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| Declining price of raw skin, untouchability force concerned community to quit traditional occupation | | Skinning dead cattle | |  Avinash Azad
Early Times Report
Jammu, July 25: In early twenties, Menga Ram Batwal of tehsil Arnia of district Jammu had been frequently visited by the grief stricken villagers, who wanted to shift their dead animals. But most of these villagers avoided stepping inside Manga Ram's house and he had to respond their calls after coming out of the house as the villagers even avoided his shadow to fall over them.
His family had been skinning the dead cattle since decades to earn a good profit but with the changing times, octogenarian Menga Ram's services are required by only few villagers, who rear cattle. The declining price of raw-skin and prevailing untouchability even from within his community are some of the main reasons, which have been forcing his family to quit this profession altogether.
"Unbothered about the discrimination and untouchability practiced by villagers of other castes as well as from our fellow caste members, we kept on doing our traditional work for our survival since generations, but now things have been becoming more challenging", Menga Ram said.
Their problem does not end here, they do not have any prospects to have other jobs because they have not been able to get the minimum education for other jobs in government or private sector. "Some families from our community who had been engaged in the similar work have left it, as it makes us inferior among other castes, but finding no other way to meet our both ends, we kept doing this work", he says, adding that as they could not perform well in education.
"I left my school when I was in third class, due to discrimination by my teacher, who used to have a long cane to teach the students from lower castes, we had to sit aside from other students, it makes me angry, finally I quit school and joined my father", he says recollecting, but despite of facing social discrimination, we do not earn sufficient money to meet our requirements now.
He says his family for decades is engaged in this work and they are leaving in Arnia since 1947. "This was our only source of livelihood, we had around 30 Kanal agricultural land along border in Pindi village of Arnia sector. But due to disturbance on border in 1947, I along with my father left that place, we purchased a piece of land for a shelter and settled here", say Menga Ram, an octogenarian. His three sons Mangat Ram, Sant Ram and Bodh Raj also could not continue their study and had to left school even without completing their primary education. "Socio-Economic backwardness was main hurdle which forced them to discontinue their education, and also at that point of time we did not know the value of education, because of this we are compelled to do this work today", he says adding that they have very little land and it is difficult to a living from farming.
"Though, despite many challenges we worked hard and bought 10 kanal of agriculture land in 1996 for Rs 1.10 lacs. We could buy that land only because at that time we used to get good price for leather, due to auction system. Panchyats also used to provide us a specified land for skinning and disposing off dean animals", he says.
There are at least one or two families traditionally engaged in skinning of dead animals in each Panchyat of state. Earlier, this occupation was a source of revenue for each Panchyat, as the Panchyat through Block auctioned annual contract for skinning and selling leather, within its respective jurisdictions. Though it was not an organized industry, but still it was a source of livelihood for many families.
"But around 20 years back, the Block authorities terminated the auction system which hit our profit badly", says Sant Ram Batwal, second son of Menga Ram. "And also for skinning and disposing off a dead animal you need a land, if you don't have any land where the process will take place?, however, we managed to keep continue this work, as there was huge demand of raw leather in Punjab, we used to pay tax of Rs 600 as transportation charges of each quintal of raw leather we carried to sell in Punjab to state go Year Raw Quantity in Total
material quintals
2015-16 Skin 84157 101719
Hides 17562
2016-17 Skin 68341 81692
Hides 13351
2017-18 Skin 82511 95524
Hides 13013
2018-19 Skin 68793 81175
Hides 12382
"We used to get Rs 2000- 2500 for the skin of a healthy animal before 2015, but now, you will find no buyer sometime. Now it is difficult to even pay state tax and the transport charges", he says. There was imposed a ban on the sale and purchase of cattle from animal market and slaughter by Modi Government in 2017. Like other parts of country, this ban has left many families from Jammu who were engaged in skinning dead animal in state of crisis. "We are on the verge of starvation after ban many tanneries have been closed, we use to sell leather skinned from dead animal at Jalandhar in Punjab to some contractors, who further send it to Kanpur Uttar Pradesh", says Anil, a resident Arnia, who works within the limit of Municipal Committee Arnia. "Due to this work, we were deemed deceptive, but due to good earnings, we were engaged in this work, but now we are on the brink of hunger", he says.
"We remove the dead animals from shooting on the border but their leather is not worth any cost, there has a drastic reduction in this work due to bovine smuggling, and also the number of domestic animals has decreased", says Bodh Raj, who works in outskirt of Arina town, and adds, "We have not demanded anything from the government but now we want the government to think about us too. The profit from this work has been consistently coming down after Modi Government came to power and today it is on the verge of closure", he says.
The data available with State Taxes Department (STD) also show declining trends in export of raw leather from state. According to sources in SDT certainly a minor declined has been observed in the export of raw leather from state. "As compare to financial year 2015-16 the export from state in year 2016-17 decreased 20 percent, in 2017-18 it was little bit higher the previous year, but in 2018-19 the quantity of exported raw leather come down even what was in 2016-17", sources informed in department, whishing not to be named. The following statistical data substantiate the trends.
There are two kinds of raw leather exports from state, raw skin and raw hides. Raw skin is soft and flexible stuff of leather which is basically the skin of small animals, while raw hides are pelt or skin of one the matures animals like cow, horse, buffalo etc.
Dharminder Singh, Sarpanch, Chack Majra Panchyat, in Block Arnia of District Jammu admits that due to non-availability land for skinning of dead animals the community suffers a lot. "Earlier Panchyats used to provide space to these people through annual open auction, but long back the Panchyats stopped the auction for such places for the purpose", he said adding that now these people take ration (seasonal food grains) after every six months for their survival.
Rohan, Manager, at Jalandhar Leather Pvt Ltd, admitted that prices for raw leather have come down in past few years, prices has been reduced upto 40 to 50 percent. "Competition among the manufacturers' of leather products and high cost of leather paved way for the use of artificial leather in various products, which is cheaper than original leather, import from foreign countries further affected domestic market", he said. However, he rejected that the ban on sale of purchase of cattle in country is the reason for it. "If it happens the prices must go high", he added.
Mohammad Asif, CEO Kashmir based Golden Tanners says due to multiple factors this industry has come to halt. "Modi Government in centre has banned slaughtering, it has also discouraged the foreign investors who were placing manufacturing orders to shoe companies and for other products here in India, got shifted to Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries", he said adding that global financial crisis is another reason, leather is very luxurious item. "As compare to five six years back, the rate of raw leather has come down from Rs 1500 to Rs300 for each piece", he added.
The author is a Jammu-based
journalist and media fellow with National Foundation of India. |
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