Surplus Cattle in India: A Critical Survey

Misra, Satya Narayan

doi:10.1177/0038022919730206

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…By the early 1960s, it was generally accepted by economists and agricultural scientists that India's bovine stock was surplus relative to available feed supply (Misra, 1973). To prevent the ‘slaughter of useful milch animals in the cities’, the expert committee called for ‘re‐organizing [urban] milk supply’ (Government of India, 1955, p. 40).…”

Section: Living Waste: the Colonial Roots Of India's Surplus Cattlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sale of dry animals for slaughter becomes under these conditions, an economic necessity. The only way in which the present abuse can be permanently prevented is to follow the method found most suitable by other countries namely the removal of cattle from the cities and the arrangements of milk supplies from rural areas (Government of India, 1955, emphasis added) By the early 1960s, it was generally accepted by economists and agricultural scientists that India's bovine stock was surplus relative to available feed supply (Misra, 1973). To prevent the 'slaughter of useful milch animals in the cities', the expert committee called for 're-organizing [urban] milk supply' (Government of India, 1955, p. 40).…”

Section: Creating Surplusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Living waste, living on waste: A bioeconomy of urban cows in Delhi

Turnbull

Barua

2022

Trans Inst British Geog

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The economic implications of biopolitics – or the administration, regulation, and control of life – have received significant attention in recent geographical and cognate scholarship. An emerging theme of inquiry, largely focused on the Global North, makes contributions to specifying ‘lively capital’, defined here as bodily value in motion – predicated on accumulation from other‐than‐human life. In this paper, we argue that the biopolitical process of bringing life into the ambit of capital works in cultural, political, and economic registers and not just through singular logics of the economic, as extant accounts have implied. The rendition of life into capital through modes of biopower is not a universal process. It has diverging trajectories that, in postcolonial contexts, involve hybrids between biopolitical and vernacular practices. This argument is made through an account of bovine biopolitics in urban Delhi with specific reference to the city's ‘cattle problem’ involving ‘surplus’ animals. It unfolds in four distinct parts. First, drawing on archival work, we trace colonial histories of cattle improvement to reveal how the category of ‘surplus’ was invented. Second, we deploy more‐than‐human ethnographies of free‐ranging animals in Delhi to foreground how ‘surplus’ cattle – which we conceptualise as ‘living waste’ – are driven to feed on waste as a result of gentrification and the enclosure of erstwhile grazing grounds. Third, we turn to gaushalas (cow shelters) in Delhi to show how ‘surplus’ cattle from the city's streets are rehomed and managed. Fourth, we examine the uneven practices of care afforded to different bovines based on logics associated with right‐wing Hindutva nationalism. Our account provincialises lively capital by opening up more nuanced and situated understandings of the relations between biopolitics and capitalism, attentive to divergences from models situated in Western modernity.

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Section: Living Waste: the Colonial Roots Of India's Surplus Cattlementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Creating Surplusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living waste, living on waste: A bioeconomy of urban cows in Delhi

Turnbull

Barua

2022

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…The controversy has been going on intermittently for several years with estimates ranging from at least 80 million useless cattle to scarcely any surplus at all (Joshi 1956;Ravenholt 1966;Dandekar 1969;Misra 1973). This had led to general confusion and often an oversimplification of the issue.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Question of Surplus Cattle in India: A Spatial View

Chakravarti¹

1985

Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography

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“…He argues, &dquo;My intention is to argue that explanation of taboos, customs, and rituals associated with management of cattle be sought in positive functioned and probably the adaptive process of the ecological system of which they are a part rather than in the influence of Hindu theology&dquo; (1966: 51). A large number of social scientists have opposed Harris's techno-environmental interpretation of the sacred-the cow ideology in India (Dandekar: 1964), Heston (1971), Mishra (1973;1978), Simoons (1979), Lodrick (1979), and Freed and Freed (1981). The negative functioned traits of the religious proscriptions against the slaughter of cattle have been used as evidence to argue that religious beliefs rather than technoenvironmental adaptation influence behaviour towards the the cow in India.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Sacredness of the Cow in India

Batra¹

1986

Social Compass

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Cet article traite d'un aspect souvent négligé par les études consacrées au caractère sacré de la vache en Inde. Ces études, souvent polémiques, se sont préoccupées d'aspects techniques et environnementaux et n'ont pratiquement rien apporté quant & a g r a v e ; la compréhension de la logique culturelle contenue dans le caractère sacré de cet animal.Basé sur I 'étude de textes sacrés, sur des observations empiriques dans le Nord du Pays et sur des travaux d'anthropologues dans d'autres régions, cet article jette une lumière sur le caractère sacré de la vache dans l'Inde ancienne, sur les processus historiques qui ont abouti & a g r a v e ; l'émergence des tabous concernant la consommation du boeuf, sur les mythes et rites qui accompagnent ce phénomène, sur ses significations culturelles dans la société indienne. L'auteur estime que l'interprétation métaphorique technico-environnementale de Harris & a g r a v e ; propos du caractère sacré de la vache ne rend pas compte de manière adéquate du maintien de ce modèle culturel en Inde. L'idéologie religieuse indienne explique mieux cette persistance car la sacralité de la vache est un reflet d'actes symboliques ayant un caractère expressif et une fin en soi qui dépassent les simples considérations rationnelles. Social Compass, XXXIII/2-3, 1986, 163-175 The the cow is held in great reverence by the Hindus. She occupies a place closer to the divines and there is hardly any temple where the the cow does not figure prominently. The concept of sacredness of the cow is deeply ingrained in the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of Hindus so much so that her protection and care is considered as a religious duty. There is a strong abhorrance for killing and eating the flesh of a the cow. They have become so inviolable that in big cities they wander unmolested through the busiest traffic. Even a bull that gores a man to death may not be touched. The mere slaughter of a the cow has led to many communal riots during the pre as well as postIndependence period leading to a loss of several human lives and valuable property in India (Batra: 1972; 1981a).

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Surplus Cattle in India: A Critical Survey

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Living waste, living on waste: A bioeconomy of urban cows in Delhi

Living waste, living on waste: A bioeconomy of urban cows in Delhi

The Question of Surplus Cattle in India: A Spatial View

The Sacredness of the Cow in India

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