Two Indian states ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plan to introduce new laws on population control and protecting cows.

According to experts, the motive behind such legislation is to target minority communities and polarize communities on religious grounds. The BJP hopes to garner political mileage through such moves, they said.

In India’s most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which will head to the polls early next year, Hindu Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently unveiled a draft population control bill that proposes a two-child policy.

The state government has invited suggestions from the public on the draft bill by July 19. The draft bill, which has been uploaded on the website of the State Law Commission, says it was desirable to bring in measures to check the population growth through a two-child policy for eligible couples by providing a series of incentives as well as disincentives.

The draft bill mentions that those violating the proposed legislation would be barred from contesting local body elections, would not be eligible to apply for government jobs, and those already in government jobs would be denied promotions, among other measures. People having more than two children would not get subsidies and benefits from government welfare schemes and would receive food grains and other things at subsidized rates under a government scheme only for four family members.

While Uttar Pradesh proposes to bring a law to curb population growth, the northeastern state of Assam has proposed a new law for the protection of cows, considered holy by Hindus. But critics feel the main aim of introducing such laws is to target the minority Muslim community and divert people’s attention from the government’s failure to provide proper health care and treatment to people when a deadly second wave of COVID-19 hit the country.

Roop Rekha Verma, the former vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, said: “It is not too difficult to understand the motive of the Uttar Pradesh government and what they want to achieve. Their intention is to target members of a particular religion (Islam). Similarly, if we talk about Assam, then there can be no other motive. The aim of the governments in both the states is to target increasingly marginalized Muslims to further alienate them from the society’s mainstream and to create panic among them.”

“They want to create communal disharmony and hatred between Hindus and Muslims. The motive is to create hatred for Muslims among those Hindus and Sikhs who still do not hate them. The BJP led governments want to forcefully instill hatred in them.”

Verma explained how Muslims would be targeted through the population control law.

She said: “The Hindu BJP and radical Hindus have long been arguing that Muslims are producing more children and it would lead to change in the country’s demographic composition and so there should be a law to control their growing population.”

Verma said the government wants to divert people’s focus from other pressing issues.

“In case of Uttar Pradesh, in the last one-and-a half years we have seen extreme mismanagements during the first and second waves of COVID-19. The government allowed large religious gatherings that helped to spread the virus before the second wave of the pandemic hit the state and then they failed to provide treatment to people. So they had to do something to divert attention from all these things and at the same time they also want to consolidate their Hindu vote bank. That's why they have to take such measures to create hatred among the people. More people are being caught every day in the state in the name of terrorism.”

The population of Uttar Pradesh is 220 million and it is being alleged that the Muslims are contributing more in the growing population compared to other communities. Verma also stressed that many Hindu fanatics have lost their loved ones during the pandemic and so they are angry with the government, and it is necessary for the ruling BJP to somehow win them back through such measures.

She expressed apprehension that the coming times could be worse, maybe there could be communal riots, too. The BJP wants to win the forthcoming state elections, she said.

Cow protection law

Critics feel the proposed cow protection law in the state of Assam will serve no purpose except for widening rifts between the communities.

Azizur Rahman, a leader of Raijor Dal, a regional political party in Assam led by Akhil Gogoi, believes that in today's situation, there should be a debate on how to support the people who have lost livelihood due to COVID-19-induced lockdowns and restrictions. The Assam government should try to provide succor to these people. But instead, the government is bringing a law to protect cows, said Rahman.

He said: “They want to divert the attention of the people so that they may not talk about the situation arising out of the pandemic. At present, curfew and lockdown is in force in seven districts of the state. But the government feels that there should be a discussion on cows instead of other important issues."

The Muslims constitute about 34% of the total population in Assam and this bill has been brought keeping them in mind. Apart from this, the tribal or indigenous forest dwelling people will also be hit by the law, Rahman said.

According to the bill, cow meat cannot be sold in the state in areas where members of Hindu, Sikh, and Jain communities live. It also cannot be sold within a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) radius of a Hindu temple./agencies

Furrows of spinach vegetables standing out side by side with tomato plants spread out on a patch of land where 39-year-old Marylin Nhika has formed a garden over the past five years at her urban home in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

Even when there are lockdowns in place to curb the coronavirus's spread, Nhika's customers bang on her gate, insisting on buying vegetables.

That has meant booming business for the married mother of three, who has never been formally employed 12 years after graduating with a degree in social work from the country's Midlands State University.

For many educated citizens in Zimbabwe, like Nhika, joblessness is not a new phenomenon.

More than 90% are unemployed in the country, according to Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade Unions.

Nhika, like many entrepreneurial Zimbabweans, has over the years found a way to overcome her situation.

