Lives beyond the myth
Sacred cows and other urban street animals in the practice of
everyday life in Udaipur, India
Master’s Thesis Ariane Timmermans
Amsterdam, 20 June 2014 UvA ID number: 5934745
ariane.timmermans@live.com Master Cultural and Social Anthropology
Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. R.J. van Ginkel
Co-readers: Dr. Y.M. van Ede Dr. V.A. van Rooij
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Abstract
India’s sacred cow has been the subject of fervent discussion for decades. This thesis offers a perspective on the subject that has not been considered before: the perspective of the animals. The streets of Udaipur, India are home to many animals. Among the city’s street animals are thousands of cows. Despite the special status of cows, their lives appear largely similar to that of the many street dogs and other animals living alongside humans in the city. Animal welfare is a concerning issue in this context. This thesis provides an insight into the practice of everyday life on the street and the interactions between animal and human that happen here. This perspective reveals that the ‘web of significance’ that surrounds cows in particular is less significant in human-animal interactions than has always been theorized.
Keywords
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Acknowledgements I want to thank:
Claire Abrams, Erika Abrams, and Jim Myers for sharing their knowledge and the amazing work they do with Animal Aid. The whole Animal Aid staff for their kindness, hard work, and endless generosity. Ravi, Shariq, Ananya, Kanchi, Aditya, Sneha and everybody else for answering all my strange questions and for their tireless help with more than I could ask for. Rob van Ginkel, for his advice, encouragement, and patience through all my unconventional decisions. My parents and my sister for their unconditional support. Carli Kooper, for her invaluable insights and suggestions. And, in the spirit of this thesis, my nonhuman companions: Bonny, Jayesh, Max, Ramith, Kali, Freya, Gaya, Rosie, Whiskey, Brandy, and Sasha, for being there when I needed inspiration and when I needed distraction.
3 Table of contents Abstract ... 1 Keywords ... 1 Acknowledgements ... 2 Table of contents ... 3 List of figures ... 5 Maps ... 6 1. Animal neighbours ... 7 Revisiting a controversy ... 7
From theory to practice ... 10
Udaipur: modernization in a traditional city ... 14
2. Theories on myths and customs ... 18
India’s ‘oxen factories’ ... 19
The many faces of the sacred cow ... 22
A new perspective ... 25
Human animals and nonhuman animals ... 27
3. Holy cows, Pariah dogs and other urban animals ... 29
Ahimsa institutionalized: federal and state legislature regarding animals ... 29
The practice of life for street animals ... 32
Holy cow!/? ... 34
Caught between policies and practice ... 36
Cross-species comparison ... 40
A dog’s life ... 41
4. The construction of social indifference ... 48
Living in a split between modernity and tradition ... 49
Traditional animals and modern animals ... 52
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Dispositions: a clash in everyday life ... 59
5. Multispecies, multi-layered ... 61
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List of figures
All photographs were taken by the author, unless another source is indicated.
Cover photo: A cow licks her young calf at Animal Aid shelter……….0
Figure 1: The “anthropologist.” ... 2
Figure 2: Map of India ... 6
Figure 3: Map of Udaipur. ... 6
Figure 4: Cows resting on the side of a street. ... 34
Figure 5: Bull foraging for food among garbage in the corner of a busy intersection. ... 34
Figure 6: Stray cow looking for food next to a garbage container. ... 35
Figure 7: Stray cow and her calf that were rescued from the street by Animal Aid ... 35
Figure 8: A calf at Animal Aid that had been hit by a car. ... 36
Figure 9: Three calves with injured legs ... 36
Figure 10: Young male calf that had been abandoned. ... 37
Figure 11: A mix-breed cow that was reported to Animal Aid for an infected udder. ... 37
Figure 12: Akash is a mix between an INDog and a German Shepherd. ... 42
Figure 13: Typical INDog.. ... 42
Figure 14: Two stray dogs resting on a parking lot ... 44
Figure 15: A dog in Animal Aid shelter. ... 44
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Maps
Figure 2: Map of India. Arrow designates Udaipur. Source: Geology.com
Figure 3: Map of Udaipur. My residence Animal Aid Anarki Café ---- Boundary of Udaipur city. Source: Google Maps.
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1. Animal neighbours
Almost every evening it would be the same. Around dusk, a loud wailing could be heard all around the neighbourhood. The windows of my house were always open, so I would catch it every time. For a while, it made me worried, I thought it might be an animal in pain, or maybe it was an alarm going off. I had just got used to it when one evening I was walking home and came face to face with the source of the noise. A huge black bull was standing in one of the small alleys that made up the maze of streets leading up to my house. His big, wrinkled head was lifted up with his thick horns pointing in two different directions. His mouth was spread open and he produced a near-deafening noise that surely carried for several blocks.
When I told my friends about the encounter the next day, they told me that I had finally met the Big Bull of Hanuman Ghat. He was an age-old bull that roams around the densely inhabited area between Brahmpol road and the lake shores of Hanuman Ghat. He was easy to recognize, he stood as tall as a man and dragged his left hind leg. It must have been injured at some point in his life. I saw him several times again after that first introduction, though I was not always glad to see him. With his large size and slow movements, he was quite a roadblock, especially in a neighbourhood where most of the streets were not wide enough for him to turn. As he was quite intimidating, I would usually choose to take a detour if I found him blocking my way, rather than try to squeeze by him.
The bull of Hanuman Ghat was not the only nonhuman animal living in my neighbourhood during my stay in Udaipur, India. Making my way through the many narrow, winding streets on any given day, I could meet everything from two young calves nibbling on some greens left on a doorstep to a pack of dogs lazing in the sun and from a cat stalking a bird on a rooftop to a troop of monkeys playing and having lunch in a tree. This was one thing I enjoyed a lot about living where I did, the abundance of animals. And it was not at all an unusual thing in Udaipur. Numerous animals were living alongside the human population in most neighbourhoods and streets in the city. It created an urban setting that is unique to India. Nowhere in the world are humans and nonhumans co-habiting as they are in India.
Revisiting a controversy
For decades, the unusual ‘animal situation’ of India, or ‘India’s cattle complex,’ more specifically, has been a topic of discussion for social scientists. Arguments and theories have gone back and forth in an effort to explain why the cattle population of India is so numerous. The debate came to be known as ‘the holy cow debate’ or ‘the sacred cow controversy.’ It
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became active in the 1960s and has become one of the most famous in cultural anthropology. Many different perspectives on the topic were raised and discussed. One side argued that the symbolic position of the cow as a sacred animal in Hinduism was the primary reason that there was a surplus of cattle in India. On the other side, Marvin Harris (1966, 1989) argued that there was no such thing as a surplus. According to him, the sacredness of the cow was nothing but a myth. The cow had come to be considered sacred in order to protect her from slaughter. The cow served an essential part in the ecology of Indian agriculture, he argued. Although a conclusive solution was never really reached (even if individual theorists may have thought they had already had the answer all along), the debate has now reached calmer waters.
