The second largest Indian state of Maharashtra (the largest city is Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay) introduced the most stringent law aimed at protecting cows: even those who simply keep them on their farm face a 5-year prison sentence.
Cows are sacred animals for Hindus, who are the majority in Maharashtra (more than 80% of the population) and in India as a whole. The ban on killing cows was previously in effect in some other states of the country. A special bill for Maharashtra has been gathering dust for two decades, and its approval took place only under Narendra Modi, a vegetarian and the country's prime minister, who took office less than a year ago.
Severe restrictions on the treatment of cows not only led to discontent among some Maharashtrian residents - those whose business was directly related to the breeding and "use" of cows, as well as representatives of religious minorities - but also to rather unusual consequences: for example, predatory Animals (lions, tigers, leopards) in the Mumbai National Park are no longer fed with beef, but with chicken.
Some owners of slaughterhouses in Maharashtra have decided to express their protest against the adopted law in a peculiar way and refuse to kill buffalo for meat, which (unlike cows) can be eaten by some Hindus.
Enthusiasts associated with Modi's BJP (Bharatiya Janata party) political party are reportedly organizing special camps and shelters for cows that farmers part with. The law has a chance to spread to other states of India, but some politicians - for example, the senior minister of Goa - have already expressed that they are not ready to support such initiatives in their territory.