“I've had to switch to market gardening, which has helped me sustain myself and my family. Even my husband has found that this is beneficial to us as a family, and he assists me around when he comes home,” Nhika, who resides in Bloomingdale, a middle-income Harare suburb, told Anadolu Agency.

She says that on a good day, she earns $30 to $35, which has enabled her to pay the school fees for the couple's children.

Backyard gardens rescuing families

Dayton Nhika, her 44-year-old husband, works as a bus conductor and admits to making very little money. He expressed gratitude to his wife for her support to the family through market gardening.

“I earn just $80 per month, which means my wage can’t cover the rent for the house we live in as a family. It’s my wife who is playing the magic to ensure that we have enough money at the end of the month to pay our rent through the garden she runs,” Dayton told Anadolu Agency.

For many other poor urban dwellers in Harare’s eastern Mabvuku poor-income suburb, market gardening has made sure that they have enough to eat even without formal jobs.

“At least with our garden, we have made sure we have something to eat as a family. We grow here vegetables, potatoes, green mealies, and tomatoes, which have been added to our diet. Even if nobody in this family working, our garden has enabled us to feed ourselves and even sell the surplus,” Mirirai Choga, a 62-year-old widow living with her four children and three grandchildren, told Anadolu Agency.

Market gardening fights off hardships

Sure, to Choga’s sentiments, market gardening has proved to be the panacea to the country's economically hamstrung urban dwellers who have had to turn to the soil for survival.

“Market gardening is a great source of nutrition for many citizens who want to supplement their food and income. Market gardening thrives even on very small plots, allowing a significant number of people to involve with it without requiring a lot of capital,” Precious Shumba, the director of the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), told Anadolu Agency.

The HRT is a residents body that mainly covers the Harare metropolitan province, representing the interests of citizens to claim and demand their rights.

Yet, it is not a mere pleasure to work with the soil that has pushed the country’s urban dwellers to do something with vacant pieces of land in the vicinity of their homes, according to Shumba.

“From a political economy perspective, this phenomenon is driven by high levels of unemployment, lack of economic opportunities, especially for women and youth, and exclusion from mainstream economic development activities due to unfriendly socioeconomic factors,” she said.

Even without constant running water for their gardens, Zimbabwe’s urban dwellers, like Nhika and Choga, have had to rely on well water to sustain their thriving gardens.

In Mabvuku, for instance, where Choga lives, running water has long since stopped due to broken down water pipes that have gone unnoticed by city authorities.

“We have for years depended on well water or water we fetch from streams, which we also use in our gardens and that has worked well particularly for me and my family,” said Choga.

City by-laws against market gardening

While urban dwellers appear to have found a lifeline in market gardening, the country's laws have stood in the way of their survival strategy.

Zimbabwe’s Regional Town and Country Planning Act and Environmental Management Act view urban agriculture as responsible for environmental degradation and other negative biodiversity challenges.

So even environmentalists, like Happison Chikova, believe that market gardening has no place in the country's town and cities.

“Those same gardens that earn money for poor urban dwellers also earn siltation for the urban water bodies and help to perpetuate poverty for the same people doing the gardens, for there is no way they would continue to operate those gardens without water supplies from the dams they help fill up with sand,” Chikova told Anadolu Agency.

However, while many environmentalists, such as Chikova, are concerned about Zimbabwe's urban market gardens, others, such as Nhika and Choga, are adamant that the gardens have kept them out of poverty.

“Without this garden, my family and I would have long abandoned city life and gone back to the village, where poverty certainly wouldn’t have spared us. I’m using just a small piece of land here and it’s bringing me good returns,” said Nhika.

Choga, on the other hand, has vowed to never give up her market gardening venture.

“It won’t make sense for me to stop working on my garden here, where I’m making more than most of the people who claim to be employed. I make roughly $150 a month selling products from my garden, and that has kept me and my family afloat for years,” Choga said./aa

EU’s top court has ruled that companies in the member states can ban employees from wearing a headscarf if they “need to present neutral image towards customers.”

The European Court of Justice (CJEU) on Thursday gave its verdict on two cases brought by Muslim women who were suspended from their jobs in Germany for wearing the headscarf.

“A prohibition on wearing any visible form of expression of political, philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace may be justified by the employer’s need to present a neutral image towards customers or to prevent social disputes,” said the court.

The court said “that justification must correspond to a genuine need on the part of the employer,” adding national courts could take into account the special conditions of member states “in particular, more favourable national provisions on the protection of freedom of religion.”

In 2017, the CJEU had ruled that companies can ban employees from wearing headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions./aa