This thesis will contribute to two particular branches in the cultural anthropological study of human-animal relations. The first is the above-mentioned holy cow debate, a discussion of specifically the case of bovine animals in India. The other is that of multispecies ethnography, a rather new, but fast developing academic branch. It proposes ‘an anthropology that is not just confined to the human but is concerned with the effects of our entanglements with other kinds of living selves’ (Kohn 2007). In the study of human-animal relations, including that of the holy cow, animals are only considered as objects of human action. The social environment of Udaipur is shaped and inhabited by both the humans and animals living in it. In a study of human-animal relations, those in the second part of the equation should also be included as participants. This study is an ethnography that is not limited to the human members of society.
The two fields overlap when it comes to subject matter, but not chronologically, as the holy cow controversy had its peak before multispecies ethnography started to develop as a field in cultural anthropology. Multispecies ethnography can be instrumental in order to achieve a clearer understanding of the position of animals in Indian society, which is the purpose of this thesis. The particularities of the main question are formulated to this end. They make several points that distinguish my study from those that have been done previously. The main question that will be answered in this thesis is:
What dispositions about street animals exist among young, middle class people living in Udaipur city and how do these account for the role these animals currently play in everyday public life?
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There are multiple concepts of this two-tiered question that need to be elaborated upon: (1) dispositions, (2) street animals, (3) young, middle class people, and (4) current everyday public life in Udaipur city. These specific components form the distinct perspective of this study on the topic of animals in India. They will each be explained, starting with the second point. The first element ‘dispositions,’ will be discussed last.
The first point this thesis makes is that cows are not the only animals in India. In comparison to ‘western’ customs, cows are perhaps the most fascinating. Their exceptional position in Hindu religion and Indian society is found nowhere else in the world. If we take the comparison with the west out of the equation, however, cows are one of many animals that can be encountered in the streets of Indian cities. In order to say something about the cows, the other animals on the street cannot be ignored. The lives of street animals of all species are strikingly similar. All roam the city streets and depend on what humans discard for sustenance and shelter. They are all at times used and ignored and at times cared for and appreciated. Conceptually, the cow may be exceptional, but in the practice of everyday life, her life is much the same as that of other urban animals. As one of many urban animals, her life becomes unexceptional. Perhaps somewhere between ideas and practice, neither the theological nor the economic special status of cows is as crucial as has always been thought.
The second element in the main question is that this study was conducted in an urban environment rather than in a rural location. Most prominent studies in the sacred cow debate (the ones that are based on ethnography as well as the ones that are not) talk about cattle in a rural environment. Cows and other animals are not only present in villages and the countryside however, but in the bigger cities as well. The animal situation in cities has so far been overlooked. Especially now, in the 21st century, a large part of the Indian population is living in cities and migration to the cities is happening on a major scale. Cities are developing rapidly. Concurrently, the quintessential image of an Indian city is a cow lying in the middle of a busy street ruminating while motorbikes zoom past her.
In a city like Udaipur, humans and animals inevitably meet in public space. The animals live in public place, because they are put there by humans. They are not allowed in private space. In the Udaipur city, public space is streets, squares, intersections and the odd park, and this is where humans inevitably come upon the animals they share their city with. This inevitability is key, because unlike a farmer who buys an animal and brings it into his home, city residents do not necessarily choose to live with animals, but are faced with the reality of having animal neighbours and consequently deal with it in some way.
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The third component specified in the main question is the particular research population of this study. The focus is on young, educated, middle class people, instead of a more general rural population as in most of the major studies before this one. I was able to distinguish this category of people rather clearly and came to know them well over time. The people in this category were between 18 and 30 years of age. I define them as middle class, first, because they defined themselves as middle class to me. Other than that, their family had a good, regular income and was able to provide them with a relatively high standard of living. They were at least the second generation in their family to enjoy the living standard they had. They were able to attend a private secondary school instead of a free government school. They received a relatively good education there, often in English, because their parents could afford the tuition fees. Subsequently, they have all had the opportunity to go to college and get a well-paying job after receiving their degree. Some of their senior family members, usually the males, occupied respected positions in government or otherwise prestigious companies. Many of their families owned land in order to secure their wealth. This property served as a means of financial security. It does not mean they themselves did not have to work hard to earn their own money. It means there was a quite solid safety net, which is unimaginable for the members of other sections in society.
The above-mentioned three elements together, street animals in an urban environment and middle class young people as a research population, form the situation to be analysed. This situation is significantly different from what has been analysed many times in the past. Instead of a cow that is producing milk and other essentials for a poor farmer who worships the cow for what she gives him, we have an old bull wandering on a busy road, where he may get in the way of a twenty-something IT professional on his motorbike. The core of the main question examines what happens here, and how it may vary every time it occurs.
The fourth term used in the main question, dispositions, comes into play where the bull and the IT professional meet. The concept ‘dispositions’ is used in the sense that Pierre Bourdieu (1990) employed it as formative of the habitus. The concept figures in the theoretical framework of this thesis and methods of the fieldwork informing it. The next section attends to the clarification of the term dispositions.
From theory to practice
I was personally introduced to the cows of India during my first trip to India in 2010. I was surprised to find that the stories of cows causing roadblocks in Indian cities were true. However, while most scholars concerned with India’s ‘cattle complex’ saw this as a problem,
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I enjoyed seeing cows everywhere India. I have been a vegetarian and interested in animals since a young age. Like vegetarian Indians, I have never eaten beef in my life and survived most of my life on a purely vegetarian diet. The main problem in the holy cow debate is based on the assumption that the only reason for cattle to exist, is in service of humanity. Cattle that is not directly used in production for human benefit is repeatedly referred to as ‘surplus’ (i.e. Simoons 1979:467; Freed and Freed 1981:484; Lodrick 2005:76). Cows not involved in production are considered useless. Therefore, they ought to be slaughtered in order to be of some use.
