India’s leather industry has a valuation of $17 billion. It accounts for 13% of the world’s leather production of hides/skins and handles a robust annual production of about 3 billion square feet of leather. We are the third-largest exporter of leather and leather products globally, after China and Italy.
The industry is made up of various segments, such as tanning, footwear, leather goods, and leather accessories. The main export destinations for our Indian leather industry are the US, Germany, the UK, Italy, and France. India is the second-largest producer of footwear (the first being China) and leather garments, the third-largest exporter of saddlery and harnesses, and the fifth-largest exporter of leather goods.
The leather industry is known for high export earnings and it is among the top ten foreign exchange earners for the country. India has an abundance of raw materials with access to 21% of the world’s cattle and buffalo and 11% of the world’s goat and sheep population. The leather industry is an employment-intensive industry providing jobs to more than 4.4 million people, mostly from the weaker sections of society. Women make up about 40% of the leather products industry. India is one of the top five producers of leather globally, with skins sourced from cows that die of natural causes or from the legal slaughter of buffaloes.
The states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, and West Bengal are major contributors to raw material supply. However, the leather sector faces many challenges due to its highly fragmented and complex supply chain. These challenges have further increased with recent restrictions on cattle trading and a retrograde ban on slaughterhouses from the informal sector. The ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) guided by their ideological mentors the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) is committed to banning cow slaughter in India.
Those who subscribe to their ideology also include some extremely violent vigilante groups who allegedly carry out mob lynchings of Muslim meat traders by accusing them of illegally transporting cows for cow slaughter. On the one hand, BJP leaders talk about giving a fillip to agro-economics and “Make in India” but on the other, they block discussions over the beef ban, saying the issue is associated with the emotions of people. Not only is their animosity directed towards the culling of bovines, BJP government’s crackdown on illegal abattoirs and polluting tanneries is taking a heavy toll on the leather industry.
Consequently, India is slowly losing its market share to other countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam. The government crackdown on slaughterhouses and the new “difficult to comply rules” has resulted in many companies going sick as their orders have fallen by half, leading to a supply crunch and reduced monthly pay for workers.
Leather sheet rates have also dropped more than half because of the hostile business scenario. Ancillary small-scale industries, such as handbags and wallets, are also affected by the crisis. Iconic Indian products like the Kolhapuri chappal (footwear) from Maharashtra and the world-famous Palakkad Maddalam (musical instrument) from Kerala are facing an existential crisis. It has resulted in layoffs and reduced raw material supply, affecting local and tribal artisans. Leather goods manufacturers fear a slump in raw material supply and increased prices due to the crackdown on slaughterhouses.
Meat and leather trade in India often takes place in the informal economy, making the impact of closures and bans hard to measure. Cattle markets report a slowdown in trade, and tanneries face a shortage of hides. Large leather manufacturers support the crackdown on unlicensed abattoirs, but concerns remain about the supply of leather, and overall employment in the sector.
If we analyze the leather industry in Uttar Pradesh, its State Pollution Control Boards directed tanneries to reduce their infrastructure by half, leading to operational challenges. Tanneries faced prolonged closures during Kumbh and Magh Melas. Cow leather production has been reduced due to a ban on cow slaughter. Tanners face a lack of availability of cow leather, prompting them to explore exit strategies like shifting to other states like West Bengal where the business environment is less hostile. However, that is not an option for many. The cost of treatment of tannery waste increased from ₹2 to ₹22 per hide in 2022.
Tanneries were instructed to operate at 50% capacity, with a penalty of ₹12,500 a day for non-compliance in 2020. Buyers’ confidence has eroded, leading to a decline in orders. Buyers are seeking hassle-free delivery from suppliers in other locations, effectively killing their business.
Tanners are forced to explore partnerships in Vietnam, Türkiye, and European countries for finished cow leather. Importing wet blue from outside India is necessary to obtain superior quality leather, especially cow leather, due to the ban and concerns about quality in domestic processing centers like Chennai and Kolkata. Tanners are relocating from UP to West Bengal, Bangladesh, and other places perceived as greener pastures. Nearly 100 tanners have acquired land in Bantala, West Bengal, where the government provides plots at ₹2,865 per square meter.
Out of 402 listed tanneries, only 215 are operational, and they face operational challenges and restrictions. Despite the global leather industry’s growth, the UP leather sector has faced a decline, with both exports and domestic sales dropping by an average of 10% annually.
Although the road ahead seems difficult for leather tanneries from the informal sector, the majority of which employ Muslims and Dalits, there is a serious need for their communities and leadership to challenge the crackdown on the slaughtering of cows in the name of religion.
Some historians have challenged the historical accuracy of the theory propagated by the BJP/RSS that beef was not commonly consumed by people of India and there was no cow slaughter in Vedic times. Prof D N Jha of Delhi University says, “Although the cow was revered and treated as sacred, it was also offered as food to guests and persons of high status. The fact remains that ancient Hindu scriptures permit the consumption of meat, even of cows.”
Swami Vivekananda considered a major force in the revival of Hinduism in modern India, admitted that ancient Hindus used to eat meat. Prof Jha asserts, “It is only in the 19th century that the demand for banning cow slaughter emerged as a tool of mass political mobilization by right-wing Hindu communalists, out to isolate Muslims by aggressively challenging their dietary practices as ‘alien’.” Bovine politics is certainly damaging India’s informal leather sector; however, things may not change until the government adopts a scientific attitude on the sourcing of raw materials to sustain the industry.