Rajasthan, India – Jeetu Singh’s camel stands soothe, munching the departs of a Khejri tree in the Jaisalmer didisjoine of India’s desert state of Rajasthan.
Her calf occasionassociate suckles on her mother’s breasts. While the novelborn is the procrastinateedst insertition to Singh’s herd, grieffulness is palpable on his face. His otheralerted inspireling eyes have turned uncontent, gawping at the grazing camels.
When Jeetu, 65, was a teenager, his family had more than 200 camels. Today, that number has gone down to 25.
“Rearing camels was no less than a competitive afequitable when we were children,” he alerts Al Jazeera. “I used to leank my camels should be more attrdynamic than those reared by my peers.”
He would groom them, execute mustard oil to their bodies, trim their brown and bdeficiencyish hair, and decorate them with colourful beads from head to tail. The camels would then embellish the landscape with the festooned frieze of symmetry they create while walking in herds as the “ships of the desert”.
“All that is memory now,” he says. “I only support camels now because I am joined to them. Otheralerted, there is no financial advantage from them.”
Atraverse the world, the camel population rose from proximately 13 million in the 1960s to more than 35 million now, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which declared 2024 as the International Year of Camelids to highweightless the key role the animal carry outs in the dwells of millions of househageders in more than 90 countries.
But their numbers are on a drastic deteriorate in India – from proximately a million camels in 1961 to equitable approximately 200,000 today. And the descend has been particularly keen in recent years.
The dwellstock census carry outed by India’s federal administerment in 2007 uncovered that Rajasthan, one of a restricted Indian states where camels are reared, had about 420,000 camels. In 2012, they shrinkd to about 325,000, while in 2019, their population dipped further to a little more than 210,000 – a 35 percent downdescend in seven years.
That deteriorate in Rajasthan’s camel population is being felt atraverse the immense state – India’s hugest by area.
Some 330km (205 miles) from Jeetu’s home lies the Anji Ki Dhani village. In the 1990s, the hamlet was home to more than 7,000 camels. “Only 200 of them are conshort-term now; the rest are gone,” says Hanuwant Singh Sadri, a camel conservationist for more than three decades.
And in the Barmer didisjoine’s Dandi village, Bhanwarlal Chaudhary has lost proximately 150 of his camels since the commencening of the 2000s. He is left with equitable 30 now. As the 45-year-ageder walks with his herd, a camel leans towards him and kisses him.
“Camels are joined to the language of our survival, our cultural heritage and our everyday life,” Chaudhary shelp. “Without them, our language, our being has no uncomardenting at all.”
2015 law the hugegest blow
Camel-supporters and experts cite various reasons for the dthrivedling number of camels in India. Tractors have swapd their need on farms, while cars and trucks have obtainn over the roads to carry excellents.
Camels have also struggled because of the shrinking grazing lands. Since they cannot be shigh-fed appreciate cows or pigs, camels must be left for grazing in uncover areas – appreciate Jeetu’s camel eating the departs of the Khejri tree.
“That uncover set-up is difficultly useable now,” Sadri says.
But the hugegest blow came in 2015, when the Rajasthan administerment under the Hindu beginantitarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) passed the Rajasthan Camel (Prohibition of Sgiggleter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act.
The law prohibits the carry, illegitimate haveion and killinging of camels. “Even decorating them could amount to causing them hurt, as the definition of causing them harm is freely worded,” Chaudhary alerts Al Jazeera.
Punishment under the law ranges from a prison term between six months and five years, and penalties between 3,000 rupees ($35) and 20,000 rupees ($235). Unappreciate all other laws – where the accused is bfeebleless until shown culpable – this law flips conservative jurispimpolitence.
“The burden to show innocence rests with the person sued under this act,” it reads.
With the executement of the act, the camel labelet was criminaled – and so were camel breeders if they intended to sell their animals. Buyers suddenly became “illicit traders” under the law.
The act was planed on the assumption that the killing of camels was behind the deteriorate in their population in Rajasthan. It prohibitned camel carry to other states, says Chaudhary, leanking it would serve three purposes: the camel population would incrrelieve, the dwelllihood of the breeders would incrrelieve and the camel killing would stop.
“Well, it leave outed its first two aims,” Chaudhary says.