Officially, the debate surrounds the question: ‘(how and why) does the concept of the sacred cow create a surplus of cattle in India?’ The question theorists rather seemed to have had in mind was ‘why don’t they just kill them?’ To people for whom eating beef is normal and who come from a beef-producing society, it is a waste when cows are not converted into beef. They see beef as a nourishing and necessary food source and cattle as the source of beef. From a vegetarian perspective, letting an animal live rather than slaughter them for their meat is not as strange a concept. From this viewpoint, it is easier to understand that Indian society views an animal as something other than just a source of meat. The concept of cow protection then does not seem like a problem or a complex. The question ‘why don’t they just kill them?’ would more likely be the last than the first to come to mind. Accordingly, the questions that I pose about the animal situation in India are of a different nature than the questions that have been asked in the past, though certainly not unrelated.
Consequently, this thesis is less concerned with the history and reasoning behind the position of the cow and other animals in Indian society. The question is rather how the animals are living and how the people around them give meaning to their presence, in the present. For this reason, the main question inquires about dispositions about animals and about how these dispositions play out in the practice of everyday life. The definition of dispositions is derived from the work of Pierre Bourdieu on habitus (Bourdieu 1977, 1990). Bourdieu theorized human action is determined by the habitus. Habitus is the embodied system of dispositions and structures that determines human behaviour. It is constructed individually, ‘constituted in practice and always oriented towards practical functions’ (Bourdieu 1990:52). The question leading this thesis is not aimed to understand the whole habitus of the individuals in this research. It focusses primarily on which dispositions exist as part of the habitus to determine their interactions with animals in the practice of everyday life.
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It is important to emphasize that dispositions are formed by social conditioning, but are finally a product of the circumstances of practice.
This study’s particular interest in dispositions was instrumental in the research methods, both as they were planned and the methods that proved most useful in the field. An overview of the methods first requires an insight into the specific circumstances of this research. I initially arrived in Udaipur for three months of fieldwork in January 2013, but I soon found myself limited by several shortcomings. For personal and professional reasons, I decided to halt my research at that time. I continued to live in Udaipur for the next fourteen months. I got to know the city and the people and animals living in it. Although I was initially not actively conducting research, I collected a lot of information during that time. When I formally resumed my research in January 2014, I already had a substantial comprehension of my research subject to build on.
Aside from material, I had gained a group of friends that I had come to know well. I had also gained a focus when it came to my research population. I had decided to focus on the category of people that most of my friends, and again their friends, belonged to: the young, educated, middle class. The more I had come to know about their lives, the more interested I had become. I chose to concentrate on their views and practices concerning animals. This focus brought many practical advantages. For instance, access to informants had been arranged, because my friends were more than willing to help me and introduce me to new people.
There were also a few downsides. The biggest disadvantage became clear to me when I started interviewing. I interviewed both informants that I already knew and considered friends and informants that I met for the first time. I soon found that my interviews with either did not provide me with much useful information. The main problem was that during interviews informants were very aware of what they said. Even if I made an effort to keep it informal, we would still make an appointment, meet each other, sit down together, I would ask questions and we would stick to a certain topic. It soon became clear that my informants were not likely to express their ideas spontaneously in this type of situation. I heard well-constructed stories, but what happens in the practice of everyday life is largely unconsciously determined (Bourdieu 1977). Interviews were not the optimal method to learn about dispositions in the practice of everyday life. Therefore, I used other methods to triangulate what I heard in interviews. Participant-observation was my primary method throughout the period of
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research. The third chapter will elaborate on the results and implications of the combination of these methods.
The advantage of my extended time in Udaipur was that I became fully emerged in Udaipur life, to the point that I came to understand what is meant by ‘going native.’ I would classify my role in the field as observing participant, as I was always observing even though I fully participated in everything I was invited to and came upon. I spent the first nine months in Udaipur volunteering at Animal Aid, a street animal rescue centre and veterinarian hospital just outside the city.1 Animal Aid Unlimited was founded in 2002 by Erika Abrams, Jim Myers, and their daughter Claire Abrams. Animal Aid started as a small organisation that gave care to street dogs. By 2014, it had grown into a shelter and hospital for street animals from all around Udaipur city and occupied a 20.000m² plot of land just outside the city. Through observing participation there, I learned extensively about the lives different kinds of street animals. The data gathered enabled me to construct the perspective of nonhuman animals of life on the street. In the past ten years, Animal Aid has become the epicentre of street animal care in Udaipur. It is the only place in Udaipur that provides free care to ownerless animals. People can call Animal Aid if they find an injured or diseased animal, and the Animal Aid ambulance will come to pick the animal up. They receive around 20-30 calls every day, resulting in up to 15-20 rescues a day. All my informants knew about Animal Aid and their work. Animal Aid will therefore be mentioned recurrently throughout this thesis.
The second part of my fieldwork was dedicated to constructing the human side of the question. For this part, my friends, and everyone they introduced me to, became my informants. I participated in their lives while observing attentively, especially when animals were involved. I gathered my most valuable information during day-to-day conversations, while driving around the city or hanging out in a café. A spontaneous remark or an unexpected discussion provided me with better insights than any interview has done. Participant observation therefore has taken the central role in my approach of the main question, with interviews as a secondary, though essential, contribution. Other than participant observation and interviews, I employed a number of other methods. The principal was analyses of internet sources. These included Facebook, articles in local and national newspapers, blog posts, and websites of Indian animal welfare organisations. Further, I
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analysed national and state legislation on animals and local and national government statistics on farming and animal populations.
Udaipur: modernization in a traditional city
With approximately six hundred thousand inhabitants, Udaipur is one of India’s smaller big cities. The city is the centre of the Udaipur district, the total population of which is more than three million.2 This illustrates how the vast majority of Udaipur district is rural. Most of Udaipur’s population lives outside the city. At the same time, the population of the city is growing and the city is rapidly expanding in size. Demographic differences between the rural and urban population are significant. Literacy among rural residents is 54.9 per cent, against 87.5 per cent for residents of the city. In the city an exceedingly larger percentage of women are literate compared to the rural part of the district: 81 per cent against 40 per cent, respectively. The city is thus significantly more developed than the countryside.
Udaipur is the most romantic city in India, according to many tourist guides as well as Udaipur’s own residents. Two lakes dominate the landscape of the city in which the modern and the traditional naturally blend. The City Palace towers over the city on the eastern shore of Pichola Lake, the southern of the two lakes. The palace belongs to the former royal family of Udaipur, descendants of the city’s founder Maharana Udai Singh. The palace’s Rajputi style of architecture can be found throughout Udaipur, giving the city its elegance. Many new buildings are constructed according to the traditional fashion. In this way, hotels, museums, offices, and private houses reflect the traditions of the Rajputs. Rajputs used to be the reigning caste in Rajasthan and still hold a lot of power and wealth.
