Over the last few months, readers may have come across multiple reports and commentaries decrying the Uttar Pradesh government's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, holding it directly responsible for a perceived sharp increase in stray cattle in the state.

The collective outrage against the crackdown followed a series of reports in December and January of villagers, especially in western UP, herding stray cattle and locking them up in government buildings such as schools and health centres.

In the absence of more detailed data, such stray incidents were cited to draw a direct correlation between the slaughterhouse diktat and stray cattle.

The narrative, however, left some basic questions unanswered: is the stray cattle problem a new one that emerged under the two-year-old Yogi Adityanath government? Is covert slaughter a solution? Do farmers endorse it? Are they unhappy with the crackdown on the illegal meat business?

Swarajya had tried to dig deeper into the issue by visiting several of the affected villages. We found that most farmers admitted to a stray cattle problem building up over many years and that successive governments have failed to curb it. They supported the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and invariably suggested more gaushalas and not more slaughterhouses as the solution, along with stricter penalties for those abandoning animals after their useful economic life is over.

For instance, Mohammad Yameen from Kalonda village in UP’s Gautam Budh Nagar district told Swarajya that cow is a sacred animal for Indians and its slaughter cannot be advocated as a solution. He said the state must provide for gaushalas in every district.

Like him, almost all the farmers that Swarajya spoke to in the area supported the curb on meat trade and praised the Adityanath government for it. Likewise, a recent report published in Hindustan Times admitted that “there seems to actually be large traction for the cow shelter promise on the ground” and that “dismissing Gaushala politics as Hindutva is wrong”.

Now, one only has to look at the prevailing situation in Punjab to realise how misplaced the dominant narrative was. As in UP, farmers across Punjab too are herding stray cattle and releasing them in government buildings.