The Slaughterhouse Satyagrahi

On the night of 3 March, a small group of senior citizens residing on the second floor of Sarvodaya Hospital in an eastern suburb of Mumbai received a phone call. It was an officer from a local police station, under whose jurisdiction falls the Deonar abattoir, one of Asia’s largest slaughterhouses.

“They wanted to congratulate us,” says 70-year-old Baldevraj Ilvadhi, a member of the Sarvodaya Satyagraha Sanchalan Samiti. Since 1982, Ilvadhi, inspired by the ideals of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, had been taking turns to keep a vigil outside the gates of the slaughterhouse along with almost a hundred other committee members. Their goal: to stop people from butchering cows and calves at the abattoir. Every time a truck carrying cattle arrived at the gates, the activists would block its way and appeal to let the animals go. They would be detained by the police and let off within minutes of the truck’s entering the premises.

Over the course of three decades, however, the enthusiasm of the activists has steadily waned. When the Maharashtra government amended its Animal Preservation Act and banned beef, only three activists were left to celebrate. Four months on, as we sit on his metal bed kept at the corner of the hall, Ilvadhi cuts a lonely figure. His colleagues have left for their respective villages. He recalls the time when, unable to adjust to the victory, he visited the abattoir over the next few days. “But on these times, the police was already posted to do our job. We had no place there,” he says. With no immediate family to speak of, Ilvadhi dedicates his energy to writing letters to various government officials for a Central ban. The rest of his time is spent writing for a newsletter to spread the message of his activities. “It gets lonely at times, but what else can I do?” he asks. “This is the only thing I am good at.”

Baldevraj Ilvadhibeef banDeonar abattoirMaharashtra governmentslaughterhouses