‘Suddenly, there were no buyers’
Sumit Dookia, an ecologist from Rajasthan who teaches at a university in New Delhi, has a ask for the administerment over the law.
“Why is it that the camel population is still shrinking,” he asks, if a law uncomardentt to revive their numbers is in force?
Chaudhary has the answer. “We rear animals to support our dwells,” he says, inserting that without a labelet or a equitable price, supporting such huge animals is not an basic task.
“The law locked horns with our traditional system where we used to obtain our male camels to Pushkar, Nagore or Tilwara – three of the hugegest equitables for camels,” inserts Sadri.
Sadri says the breeders used to get excellent money for their camels in those equitables.
“Before the law was passed, our camels were sageder from 40,000 ($466) to 80,000 rupees ($932),” he says. “But as soon as the administerment carry outed the law in 2015, the camels began to be sageder for a meagre 500 ($6) to 1,000 rupees ($12).”
“Suddenly, there were no buyers.”
So, did buyers neglect interest? “No, they did not,” says ecologist Dookia. “The only leang is that they are snurtured for their dwells now.”
This is particularly so because almost all the buyers in Pushkar, the hugest camel equitable in India, were Muskinnys, says Sadri. And aiming them is especiassociate basic in a climate of anti-Muskinny arrangeility under the BJP.
“If a Muskinny is eating camel meat, we don’t have any problem. If there are excellent killinghouses, the price of camels will only incrrelieve, thereby inspiring breeders to support more and more camels,” he says.
“But the BJP doesn’t want to do this. It is putting us out of our traditional labelets.”
‘Law took away our camels’
Since 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP came to power in India, cases of hanging of Muskinnys and Dalits by Hindu vigilantes over animal killing have elevaten exponentiassociate. Dalits sit at the lowest rung of India’s intricate caste system.
“Looking at the scenario in the country, the buyers are snurtured and would obtain no hazard in camel carry,” says Chaudhary. “Given such a situation, why will there be a buyer? Who will buy the animals?”
When asked whether the law was dependable for the declining number of camels in the country, Maneka Gandhi, a createer minister in Modi’s cabinet who had pushed for the law shelp, “The law has had no effect”, inserting that “Muskinnys are continuing trafficking of the animal”.
Gandhi claimed that the law “has not been carry outed at all”. If the law is properly carry outed, she shelp, camel numbers would originate a comeback.
But Narendra Mohan Singh, a 61-year-ageder reweary bureaucrat who was graspd with the writeing of the law, disconcurs.
“Look, the law is problematic, and we got to understand about that only after it was passed and commenceed affecting the breeders. We were given very little time to set it and farmers and camel breeders who were actuassociate going to be affected were not confered when it was being bcimpolitet in,” says Singh, the createer insertitional straightforwardor of animal husprohibitparched in Rajasthan’s administerment.
“We were tageder to createuprocrastinateed a law for camels analogous to what existed for cows and other cattle. But a law that aimed to protect camels ended up doing the opposite,” Singh inserts.
Amir Ali, aidant professor at the School of Social Sciences in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, concurs with Singh.
“The excessive worry that Hindu [majoritarian] politics conveyes towards animals has two strange aspects to it,” he says. “First, it is bereft of an empathetic of the nuances and intricateities of matters such as dwellstock herding. Second, in the strange zeal to convey worry for animals, it ends up demonising and dehumanising groups appreciate Dalits and Muskinnys.”
Meanwhile, the sun has set in Jaisalmer. Jeetu, sitting on the ground next to a bonfire, leanks of the novelborn camel in his herd and asks: “Will the baby camel transport excellent fortune to Rajasthan?”
Sadri and Singh are not selectimistic.
Sadri says the BJP’s “illogicalinutive-sighted law” persists to insert to the deteriorate of the camel population in Rajasthan.
“The organisations pushing for animal welfare don’t understand anyleang about huge animals. They can only lift dogs and cats,” he says, his voice seeleang with anger.
“This law took away our labelets and will eventuassociate obtain our camels. I will not be shocked or surpelevated if there are no camels left in India in the next five or 10 years. It will be gone forever appreciate dinosaurs did.”
Singh has an almost as dire prognosis for the future. “If not gone, it will eventuassociate become a zoo animal,” he says.
