The question is whether the criticism of this religious practice, however questionable it may be, is selective outrage. Animal protection organisations will of course have a clear point to oppose it but when we look at environmental impact, do we care about many other things that severely affect the environment and ecological balance in activities that do not garner the outrage that is specifically reserved for some religious practices only. In this case, it is the practice of animal slaughter. True, sacrificing animals for religious purposes bby the entire community seems unnecessary and the environmental impact of the same is worth a debate. So let us also get into a debate about how mass felling of trees  affects air quality, building roads along the coast affecting marine life and reclaiming land, to name a few, have such deleterious impact on our environment and why it is also important to speak about them.

Even talks about environment protection have religious overtones to it in today’s discourse. As rightly pointed out by a 2018 article in The Print. If you tell Hindus to not burn polluting firecrackers on Diwali, you will be told to go tell Muslims to not slaughter goats on Bakrid or Eid al-Adha. If you complain about all-night loudspeaker jagrans, you will be asked how many times you have spoken against Muslims using loudspeakers for azaan, the daily prayer. Every year thousands of Ganesh idols made out of Plaster of Paris (PoP) and synthetic colours are immersed in the sea, causing serious damage to marine life and water pollution as well. Clearly, one cares about the environment only when it is convenient to do so and when it does not affect one’s own religious practice and tradition.

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice or killing goats by halal during Bakra Eid in large numbers across the community is known to lead to tons of food wastage. Apart from this, the animal waste, or the parts of the animals that are not cooked for consumption is gathered in large quantities during this festival making it difficult for the local bodies to deal with such a huge amount of animal waste generated within just a day.

A 2020 article stated that in Hyderabad, during Bakra Eid, 4,725 metric tonnes of animal waste was generated and for collecting the same, the Municipal Corporation had to commission several waste collection vehicles. The collateral damage to this evidently damages the environment in many ways.

If these animals are slaughtered on the roads, and the place is not cleaned after, it means that there is blood on the streets and the slaughter as an after effect is emanating a foul smell in the area which will certainly not be desirable for any resident, regardless of their religious identity.

Animal protection NGOs advocate for vegetarianism and point towards the harms caused by the meat industry. However, during Bakri Id this meat eating is happening at once all around the world by a large population of a vast Muslim community so the impact of the same, one can only imagine, since nobody has put this in numbers yet.  According to PETA, “Raising animals for food is one of the biggest causes of water pollution in the industrialised world. The bacteria, pesticides and antibiotics that are concentrated in animal flesh are also found in their faeces, and these chemicals can have catastrophic effects on the ecosystems surrounding large farms.”

It further states, “Animals raised for food also produce toxic gasses such as ammonia and methane along with their excrement.” While these arguments are aimed at meat eating entirely, they can certainly be applied to Bakra Id as well.

Tree felling

The cutting of thousands of trees in Aarey forest of Mumbai in 2019 to make way for the Metro car shed had led to a huge uproar among citizens. The Mumbai metro Rail Corporation fell 2,000 trees in the Aarey forest. It is no surprise that the Air Quality Index of the city has been at an all time high for the past few years. People will bicker about it but no one will attribute it to mass felling of trees carried out in complete disregard towards the Air quality of the city and how it would affect the levels of oxygen in the air giving way to respiratory disorders among the population. While hundreds landed up on the streets in protests, many were seen defending the move in the name of “development”.

Furthermore, in December last year, the Bombay High Court permitted the National High Speed Rail Corporation to cut around 20,000 mangrove trees for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet train project. The corporation came seeking permission from the court since by the court’s mandate mangroves cannot be destroyed unless allowed by the court. The plea was opposed by ‘Bombay Environmental Action Group’, an NGO, on the ground that no study was undertaken about the survival rate of saplings to be planted as a compensatory measure and the Environmental Impact Assessment report for felling trees has not been provided.

A 40-year-old tree can sequester 21.7 kgs of carbon in a year. Felling of 2141 trees means an additional 46,609.5 kgs of carbon load over the residents. The city has less than 13% green cover, whereas given the density of population in the city it would need more than 35% green cover.

