Trade data today follows the harmonized system (HS) of nomenclature under the auspices of World Customs Organization. Every product is described through a digit, and the more the number of digits, the finer and more disaggregated the description. At the 6-digit level, there are more than 5,000 products. The 2-digit level of HS is called a chapter and the 4-digit level is called a heading. There are 97 chapters.
Very roughly, the initial chapters are about primary products. As one moves down the chapters, there is more of value addition and manufacturing. For example, Chapters 1 to 5 are for live animals and animal products. Chapters 28 to 38 are for chemical and allied industries. A bit more specifically, Chapter 01—that’s 2-digit—is for live animals. Chapters 02 to 05 get into the domain of animal products, dairy and fish.
Under Chapter 01, which is for live animals, what is the first 4-digit code in the entire HS system? This will never figure as a KBC question. The answer happens to be 0101—live horses, asses, mules and hinnies. Disaggregating further, 010130 is live asses, while 010190 is live mules and hinnies. Until I encountered this HS code, I had no idea what a hinny was. Nor did I know the clear difference between a mule a hinny. A hinny is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey, known as jenny. A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. There is a pedantic difference between an ass and a donkey too. An ass can be wild; a donkey is typically domesticated.
Pakistan exports a lot of donkeys, especially to China. The Chinese use donkey hide for traditional Chinese medicines. Pakistan does have a lot of donkeys. Evidently, it is difficult to get reliable global data on the global donkey population, since a lot of ownership is in remote and rural areas. Subject to that, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gives us data that there are some 51 million donkeys in the world, mostly in Africa, and the number has increased. Most donkeys are in Ethiopia, Sudan, Pakistan, Chad and Mexico.
For 2019, the FAO tells us Pakistan had 5.4 million donkeys. But Pakistan recently presented its Economic Survey for 2022-23. We don’t, of course, need that Survey to tell us Pakistan is in dire economic straits. But in that Survey, we are told that Pakistan’s donkey population has been steadily increasing, 5.6 million in 2020-21, 5.7 million in 2021-22 and 5.8 million in 2022-23. That’s an increase of 100,000 a year. (In comparison, the population of mules has been flat.) There is probably an inverse correlation between economic development and donkey ownership. As one does better, one needs fewer donkeys as working animals. It is rare that one keeps donkeys as pets, though the Donkey Sanctuary based in the UK propagates this.
For India, the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying gives us basic animal husbandry statistics and the latest numbers are for 2023. In 1956, we had 1.1 million donkeys. In 2019, the number was just 120,000. The decline has been steady down the years, but has been particularly sharp since 2012, when there were 320,000 donkeys. Mules were never that common and there were just about 80,000 mules in 2019. The mules are mostly in Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Uttarakhand. Donkeys are concentrated in Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP, with the largest number in Rajasthan.
For most of us, a donkey is a donkey. But within donkeys, there are different breeds. For example, Spiti in Himachal Pradesh, Halari in Gujarat, Kachchhi in Gujarat and Sindhi in Rajasthan. Some breeds can travel long distances per day, others can carry heavier loads. Whatever one may say about donkey milk (the yields are low), that hasn’t quite taken off.
Legally, the slaughter of donkeys and trade in meat and hide is prohibited. Donkeys in India are therefore working animals—cart and pack animals, brick kilns, construction, sand-mining, pot-making with clay, carrying milk and pilgrimage sites. In each of these, urbanisation, better transport connectivity and mechanization have led to reduced dependence on donkeys. Add to that the loss of grazing grounds. Therefore, following that inverse correlation between development and donkey ownership, there should be fewer donkeys.
There is a poem by G K Chesterton, titled ‘The Donkey’. Towards the end, it has the line, “For I also had my hour.” Chesterton alluded to something else. But the Indian donkey seems to have had its hour. One that is past.
But there is a bit more. With development, there should be fewer donkeys. But the drop in India since 2012 has been much more than the trend, suggesting there is something else at work. Despite the ban, donkeys are slaughtered illegally—a fact that figured before the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2017. But that too is an incomplete explanation. It is too localised. A more plausible hypothesis is that what Pakistan does legally, we do illegally. Therefore, one should restrain snide remarks about Pakistan exporting donkeys to China.
Many of us have not heard of ejiao—it is a gelatin based on donkey hide and is prized as an ingredient in Chinese traditional medicine. Incidentally, the Chinese government has sought to promote traditional Chinese medicine. China’s domestic donkey population declined; donkeys aren’t rabbits—they don’t have high reproductive rates. Hence, China started to look for donkey hide from elsewhere.
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The adverse effects led to many countries—Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Brazil—banning exports of donkeys and donkey hide to China, as do we, ostensibly. In 2021, Brooke India undertook an investigative study. It was titled ‘The Hidden Hide’ and was done by a journalist named Sharat Verma. In Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, where there have been large declines in donkey populations, there were field visits that highlighted a disconcerting fact. Along the porous border with Nepal, say Raxaul and Rupaidiha, live donkeys and donkey hide are carted across, meant for China.
Donkeys aren’t described as exotic, not yet. However, exotic protected animals and buffaloes are also smuggled across through Nepal. With porous borders, these are difficult enforcement issues one can talk about ad nauseam. For donkeys, to quote Chesterton again, “Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.” That secret of smuggling to China is an open one.