Rajasthan, India – Jeetu Singh's camel stands calmly, eating the leaves of a Khejri tree in Jaisalmer district in the Indian desert of Rajasthan.
The calf sometimes sucks its mother's breasts. Although the baby is the latest addition to Singh's family, sadness is evident on his face. His bright eyes turned sad, staring at the camels for food.
When Jeetu, 65, was a young man, his family had more than 200 camels. Today, the number is down to 25.
“Raising camels was a competitive thing when we were children,” he tells Al Jazeera. “I thought my camels should be more beautiful than my friends' herds.”
She took care of them, anointed them with mustard oil, cut their brown and black hair, and adorned them with beautiful beads from head to tail. The camels could have decorated the place with the same shiny frieze that they make when they travel in groups like “ships of the desert”.
“It's all a memory now,” he says. “I keep camels now because I love them so much.” Otherwise, there is no economic benefit for them. “
Worldwide, the number of camels rose from 13 million in the 1960s to 35 million now, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which declared 2024 the International Year of Camelids to emphasize the secret. The role that animals play in the lives of millions of families in over 90 countries.
But their numbers are declining dramatically in India – from about one million camels in 1961 to about 200,000 today. And the fall has been even greater in recent years.
India's 2007 livestock census showed that Rajasthan, one of India's few camel-raising states, had about 420,000 camels. In 2012, they dropped to around 325,000, while in 2019, their population dropped to 210,000 – a 35 percent drop in seven years.
The decline of Rajasthan's camels is seen across the region – the largest in India and the region.
About 330km (205 miles) from Jeetu's house is the village of Anji Ki Dhani. In the 1990s, there were more than 7,000 camels in the village. “Only 200 of them exist now; everything else is gone,” says Hanuwant Singh Sadri, a camel caretaker for over thirty years.
And in Dandi village in Barmer district, Bhanwarlal Chaudhary has lost about 150 of his camels since the early 2000s. He has only 30 left now. While a 45-year-old man was walking with his cattle, a camel leaned against him and kissed him.
“Camels are associated with the language we live in, our culture and our daily life,” said Chaudhary. “Without them, our language, our existence has no meaning at all.”
2015 is a huge crime
Camel breeders and experts cite various reasons for the decline in camel numbers in India. Tractors have replaced their needs on farms, while trucks and vans have taken over the roads to transport goods.
Camels have also suffered due to the lack of grazing land. Since they cannot be fed like cattle or pigs, camels must be left to graze – like Jeetu's camel eating the leaves of the Khejri tree.
Sadri said: “This opening is not available now.
But the big problem came in 2015, when the Rajasthan government led by the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) passed the Rajasthan Camel (Prohibition of Killing and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act.
The law prohibits the illegal handling, transport and killing of camels. “Even decorating them can hurt them, because the meaning of hurting them is not mentioned,” Chaudhary told Al Jazeera.
Punishment for complying with this law ranges from six months to five years in prison, and fines between 3,000 rupees ($35) and 20,000 rupees ($235). Unlike the rest of the law – where the accused is innocent until proven guilty – this law violates the common law.
“The burden of proving innocence rests with the person being prosecuted,” it says.
With the enforcement of this law, the camel market was banned – as well as camel breeders if they wanted to sell their animals. Consumers suddenly became “smugglers” under the law.
This act was created on the assumption that camel killing was the cause of the population decline in Rajasthan. It banned the export of camels, says Chaudhary, thinking it would do three things: the camel population would increase, the lives of the herders would increase and camel killing would stop.
“Chaudhary missed his first two goals.”
'Suddenly, there were no buyers'
Sumit Dookia, an environmentalist from Rajasthan who teaches at a university in New Delhi, has a question for the government on the law.
“Why are the camels decreasing,” he asks, if the law to revive their numbers is working?
Chaudhary has an answer. He said: “We raise animals to continue living,” and added that without a market or a good price, keeping these large animals is not an easy matter.
“The law closed horns with our tradition where we used to take our male camels to Pushkar, Nagore or Tilwara – the three major camel fairs,” adds Sadri.
Sadri says the farmers used to earn good money for their camels in the games.
“Before the law was issued, our camels were sold from 40,000 ($466) to 80,000 rupees ($932),” he says. But as soon as the government implemented the law in 2015, camels started to be sold for a low price of 500 ($6) to 1,000 rupees ($12).”
“Suddenly, there were no buyers.”
So, have consumers lost interest? “No, he didn't,” says biologist Dookia. “The only thing is that they fear for their lives now.”
This is mainly because almost all the buyers in Pushkar, India's largest camel center, were Muslims, says Sadri. And it's easy to follow them especially in the season of hatred of Muslims under the BJP.
“If a Muslim eats camel meat, we don't have any problem. “If there is a good place to slaughter camels, the price of camels will increase, which encourages farmers to raise more camels,” he said.
“But the BJP does not want to do this. It is taking us out of our old markets.”
'The law took away our camels'
Since 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP came to power in India, cases of killing of Muslims and Dalits and Hindus who are vigilant about killing animals have risen to the top. Dalits are among the lowest castes in India.
“If we look at the current situation in the country, consumers are scared and will not take the risk of buying camels,” says Chaudhary. “Given the current situation, why would there be a buyer? Who will buy the animals?”
Asked if the law had caused the decline in camels in the country, Maneka Gandhi, a former minister in Modi's cabinet who pushed for the law, said, “The law has no effect”, adding that “Muslims continue to smuggle animals”.
Gandhi said the order was “not followed at all”. If the law is properly enforced, he said, camel numbers will rebound.
But Narendra Mohan Singh, a 61-year-old retired general who was involved in drafting the law, disagrees.
“Look, this law is difficult, and we knew this when it was enacted and it started to affect breeders. We were given very little time to prepare and the farmers and camel herders who were going to be affected were not consulted when they were brought in,” says Singh, who was the former additional director of animal husbandry in the state of Rajasthan.
“We were told to make a law for camels similar to that for cows and other cattle. But the camel protection law was able to do something different,” adds Singh.
Amir Ali, an associate professor at the School of Social Sciences at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, agrees with Singh.
“The excessive concern that Hindu (mainstream) politics gives to animals has two strange aspects,” he says. “The first is that they don't know much about things like animal husbandry. Second, in the unusual rush to show concern for animals, it ends up demonizing and denigrating groups like Dalits and Muslims.”
Meanwhile, the sun has set in Jaisalmer. Jeetu, sitting by the burning fire, thinks about the new born camel in his herd and asks: “Will the baby camel bring good fortune to Rajasthan?
Sadri and Singh are hopeless.
Sadri says the BJP's “brief rule” is continuing the camel's decline in Rajasthan.
“Organizations that are pushing for animal welfare do not know anything about large animals. “They can only raise dogs and cats,” he says, his voice cracking with anger.
“This law took away our markets and will eventually take our camels. I will not be surprised or surprised if there are no camels in India in the next five or 10 years. It will be gone like the dinosaurs did.”
Singh has a more dire vision for the future. He said: “If it doesn't go away, it will eventually become a zoo.”