Old style ‘long-acre-grazing’ is getting short-shrift in India, The Dealer sees.

Those souls as wizened as The Dealer might remember cows wandering Ireland’s by-roads, grazing on the banks and margins as they dandered along. This practice, which was known as grazing the long acre, is a rare phenomenon nowadays.

And it is likely to become equally as rare in India if the legal eagles have their way.

A court in the western Indian state of Gujarat recently handed a six-month jail sentence to a man for letting his cattle stray on the streets.

Prakash Jairam Desai was found guilty of letting his stock loose and endangering people’s lives.

Cows are sacred to India’s majority Hindu community, and slaughtering them is illegal in 18 states, including Gujarat.

However, sacred as the cows may be, their right to roam clearly has legal limitations.