Coastal Road in Mumbai

The massive coastal road project the construction of which is in progress in full vigour had met with a lot of opposition from the fisherfolk and the environmentalists alike. The former for their loss of livelihood and the latter raised serious concerns over the threat to marine life. Vanashakti, an environmental NGO came out with a biodiversity report in March 2019, which was a result of research efforts with two independent marine experts. The report stated that sea snails, crabs, oysters, corals, sponges, octopus, sea fans, snappers, mussels, shrimps and rays are found in the stretch between Worli Dairy and the start of the Bandra-Worli sea link and some of them are Schedule 1 species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

“This is one of the most biodiverse shores in Mumbai. The scale of loss is unimaginable,” said marine enthusiast Shaunak Modi while speaking to Hindustan Times. Dumping non-oceanic red mud during reclamation could potentially suffocate fragile species known to live in this intertidal area, stated the report.

Why does our love for the environment get awakened only when it comes to religious practices and not when a government cuts thousands of trees in the heart of the city, quite stealthily, drastically affecting the air quality of the city? That’s a question that must be raised again and again because selective activism over environmental concerns is not helping the environment in any way.

Related:

What exactly do Muslims commemorate on Baqr Eid?

Bakrid and the forced controversy around animal sacrifice

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The unbriddled expansion of industry in this belt that stretches from Vapi in Valsad district to Nadesari in Varodara in complete violation of environmental controls and norms is the subject matter of a recent investigation conducted by the Indian People’s Tribunal that released its report last month. This inquiry was held in response to the requests from Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vadodara Kamdar Union, Vyavasahik Swastha Swaksha Mandal and other concerned individuals and organisations active in the area. The inquiry was headed by Justice Suresh, retired High Court judge, assisted by a panel of experts: environmental lawyers, community health specialists, occupational health specialists and scientists.

The eleven–member team visited various areas in the Corridor to examine the effects of indiscriminate industrialisation and the resultant pollution of air, water and land by noxious gases, toxic chemical effluents and other hazardous substances, which have both destroyed the livelihood sources of the local population but have also posed a grave threat to their health and lives. The local population in all the industrialised areas has recorded a loss in livelihood in terms of the loss in agricultural and horticultural produce and in fish stocks, especially in the inland water bodies.

In addition, the IPT also inquired into the occupational health and safety of workers in some specific industries where blatant violations of safety norms have caused serious damage to the workers’ health.

Gujarat has rolled out the red carpet for industrial investment with little or no consideration for environmental norms.
The report, documents how Proper Environmental Impact Assessments were not carried out, the hazardous solid waste and toxic effluents that are spewed out are not being monitored neither is the disposal of such waste given any attention. At most places, the report states, there is no pollution control equipment and whatever efforts have been made to provide for the control of pollution have been half-hearted and ineffective. Moreover, no consideration was given to the fact that the industrial estates were dangerously close to human settlements. The IPT team observed several instances of blatant violations.

For instance, 50 lakh metric tonnes of chalk, loaded with heavy metals, was found lying illegally in a village without any impervious layer to prevent its seepage into groundwater sources and soil. In the monsoons of 1997 and 1998, this chalk hill slid and gushed into the several houses of the village.

In another instance, the Effluent Channel Project carrying effluents of nearly 150 industries, running 56 kms in length and passing through 24 villages is used as irrigation water due to an acute shortage has resulted in the spread of heavy metal contamination of the food chain throughout the 24 villages.An overwhelming 61 per cent of the factory units in Ankleshwar alone were found by the investigators to have “unsatisfactory working conditions” as defined under the Factories Act, 1948. Thus, the “potential of a major environmental accident endangering the lives of thousands of workers and the general public residing in the vicinity is hanging like a Damocles sword over the entire Corridor.” The Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights (IPT) was launched on June 5, 1993 at a National Conference on Human Rights, Environment and the Law held in Bangalore. The mandate of the IPT is to highlight environmental and human rights violations, both by the state and private parties, and give voice to the struggles of grass root organisations and affected communities. The IPT endeavours to place before the public and the authorities a factual picture of the ground realities, based on objective investigation by experts.

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2000. Year 7  No, 55, Human Rights 1

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