Tourism is one of the major industries of Udaipur, alongside an active marble trading industry. Udaipur also has several respected colleges and IT businesses are increasingly being set up. During my stay, the city was modernizing before my eyes. New malls, supermarkets, restaurants, and hotels were built. Roads were improved and cleaned up in order to cater to a younger, modernizing population. Modern ideas shape the world of the currents generations. Democracy, emancipation, science, and other modern philosophies are taught in schools. Education has enabled the young people of today to imagine and establish the world they want to live in. While the young people want to move forward, the customs of the past are not
2 All population data in this paragraph is taken from the Census of India, 2011. Office of The Registrar General
and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. www.censusindia.gov.in and www.rajcensus.gov.in (Retrieved: 4/5/2014)
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left behind. As tradition is visible in the architecture of the city, so it is in its social structure. In the midst of all the modernization, traditions hold sway. Social life is still very much dominated by the social customs that have their roots in centuries of tradition.
The caste system – although abolished with the founding of the Republic of India after Independence in 1947 – determines social and work life to a large degree. Brahmins are traditionally the religious leaders of society. Together with Rajputs, they form the most powerful social groups of the city. Udaipur’s former royal family still owns most of the property they used to. They are still esteemed by most Udaipurites, even though they have officially not held any political power for several generations. High caste families usually find themselves in the upper half of the middle class. As government schools are freely accessible to everyone, many people from lower incomes have been able to get an education and acquire well-paid jobs. In this way, lower caste families have been able to move up the social ladder and become middle class. The Indian middle class is one of the biggest and the world and still growing. There is considerable division in Udaipur, however, between the different sections of society. Social mobility is common, but interaction across the invisible borders of social groups is not. The people my focus group consisted of were all of higher caste, whether they were Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jain. Exceptions were people who classified their caste as ‘middle caste.’ Their families have worked their way to higher positions in society.
Religion plays a significant role in most of social life. Every street usually has at least one temple; most are Hindu, a few temples are Jain. The streets in Muslim areas are signified by the presence of a mosque from which the azan (call to prayer) can be heard five times a day. There are three notable churches in Udaipur. Religious festivals are numerous, each with their own practices. Some are celebrated more widely and more extravagantly than others are. With Holi and Diwali, public life closes down for several days in order for the whole city to celebrate. According to the 2001 Census of India the majority of Udaipur residents are Hindu, 93 per cent, 3.3 per cent are Muslim, 3.1 per cent are Jain, and the remaining percentage is Christian or ‘other.’3
Conflict between tradition and modernity is a source of struggle in virtually all of young middle class people’s lives. They have grown up after the economic reforms of 1991, which brought foreign companies and their influences to India. All their lives they have learned
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Source: Census of India, 2001. Office of The Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. www.censusindia.gov.in (Retrieved: 4/5/2014)
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about a modern way of life through the channels that were available to them. They are told by the generations above them to be an active part of modern India, to be ambitious and achieve their dreams. At the same time, they are told to be true to the family and its traditions. It is on their shoulders to uphold and preferably improve the reputation of the family. Most families have an image in mind of how exactly this will be accomplished: by being a good student at a prestigious college and getting a well-paid job after graduation. Then, once the job has been secured, they are expected to marrying a spouse from a ‘good’ family and having children who will then do the same. Without exception, all my informants are faced with these expectations. They are not necessarily the expectations they were planning to fulfil however. Many have devised their own idea of what they want with their lives and are fighting to make it reality.
This thesis examines a dynamic framework of humans and nonhumans living together in a developing city, where tradition and modernity both harmonize and compete with each other. The following chapters will examine how humans and animals are living and interacting in the public spaces where they meet, in order to formulate an understanding of what meaning is given to the animals in everyday life. To answer the main question and place it in the context of the fields it contributes to, this thesis is split up in different chapters that each contribute to a conclusive answer. The next chapter will introduce the proceedings of and theories intoduced in the holy cow debate. It will then explain what this thesis will contribute to the debate and to the field of multispecies ethnography. The following chapters will discuss the several sub questions that need to be answered with regard to the main question. The third chapter will depict how humans and animals co-exist in the practice of everyday life on the street. How are street animals living in Udaipur? What role do they play in everyday life of the city’s residents? What interactions between humans and animals occur in this context? How do humans shape the lives of their animal neighbours? This chapter will specifically approach the nonhuman side of the human-animal dynamic and focus on the perspective street animals. The fourth chapter will focus on the human side and explain the human perspective while still taking the nonhuman perspective into account. Sub questions that will be answered are: what dispositions determine action in an encounter between human and animal? What are the origins of these dispositions, practical, theoretical, or otherwise? And, (how) do street animals fit into the life of middle class young people in Udaipur? While addressing these questions, the dispositions around street animals and their effect on everyday life for both street animals and humans will be outlined. The answer to the main question,
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then, is not straightforward but multi-layered. The following chapter will reveal these different layers and construct a conclusive understanding of the many dynamics that come into play regarding the subject of street animals.
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2. Theories on myths and customs
India’s policies regarding the cow have puzzled non-Indians ever since they first started visiting the subcontinent. According to Deryck Lodrick, Europeans have been ‘astounded … by the many strange habits and customs’ found in India for centuries, and the interest in these ‘rather unusual practices has by no means diminished with the passing of years’ (Lodrick 1981:1). The special position of the cow in Hinduism and in Indian society was noted by many scholars. Although much had been written on the Indian sacred cows already, the debate about its origins really started to take shape in the 1960s. At that time, the sacred cow concept received more attention as the food crisis in India became increasingly poignant (Lodrick 2005:76; Pitale and Balkansky 2011:11). How is it possible, social scientists wondered, that millions of Indians are malnourished while they have so many millions of cows at their disposal? Why do they not just kill them? Or, as Marvin Harris has his hypothetical reader wonder: ‘But what about all those cows the hungry peasants refuse to eat?’ (Harris 1989:11).
The premise was that the population of cattle in India is excessively large, because unproductive animals were kept alive. In times of scarcity, cattle would compete with humans for food (Dandekar 1969; Heston 1971). Coming from a society where bovine animals are conventionally slaughtered for their beef, a surplus of cows seems like a lot of wasted beef to Western observers. The question rose about the many living sacred animals in India: why would India not use these animals as food supply? The dominant explanation was the veneration of the cow in Hinduism, as a part of the principle of ahimsa. Ahimsa is the principle of non-injury, nonviolence. It dictates that one should never cause harm to any other being. The concept evolved over the centuries as it was adopted into Buddhist, Jain and Hindu religious doctrine (Lodrick 1981:55-56). Frederick Simoons examined the history and current practices of cow protection and cow worship by Hindus. He determined that it was principally a practice of ahimsa. They practices of cow protection in contemporary India could only be explained as an expression of ahimsa, he concluded (Simoons 1994 [1961]).
