Now that there is a well-orchestrated campaign, spearheaded by the guardians of aggressive Hindutva, to strip yet another value – as a source of meat – off the cattle, there is bound to be a massive value erosion, forcing farmers once again to go for painful adjustment. They are doing precisely that by abandoning cattle they cannot use for milk. Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring states are battling the menace of stray cattle as farmers can ill-afford to keep them, owing to the exorbitant cost involved in keeping unproductive animals.

How will it hit the rural economy and what is going to be the potential loss to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), let us understand the implications with the help of some numbers.