Here is a million-rupee question: Which is the most popular sacrificial animals. Is it four legged or two legged? Did you say 'two legged'? Right! Since all of you have correctly guessed the answer, each gets one hundredth of a rupee or what we used to call 'naya paisa'-- if they still mint them. (They don't? Too bad).
Every year it is the same story. We complain the price of sacrificial animals is too high; tomatoes, ginger and garlic is four times the normal price because people need the veges to cook meaty dishes; the fellow who comes to do the slaughter has increased his fee, and so forth and so on and on and on. The reason for sky-rocketing cost of Eid-ul-Azha is because animal breeding for the Eid sacrifice is not well planned. And why complain about the price of tomatoes ginger and garlic when we can buy them long before the start of the month of Zilhaj, process and freeze them.
Karachi is the country's biggest market for the sacrificial animals, which include goat, young bull and camel. Though we now have animal farms, most of the animals which arrive in the city were bred by poor farmers as a means of making extra money to add to their real income, which is from agriculture. Each farmer may breed about three or four, not exceeding half a dozen goats or bulls. Camels are specially bred, also by poor people, in arid parts of the country. They hardly have enough to eat themselves. There is always a water shortage in the desert zone. The beasts that arrive in Karachi are usually poor quality.
No matter how many sacrificial animals arrive in Karachi, the majority are not prime meat on the hoof or trotters. The first medical attention these animals get is at the Karachi markets. Most buyers simply use their eyes to choose an animal. The seller knows this and has ways of beautifying the animals for sale with garlands, henna to hide blemishes and other tricks... Few animals are of prime quality and health. Especially in the camel market the animals appear to be weak and old. The camel is a hardy animal capable of going without water for days, but in the sizzling heatwave that hit Karachi last Saturday three camels perished. That is evidence of how poor is the quality of camels in the market.
Most of the animals were purchased at low price and brought to Karachi by traders. This is a business and most traders have been coming to Karachi since at least a decade. They know little or nothing about the care of the animals they sell. This year they too have been grumbling at the entrance fee, shortage of food and water at the established Karachi markets. So it is not only buyers who have complaints.
Only a 10-member animal livestock department team is present to examine animals before they are allowed entry into a market. This team is too small, considering the thousands of animals that arrive each day. At the time of writing, there were 27,000 camels in the special market managed by the Malir Cantonment Board. It could not have been possible to thoroughly examine each and every camel arriving at the market. The situation is the same at the bull and goat markets.
The young bulls for sale are of excellent quality. Most of them have come all the way from the Punjab. That they were procured from small farmers is evident in the verity of animals some pure breed and some mixed. In this case there is a moral issue. It is hard to say if the animal was legally procured or brought from a thief. Cattle theft is very common in the Punjab. According to one source the bulls arriving in Karachi about one third of the lot are stolen beasts. That is incredible, if true. Nevertheless, all these horror stories about disease, aged animals and stolen animals has put the damper on my desire to eat sacrificial meat this Eid. How do I know what quality the meat is? Am I contributing to promotion of cattle theft if I buy or eat a sacrificial animal? Can we really ignore these facts?
We are a meat-eating nation but every Eid-ul-Azha I get a headache when people talk about giving up the sacrificial ritual on one pretext or another. And the funny thing is those who say so object with their mouths full of kababs, burghers and meaty pizzas. Why not talk about improving the sacrificial ritual? Why do people shy from taking a knife in their hands and cutting the throat of an animal? As children we watched our fathers and uncles do the sacrifice themselves, while we stood and watched. It neither turned them into blood thirsty terrorists nor was watching the sacrifice a traumatic experience for us.
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