The spark that ignited the controversy about the holy cow was Marvin Harris’s challenge to this theory. He argued that cow protection could be better explained by the ecological use, rather than the religious meaning, that cows have in the lives of Indian people. He articulated his argument in several publications (Harris 1966, 1989 in particular). His publications impelled again others to articulate and publish their theories, arguing against him or alongside him. It created quite a controversy due to the fierce disagreement between
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scholars. This fierceness is exactly the reason why the debate was never concluded and a consensus was never formulated. As Frank Korom notes in his article revisiting the sacred cow controversy, the scholars involved in the debate seem to give the priority to ‘personal vendettas’ instead of the subject at hand. ‘[It] is not the object of the controversy that seems relevant anymore; rather, it is the method of argumentation through which opinions are being expressed that serve as the common ground for debate’ (Korom 2000:184).
The debate was embedded in a larger context of studies of human-animal relations and studies of South Asia (Shanklin 1985:383). Scholars published their particular view on the subject, making the case that the problem could best be explained using their specific method of cultural analysis. The division in the debate was between two sides. Harris argued that the cattle situation in India could be explained in materialist terms. The primary reason for cow protection is found in its necessity for the ecology of society or the lives of individuals. The other side maintained that cow protection disagreed with Harris’s reasoning and proposed alternative functionalist theories to interpret the sacred cow concept. Harris is often credited for triggering the exploration of functionalist interpretations. Before Harris entered the debate, symbolic interpretations were dominant and largely unchallenged. In the course of the debate, however, it seemed that the authors were primarily concerned with proving their own arguments. They rather lost sight of to what extent their theory actually related to reality, or at least to ‘what Hindus themselves say and believe’ (Korom 2000:184).
Returning the debate to reality is exactly what this thesis intends to do. It can only do so because of the theoretical basis laid out by those authors. The aim of this thesis is to understand the situation of urban animals as it exists now, but that does not mean history can be completely left aside. This chapter will include an examination of the existing literature on animals in India, which is centred on the sacred cow. It will show what will be taken from this debate to understand the current situation of street animals generally and the ‘holy cow’ specifically.
India’s ‘oxen factories’
Marvin Harris published his argument in different forms over the course of the holy cow debate, conversing vehemently with his critics, but the essence never changed. In 1963, Marvin Harris published a review of Frederick Simoons’ Eat Not This Flesh (1961), dismissing it as an argumentative text. He stated that Simoons failed to present a conclusive argument in his book. He especially criticised Simoons' description of the sacred cow, 'one of his most important cases’ (Harris 1966:51). Harris stated that Simoons ‘turns his back on the
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functional approach,’ effectively ignoring all the economic and ecological purposes of the cow (Harris 1963:768). He then went on to formulate his own argument about India's sacred cow. He employed cultural materialism to address exactly the ecological factors of the cow that he deemed overlooked. He published an article on the subject, ‘The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cow’ (1966). In this article, he established his main argument, opposing previous analyses of the ‘Indian cattle complex.’ He disputed the assumption cattle population was too big and a problem for India’s economy and development. ‘Ecologically it is doubtful that any component of the cattle complex is “useless,” the number, type, and condition of Indian bovines does not per se impair the ability of the human population to survive and reproduce’ (Harris 1966:52). The ‘cattle complex’ was not in fact a complex, but a symbiotic relationship between human and bovine animals that had ‘probably’ evolved gradually over the centuries (Harris 1989).
Harris acknowledged the fact that cows were not primarily used for their milk, because buffaloes are preferred for their milk since it is richer and yielded in higher quantities at once (Freed and Freed 1981). This is often used as an argument to establish that the economic function of the cow cannot be the primary reason for cow protection. Harris contended that it is not milk that is essential to farmers, but the cow’s other products are all the more vital. One of the products was male calves. Male calves grew up to be oxen, which are necessary to plough the fields. Oxen were the only affordable method of ploughing for poor Indian farmers. This made oxen the primary tool of Indian agriculture. He argued that the cow is indispensable as an ‘oxen factory.’ Slaughtering cows for their beef would hinder the production of (vegetarian) food. This would mean that more people would be malnourished than with cow protection in place. The sacred cow concept, then, serves to protect the cows and their offspring that are vital for food production. He continues to argue that all cows are kept alive, because even if they do not produce milk or calves, they still produce dung. According to Harris, dung is vital in many ways to every farmer’s household. It is used as fuel, fertilizer, and floor material, among other things. The totality of the cow is therefore vital to the survival of Indians. ‘The taboo on slaughter and beef eating may be as much a product of natural selection as the small bodies and fantastic recuperative powers of the zebu [India’s native cow breed] breeds’ (Harris 1989:21). In this way, he concludes, cow protection evolutionarily became the ideology that protected the functioning of the Indian ecosystem (Harris 1966).
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Harris’s cultural materialistic reasoning is, out of the functionalist arguments, the one that is the most widely known and reproduced, by academics as well as by laymen (Simoons 1979; Freed and Freed 1981). His argument is at times reduced to a set of functions that the holy cow traditionally fulfils: the production of milk, ghee, curd, dung, and urine. These are the five ingredients of Panchakaya, used in many Hindu rituals. They are also five products of the cow that are widely used in everyday life of Hindus (Lodrick 1981:5). They will then add Harris’s fundamental argument that the cow 'produces' oxen, which are used by farmers to plough the fields. The part of his analysis that is consequently reproduced is the reversal of the causal relation. His conclusion is that the holiness of the cow was instated to ensure the functionality of the cow, instead of the other way around. This perspective was new and inspired other analysts, who did not necessarily agree with him, but accepted the challenge to look at the sacred cow concept from a new angle.
