "You leave the solutions to babus and they make more money out of it. Why can't individual villages and pradhans be given independence to do it? We all worship gaumata," said Tewatia.

Talking about the genesis of the problem, he said, "NTPC came to this village 35 years ago and threw out the cows from their gochar land. Others let their cows loose after making money off their milk. Their numbers thus keep adding up.”

“What right do humans have to call the cows stray? It is everyone's responsibility to rehabilitate the ones we have made homeless,” he said.

As is evident from our visits and conversations with a large number of villagers, they want gaushalas, and not slaughter, as the solution. But given the state of things, they are neither adequate nor a permanent solution. Add to this the farmers’ own hypocrisy that they vehemently oppose cow slaughter but covertly support it by abandoning their cattle.

Is there an alternative? “Ethical dairy” may be an answer. Swarajya will explore it in the second part of this series.