Holy cow! Decoding UP’s ‘sanatan’ budget

Modinomics has performed another miracle—it has turned annual budgets into religious documents dominated by references to temple tourism and Hindu festivals. While Opposition-ruled states in the South chafed at disproportionate devolution of taxes to the cow-belt, the BJP gloated about milking the Maha Kumbh for ‘seasonal employment’. With UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath showing the way—bragging about generating business worth Rs 3 lakh crore by spending Rs 7,500 crore out of the state government’s coffers— could Uttar Pradesh finance minister Suresh Kumar Khanna be left behind?

Presenting the state’s budget for the financial year 2025–26 in the assembly on 20 February, Khanna began his speech with a loving elaboration on—no prizes for guessing—the significance of the Maha Kumbh (which drew to a close on 26 February under the auspices of a rare planetary alignment ordered especially for the occasion). He didn’t lose the opportunity to talk about the ‘once-in-144-years’ chance of a lifetime—that unfortunate and unfounded claim that lured the faithful to make the pilgrimage to Prayagraj (66 crore devotees took the holy dip, if we are to believe the monk who sold the Yogi Show.)

Uttar Pradesh wasn’t alone in the charge of the right brigade. The Maha Kumbh found a place in Rajasthan’s budget as well. Presenting the budget for 2025–26 on 19 February, Rajasthan deputy chief minister Diya Kumari reminded the assembly that the solemn promises made by chief minister Bhajanlal Sharma during the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj were being fulfilled. These promises included special allocations for temples and an increase in the honorarium for priests. A month earlier (on 19 January), Sharma and his entire cabinet had flown to Prayagraj to take the holy dip.

What better way to prep for a propitious (and propitiating) budget! Sharma had presided over a cabinet meeting at the ‘Rajasthan Mandapam’ set up for visiting pilgrims, which is where these noble commitments were presumably made.

Coming back to Uttar Pradesh, two dominant themes stood out in the state budget—cattle welfare and temple tourism. The budget allocated Rs 2,000 crore for the maintenance of gauvansh (stray cows and bulls). The entire budget for sports development across Uttar Pradesh was Rs 400 crore—which suggests that stray cattle are five times more precious than sportsmen and women. An additional Rs 140 crore have been earmarked for cow protection centres while Rs 123 crore set aside for veterinary hospitals. Remarkably, the budget specifically uses the term gauvansh rather than ‘livestock.’ It remains unclear what provisions, if any, have been made for other commercially or agriculturally significant animals such as goats, horses and mules. Will funds be allocated for these poor creatures, or will they be left to fend for themselves? Currently, there are no reliable figures on the exact number of stray cows and bulls in the state.

The most recent data comes from the 2019 livestock census, which estimated the total number of stray livestock in Uttar Pradesh to be around 12 lakh. If we assume that 10 lakh of these are stray cows and bulls, the budget allocation translates to Rs 20,000 per stray cow, buffalo or bull per year. Farmers, on the other hand, are granted Rs 6,000 per year by the central government under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. Campaigning during the last assembly election in the state, Prime Minister Modi had confided he had the perfect solution to solve the problem of stray cattle.

Promising to implement it after the election—after all, the model code of conduct was in place at the time—he had declared that farmers would compete with each other to catch and nurse stray cows, as it was also a paying proposition. What it was no one knows. The budget did not mention it.

Second only to cattle welfare in the UP budget is religious tourism. Using the term ‘religious tourism’ instead of ‘pilgrimage’ indicates that the funds allocated for religious sites have been routed through the tourism department. A total provision of over Rs 900 crore has been made under this category. Of this, Rs 200 crore will be used to build the corridor of the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan, with an equal amount allocated for the parikrama (circumambulation) path of the Vindhyavasini temple in Mirzapur. Ayodhya’s ongoing ‘development’ has been allocated Rs 150 crore, while Mathura will receive Rs 125 crore and Chitrakoot Rs 50 crore.

Additionally, Rs 100 crore have been earmarked for the development of the Naimisharanya pilgrimage site in Sitapur, along with Rs 100 crore to establish a Veda science centre there. Besides these Hindu religious sites, the state government has also allocated Rs 60 crore for the development of the Buddhist circuit. Although the same amount was allocated last year, the revised estimate— typically made six months into the financial year—has increased to Rs 92.66 crore. This indicates that, in effect, the budget for the Buddhist circuit has been reduced this year. The government has set aside a separate amount of Rs 400 crore for the Chief Minister’s Tourism Development Scheme, further reinforcing its focus on tourismdriven religious infrastructure.

While the Uttar Pradesh government has been tom-tomming the development of India’s ‘first AI city’ in Lucknow, the allocation in the state’s ‘sanatan budget’ is a mere Rs 5 crore in the first year.

Temple development remains the central focus. (Rajasthan’s budget speech mentioned a direct announcement of Rs 541 crore for temple development. A deeper dive could reveal an even higher allocation.) Apart from temple development, cattle welfare and religious tourism, what might be the other defining features of ‘sanatan budgeting’? Most pointedly—its deafening silence on minorities, who found no mention in the budget speech.

The Uttar Pradesh budget not only revealed omissions but also cuts. In the 2024–25 budget, Rs 2,000 crore was earmarked for minorities; this year, the amount has been reduced to Rs 1,998 crore. For a community comprising 20 per cent of the state’s population, the allocation now falls below that for stray cattle. It is also worth noting that in 2016–17, the budget for minorities stood at Rs 3,055 crore, highlighting a significant decline over the years. Madrasas, which remain the primary source of education for many economically disadvantaged Muslims in UP, are not touched upon in the budget. There has been no increase in scholarships for minority students, despite the urgent need for special provisions, particularly for the education of Muslim girls.

Census data reveals that only 50 per cent of Muslim girls make it to school, and of those who do, nearly 80 per cent drop out. These concerns find no place in the budget. After his state budget was presented, Yogi Adityanath declared it was “dedicated to sanatan”. If prioritising temple development over essential public services, allocating more funds for stray cattle than for sports or minority welfare and pumping resources into religious tourism over health and education is what ‘sanatan’ is all about, then that vision has been realised.

The question is, at what cost?