Harris can be acclaimed for researching his topic thoroughly. He makes several insightful observations, and parts of his interpretation make good sense. There is reason in his conclusion that regular beef consumption is detrimental to an ecosystem, as is witnessed by the inefficient use of the environment in the U.S., among other countries (Harris 1989:22-23). The controversy about the sacred cow was mainly ignited however, by the shortcomings in his argument. John Bennett pointed out that Harris’s argument contained ‘a classic functionalist reification’. Harris’s argument was most widely criticised for its dismissal of religion and other non-ecological factors in the sacred cow concept, in favour of a purely ecological explanation. ‘The identification of ostensibly material causal factors is tidier and seemingly more scientific than an analysis of the emotions and attitudes that are so important in the behavior of individuals and societies, but there can be no understanding of social phenomena if we ignore human emotion and cognition’ (Freed and Freed 1981:489). Many authors pointed out that Harris’s materialist interpretation simply did not align with reality (cf. Bennett 1967; Heston 1971; Simoons 1979; Lodrick 1981).
Several scholars did appreciate Harris’s interpretation of the cattle situation in India and contributed their own view to his line of thinking. K. N. Raj reiterated the importance of oxen as draught animals. The cattle situation cannot be seen as a simple calculation of useless and useful animals. He was the first to contribute data showing regional similarities in the ratio of female and male bovines, regardless of the dominant religion in that area (Raj 1971). He stated that this suggested that the favouring of certain cattle was not determined by religious beliefs. A. Vaidyanathan and K. N. Nair provided additional quantitative data on the
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ratio of male and female bovine animals, cattle and buffalo, collected in Kerala in Southern India (Vaidyanathan and Nair 1980). Together with Harris, they published an article on the correlations between sex ratios of cattle and many other determining factors in order to show that religious factors ‘do not significantly influence the major regional variations in bovine age, sex, and species ratios’ (Vaidyanathan et al. 1982:363).
The many faces of the sacred cow
Responses and critiques to Harris’s theory came from scholars of varied academic disciplines. The theories that were formulated all took different approaches. This account of the sacred cow debate will discuss the economic, political, ecological, and socio-religious approaches. Accordingly, I will clarify what my position in the debate will be.
John Bennett was one of the first to reply in 1967, expressing his concern with ‘the obvious fact that the system [of livestock management] is not operating at its own desired peak of efficiency’ (Bennett 1967). He disagreed with Harris’s proposition that the size of India’s cattle population was appropriate to the balance of the local ecosystem. He suggested that India is in dire need of agricultural reform in order to achieve development; something that he deemed ignored by Harris. Harris replied that he never suggested India’s ecosystem was an optimal one, but that it was an established one that needed rigourous policy changes by both the Indian and the American (aid program) side in order to allow for development (Harris 1989).
Consequently, the discussion became concerned with the future of the Indian economic and agricultural system, rather than with the history of how it was shaped. Several economists followed up on Bennett’s prompting, providing their view of the dysfunction of the sacred cow concept. They proposed that a change in India’s agricultural policies was necessary. V. M. Dandekar and Alan Heston presented economic quantitative data to show the imbalance of the current situation and prompted that if India radically decreased the number of cattle in order to make the economy more efficient and enable further development (Dandekar 1969; Heston 1971). Corry Azzi pointed out that these suggestions surpass the value that ahimsa holds as an ideological concept and extends the same criticism to Harris. She argues an economic approach of the issue, but emphasizes that analysts should avoid judging how the situation should be managed (Azzi 1974). Harris responded by criticizing Heston’s argument specifically and ‘slaughter enthusiasts’ calculations in general as ‘naïve and dangerous’ and suggesting that improvements could only be made by ‘stabilizing India’s human population’ and making the distribution of resources more equitable (Harris 1989:31).
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He goes on to state that the Indian ecosystem is far more energy efficient than that of the United States. Here ‘more calories go up in useless heat and smoke during a single day of traffic jams … than [are] wasted by all the cows of India during an entire year’ (Harris 1989:32).
Other contributors to the debate, focussed rather on the origins than the future of the sacred cow concept. Two cultural geographers remained strongly oppositional to Harris throughout the debate. The first was Frederick Simoons, whose book prompted Harris to examine the issue of the sacred cow; the second was his colleague Deryck O. Lodrick. Harris, Simoons, and Lodrick were often in direct dialogue with one another. Statements of one side incited a response from the other. Both Simoons and Lodrick argued that although economic and ecological factors were important, religious motivations alone could explain the actuality of the cattle situation in India (Simoons 1979; Lodrick 1981, 2005). Both conducted research on varying topics around dietary customs in India (Simoons 1994; Lodrick 1981). Their combined conclusion was summed up by Lodrick, while paraphrasing Simoons:
‘…strictly economic considerations were secondary in the [cattle] husbandry complex to concerns of sacrifice and fertility, and that indeed the latter were most likely the driving force behind the domestication of the animal. … Thus, vegetarianism in India, the rejection of beef by caste Hindus, and similar food avoidances can ultimately be traced to the ahimsa concept (Lodrick 1981:2).
Lodrick and Simoons argued that cow worship became more important as the doctrines of Hinduism evolved over the century. The increasing value of ahimsa inspired the evolution of the divine status of the cow. Cows ‘assume the roles of both sustenance and symbol,’ but ‘evidence’ showed that their principal role was symbolic (Lodrick 2005:80).
Critique on Harris also came from a number of political scientists. They stated that Harris’s theory was too simplified and overlooked many critical dynamics, such as socio-political factors. ‘These [factors] are the conditions of hunger, crowding, illness, exploitation, and ecological devolution within which Harris finds evidence of “positive functioned and probably adaptive” traits and institutions’ (Diener et al. 1978:235). As an alternative hypothesis, they proposed a look into the political history of India. Their argument added to the Lodrick and Simoons’ theory that the importance of ahimsa was instrumental to the emergence of cow protection. Harris suggested the evolution of cow protection happened evolutionarily, through the decisions of individuals. Diener and his co-authors suggested
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ahimsa and cow protection was imposed by political elites in the earlier civilisations of India (Diener et al. 1978:235-236). Throughout the history of India, different regimes included some form of cow protection in their policies. Particularly king Asoka (ca. 262 B.C.), who converted to Buddhism and imposed Buddhist doctrine, particularly ahimsa, on his empire. Ahimsa became an increasingly important concept in Hinduism as principles of Buddhism and Jainism, which both hold ahimsa as a central principle, were adopted into the religious dogma. Around European medieval time ahimsa and cow protection had become integrated in general society. It consequently evolved into the shape that cow protection takes today (Diener et al. 1978).
Other authors contested the historical origins of cow protection. Both D. N. Jha (2002) and Frank Korom (2000) showed in their detailed studies that the ban on cow slaughter has only recently become central to Hindu religion. D. N. Jha was not a contributor to the sacred cow debate, but formulated an extensive argument against the understanding that the ‘inherent sacredness’ of the cow is ‘rooted’ in ‘traditional Hindu religious heritage’ (Jha 2002:18). Jha elaborately showed that although both cows and bulls are mentioned often in Vedic literature, it is apparent that beef was widely consumed during the period that these religious texts were written. ‘In other words,’ he stated, ‘some sections of Indian society trace the concept of sacred cow to the very period when it was sacrificed and its flesh was eaten’ (Jha 2002:18). His argument was constituted to prove political and religious leaders who have great influence on the ways of thinking of the general population wrong. Jha went on to argue that the sacred cow is a social construct, promoted and employed by political elites. The cow has been made into a political instrument by different regimes in the history of India, and still is today. Most prominently, the ‘myth’ of the holy cow has staked Hindus against Muslims on a very concrete issue, the slaughter of cows. At the end of the nineteenth century, this conflict became violent on numerous occasions in bloody communal riots between Hindus and Muslims.
Still today, the conflict over cow slaughter is one of the most outwardly visible disputes between Hindus and Muslims. Jha suggests that the cow earned her importance as an icon for the Hindu communal identity, as opposed to Muslim identity.
The ‘sacred’ cow has come to be considered a symbol of community identity of the Hindus whose cultural tradition is often imagined as threatened by Muslims who are thought of as beef eaters. The sanctity of the cow has, therefore, been announced with the flourish of trumpets and has been wrongly traced back to the Vedas, which
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are supposedly of divine origin and the fountainhead of all knowledge and wisdom (Jha 2002:18).
Frank Korom draws similar conclusions as Jha did, pointing out that the significance of the cow as a symbol only reached its current status after Gandhi propagated the sacred cow as a symbol for Hindu unity. Cow protection was a central concept in the struggle for the independence of India, and Mahatma Gandhi was instrumental in promoting exactly that centrality. Gandhi employed the protection of the cow as an ideology that all Hindus have in common. It was an ideal that could unite a Hindu from the north with one from the south, even though their lives, language, and practices were innately different. Worship of the cow was a powerful metaphor for the nonviolence that, according to Gandhi, defined all Indians and made them superior to the violent, beef eating British (Korom 2000).
A new perspective
In an extensive debate, the Indian cow has been shown to be ecologically, economically, politically and religiously extremely significant. It is clear that from many angles a ‘web of significance’ (in the definition of Geertz 1973) has been tightly spun around the concept of the holy cow. The debate contered on determining which of the perspectives was the one that was most decisive; is the cow holy, because of her ecologic function or because of her symbolic function?
A consensus was not reached, but the debate was described as a ‘lively scientific discussion’ (Freed and Freed 1981:483). The many dimensions of human-animal relations had been given appropriate attention (Shanklin 1985:387-388). Not everyone was impressed by the efforts of the discussants, however. Stewart Odend’hal contributed by providing the data from his own field research in West Bengal. Although he concluded that the management of cattle he observed was ‘appropriate for the ecological framework in which they exist,’ supporting Harris in theory. Yet, he emphasized that ‘speculation as to the consequences … is beyond the scope of this paper’ (Odend’hal 1971:3, 20). In a comment to Simoons 1979 he noted his only definitive conclusion from the controversy. ‘It is a source of amusement to me to consider that the typical Indian villager will remain unaffected by whatever conclusions are derived from the great sacred-cow controversy’ (Odend’hal in Simoons 1979: 485).
Robert Ballard in turn pointed out that ‘the disagreement in the sacred cow contoversy can … be seen as a reiteration of the ancient dispute between rationalists and idealists’ (comment on Freed and Freed 1981:490). Harris theory in essence was a counter to
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Strauss’s argument that ‘animals are good to think with’ (1963). Harris represented the materialist, while Simoons and Lodrick voiced the symbolist side.
This divide between ‘animals as sustenance and animals as symbols or between the functional and the symbolic value’ of animals (Shanklin 1985:379) is as old as the study of animals itself. The study of human-animal relations should move away from this divide and study instead where rationality and ideology meet. ‘Why should one group of anthropologists explore the ways in which animals are good to eat and another group explore the ways in which they are good to think or imagine’ (Shanklin 1985:379)? This question applies to the studies of human-animal relations and to the sacred cow controversy in particular. The effort to show which side has it ‘right’ has impeded the debate from reaching a realistic consensus. This study aims to ‘bridge the gap’ (Shanklin 1985, Mullin 2002) by exploring what dispositions determine human behaviour towards other animals, rather than asking whether it is religious or functional considerations that are dominant.
Another shortcoming of both anthropology in general and the sacred cow debate specifically is a persistent anthropocentric view on human-animal relations, as pointed out by Barbara Noske:
[In anthropological studies,] animals tend to be portrayed as passive objects that are dealt with and thought and felt about [by humans]…the animals themselves are virtually overlooked by anthropologists. They and their relations with humans tend to be considered unworthy of anthropological interest…. Consequently, questions pertaining to animal welfare in the West or in the Third World rarely figure in anthropological thought. Anthropologists treat animals as integral parts of human economic constellations and human-centered ecosystems: They are economic resources, commodi- ties and means of production for human use (Noske 1989:185).
Not a single author writing about the sacred cow attempted an evaluation of the welfare of the animals they wrote about. Only a few dedicated a few sentences to the living conditions of cattle or the feelings of people about animal welfare (Harris 1966; Bennett 1967; Simoons and Lodrick 1981). In this way, a whole category of beings is ignored with the assumption that as they are not human they do not matter. In the next section I will explain why this is a severe shortcoming in the study of Indian animals and how principles from multispecies ethnography can correct this oversight.
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Human animals and nonhuman animals
Multispecies ethnography is a relatively new field in cultural anthropology that attempts to bridge the species boundary that has been created between the social and the natural sciences. As the social sciences developed, a line was drawn distinguishing humans from all other animals. Humans were to be the subjects of cultural and social study. Everything nonhuman was ascribed to biology, ecology, ethology, and similar disciplines in the natural sciences (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010). Anthropology became the science of anthropos (humanity) exclusively. Animals featured in studies only as objects of human action and thought (Noske 1989; Mullin 2002).
In the past few decades, several anthropologists have begun to adopt a more inclusive view of nonhuman animals. Mullin observes that ‘although anthropology’s animals still are approached with an eye toward better understanding humans, there has been movement away from the more thoroughly anthropocentric approaches of the past’ (2002:390). Progressively anthropologists are questioning the absence of Animal Studies in their field (Mullin 2002). ‘Animal Studies’ is the collective name for the study of animals across disciplines with varied methods. Recently has it been defined as a specialised field in the social sciences, in an aim to particularise the study of animals as a part of the humanities (Gorman 2012).
The logic of including animals in anthropological study was aptly pointed out by Tim Ingold:
How can we reach a comparative understanding of human cultural attitudes towards animals if the very conception of what an animal might be, and by implication of what it means to be human, is itself culturally relative? Does not the anthropological projects of cross-cultural comparison rest upon an implicit assumption of human uniqueness vis-à-vis other animals that is fundamentally anthropocentric (Ingold 1994:1)?
Ingold argued that the Cartesian divide between human and animal created a dualism in our thinking and consequently in the sciences. This duality is increasingly being challenged by findings in the natural sciences as well as social sciences (Ingold 1994:2-3). As much as humanity may move away from animals, physically and conceptually, we remain to be animals. Donna Haraway proposes that humanity needs to redefine the concept of ‘we.’ A society is not composed of merely human members. Nonhumans have a part in the social environment such as Udaipur city. Humans are the dominant species, but do not have
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exclusive rights to the shaping of their environment. Rather, humanity is part of ‘the myriad of entangled, co-shaping species of the earth’ (Haraway 2008:5).
This study views the social environment of Udaipur city not as an exclusive human one. Nonhuman animals are an inclusive part of the multispecies social order. Humans are the dominant group in this order. They have appropriated the power to determine who is included and who is not. Consequently, they have used this power to exclude nonhuman animals from the basic rights granted to full members. Here I apply Ghassan Hage’s theory of spatial management.
Most humans perceive ants as a different species, and certainly as an inferior species. Yet, just on the basis of this belief, they do not perceive them as ‘undesirable’ or as ‘too many’. They do so only when these ants are seen to have invaded spaces where humans find their presence harmful such as in their houses or on their plates. And it is only in such situations that practices of violence are directed against them. Consequently, categories such as ‘too many’, while embodying some form of racist belief, are primarily categories of spatial management (Hage 2000: 37).
Hage further argues that as the dominant group has the power to either tolerate or not tolerate an ‘inferior’ group in ‘their’ environment. The example used does not coincidentally refer to humans’ exclusion of another species. A similar dynamic occurs in the social environment of Udaipur city. Nonhuman animals are the inferior species. They are tolerated by humans, but marginalised. They are excluded from the basic rights that come with being included in general society, such as ensured sustenance and shelter.4
This thesis understands nonhuman animals as a marginalised group in a multispecies society. A study of that society therefore naturally includes an analysis of their condition and position in the social structure. Data from field research in Udaipur city will be used to present an insight into the condition of nonhuman animals in Udaipur city and analyse how human-animal relations determine the condition of animals.
4
Some groups of humans are almost as marginalised and excluded as nonhuman animals, but this is a discussion not within the capacity of this thesis.
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3. Holy cows, Pariah dogs and other urban animals
By viewing nonhuman animals as a marginalised minority in society, a drastically different perspective on the holy cow and other street animals is introduced. In order to establish the social position of a marginalised group, an analysis of the rights of the marginalised group and of how these rights are applied in practice is required. This chapter will show that although there are distinct laws protecting animals in India, the application of these laws is problematic. First, the legislation concerning animals on national and state level will be outlined. Then, it will address what significance these regulations have in practice for animals. The intent of this chapter is to present a realistic and practical picture of the practice of life for Udaipur’s urban animals. The comparison between cows and other animals will show that despite the cow’s religious, economic, and political web of significance, her life is strikingly similar to that of other animals. Through the ways the cow is given meaning in the social context, it seems that she is intended to be in the city and belongs there. Life on the street seems to be a life of being neglected for all of them. Urban animals have been able to survive in the city, because they have been able to adapt to the environment. They live among a dominant population of another species that tolerates them. Animals are tolerated more than engaged with and their suffering is ignored more than solved or prevented, regardless of what regulations dictate.
Ahimsa institutionalized: federal and state legislature regarding animals
After independence in 1947, India became a democratic, secular republic. The government of the state was completely separated from any religious principle. However, already during the composition of the constitutions, powerful religious groups lobbied for a national ban on cow slaughter (Lodrick 2005). They did not use only religious arguments as a motive. The economic motivation for cow protection was often used by groups who claimed to ‘speak for interests of the country as a whole’ (Adcock 2010:311), instead of just for Hindus. Hindu lobbyists emphasized the economic benefits of cow protection, as they would later be analysed by Harris (1966). Emphasizing the economic necessity of a ban on cow slaughter negated the religious aspect of the issue, aligning it with the secular principles of the new state (Adcock 2010). The secularist reformulation convinced legislators to adopt a section indirectly addressing cow protection in the Indian Constitution. The Principle of State Policy that was finally adopted into Article 48 of the Constitution is formulated to be strictly secular. It is not legislative but merely suggestive:
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The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.5
With this principle, the state resolves to protect ‘useful’ cattle, those with significant economic value. It was merely a concession towards Hindu communal groups, since these principles are not enforceable by a court. A national ban on cow slaughter was never instated, despite many protests and attempts by Hindu activists to persuade the government. The most significant attempt was the fast of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, a prominent follower of Gandhi, in 1979. He fasted for five days until he received a ‘vague assurance’ from the Prime Minister that he would look into it (Jha 2002:20). A national ban on cow slaughter has always remained a point on the agenda of Hindu nationalists.
The Constitution assigns the care of animals to state legislature. ‘Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training, and practice’6 is to be determined in individual state law. All states except Kerala, West Bengal and the North Eastern states have banned cow slaughter in some form. There are more responsibilities towards animals of the federal state defined in the Constitution, such as the duty to ‘protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures.’7
Other than the constitution, India’s federal law includes the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA Act), passed in 1960. The PCA Act includes numerous important regulations, which are enacted by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). Among other things, the PCA Act made it punishable to harm an animal (unnecessarily), confine, or chain an animal in a way that is not ‘reasonable,’ when the animal is not able to move, fed properly, or is not allowed to exercise. It is also punishable to abandon an animal in a situation where it is likely that they will suffer or starve, or while the animal is diseased. The PCA Act also explicitly prohibits killing an animal in any ‘cruel’ way.8
5 Source: Part IV: Directive Principles of State Policy, The Constitution of India.
www.constitution.org/cons/india/p4.html (Retrieved: 19/5/2014)
6 Source: Seventh Schedule, Article 426, the Constitution of India.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/shed07.htm (Retrieved: 19/5/2014)
7 Source: Part IVA: Fundamental Duties, The Constitution of India.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p4a51a.html (Retrieved: 19/5/2014)
