The cow’s status doesn’t protect her

A senior lecturer at Deakin University in Australia, Yamini Narayanan exposes how the cow has been exploited to promote casteism and communalism. In an interview, she responds to questions that emerge from her ground-breaking book Mother Cow, Mother India. Edited excerpts.

Its political connotation notwithstanding, does cow vigilantism hold the ‘cow’ as a cultural symbol to promote vegetarianism? Why is she vulnerable to being a dairy or milch cow?

India is overwhelmingly and emphatically a non-vegetarian country, and cow vigilantes are not to be confused with animal activism whose overarching priority is usually veganism, a rejection of the consumption of all animal-derived products, including dairy and eggs, which are part of a vegetarian diet. Cow vigilantism is a mode of remaking the cow as a ‘Hindu’ body, and more specifically, as representing a Hindu state. And it is precisely the sacrality imposed on the cow that makes her vulnerable to being a ‘dairy’ or a ‘milch’ cow.

The need is to understand the politics of cow protectionism differently when we place the lived realities of cows and their infants at the center. Cows are bred for dairying in India, but the extreme and unfathomable violence inherent in dairying is linked with slaughter. Cows who are infertile, diseased, male etc. must be necessarily sent to slaughter.

The public meta-narrative is that cows are either abandoned on the road or sent to gaushalas, but the cold reality of dairy economics is animals bred and exploited for dairy must be eventually slaughtered when no longer producing lactate. This happens underground in India. However, framing the cow as ‘mother’ or ‘goddess’ is basically a gaslighting tactic that blurs the cold reality that the cow is a milk-producing resource and economics demands that the unproductive resources be treated — and disposed of — as such. In masking this reality, the cow’s sacred status intensifies her vulnerability to being used for dairy — it does not protect her or her calf.

Hasn’t the ‘cow’ been consciously used as a political tool to promote identity? Is the idea of a nation-state (around ‘cow’) aimed at political control over the population at the cost of perpetuating social and economic inequality?

In India, cows have been made a ‘Hindu animal’ — and as ostensibly representing a Hindu state. Cows are of course, not naturally Hindu (or of any other religion), which are anthropocentric identifiers of the human self and human others. However, making cows Hindu and banning their slaughter as protection for ‘Hindu animals’, serves a divisive purpose in an aspirational Hindu state. My book, however, exposes the inherent contradiction — and impossibility — of banning cow slaughter in a state that heavily promotes and subsidizes dairying. Dairy is a slaughter industry, so a cow slaughter ban is a plain economic impossibility.

Animal slaughter in any country is usually undertaken by some of the poorest, and most socially vulnerable communities. In India, it is some of the poorest engaging in slaughter, usually of the Dalit and Muslim communities, and who are at enormous risk of getting lynched, raped and killed, for essentially supporting the dairy industry which is both state-supported, and indeed, constitutive of the Hindu identity itself. No Hindu ritual is conducted without milk, ghee and butter, which all require cow slaughter.

Could a parallel be drawn between how we treat the Ganges and a cow?

Absolutely this parallel can and must be drawn. What both the Ganga and the cow demonstrate, is the harm that has been done to both, in the name of their sacralization. Sacralization is a form of objectification, and any objectification that is non-consensual, is profoundly harmful to the one being sacralized. The Ganga and the cow have both been harmed — precisely in the name of being sacred — quite literally to their deaths.

Why is it that protectionism pertains to just one of the dairy animals (i.e. cow), and neither to its progeny nor its male co-genitor?

Vegetarianism is as violent as carnivorism, as vegetarianism involves the consumption of dairy and eggs, which are both deeply violent, extractive industries, that ultimately require slaughter of the animals. The fact that vegetarianism is also violent is universally blurred.

How does a society accommodate in daily life the binary of the ‘cow as a sacred animal’ and the ‘cow roaming the streets’ as a symbol of neglect?

Yamini Narayanan

In Indian society, we have come to normalize a huge spectrum of violence against animals. Cows, and indeed pigs, dogs, cats, pigeons, donkeys and so many others, eking out a bare existence by foraging in toxic rubbish dumps, is just one of them. What animals on the street embody, is a chronic state of raving hunger and disease, and also often a fear of human cruelty and violence, especially mothers seeking to feed and protect their newborns and infants. The scale of global animal hunger is scarcely understood and cannot be underestimated. Animals overwhelmingly live, exist and are born into states of chronic hunger — and hunger is something we consider to be one of the most elemental states of suffering when it comes to the members of our own species.

We need to broaden the conversation from fetishizing the cow as the exclusive concern. We need a clear-sighted animal politics that goes beyond cow politics — and radically expands our concern for animals beyond fascist, religious, or cultural politics around one species.

Can cow protectionism stand the test of its contribution to global warming through methane gas emission?

Cow protectionism’s sole objective is to perpetuate the idea of India as a Hindu state. It has never claimed to do anything else. It certainly has no role in mitigating climate change — it can intensify it however, if it allows the reckless breeding of cows to support dairy consumption, while pretending that dairy has nothing to do with cow slaughter.

First published in The Hindu on Feb 11, 2024.

Road building has a never-ending future

For Gandhi, roads were an instrument of oppression.

Road building has caught peoples’ imagination as a harbinger of change, and nothing suits any politician better than to turn it into a reality. No wonder, roadbuilding has been naturalized to the point of common sense in recent times, integrating roadbuilding into a system of governance as part of the development imperative that promotes politics of power. Modern roads are paved versions of age-old pathways which are being promoted and sold to people like any other commodity. Roads have turned out to be an enchanted form of infrastructure that is celebrated to the extent that there is no room for asking dissenting questions. 

Social anthropologist Edward Simpson, a professor at the University of London, has taken on the road to ask discomforting questions on roadbuilding to the roadmen of South Asia. Exploring the political economy of road building, the author questions: Why are so many roads being built in an era of human-induced climate change? What do the roadmen think about their work and the future of the planet? And how did these become central to the region's nationalist and developmental agenda in the first place? Answers aren’t easy to come by, but it is certain that the project of road building is a sure way to win currency and power. 

Roads do transform ways of life and are therefore a self-reproducing system that demands expansion and growth all the time. Consequently, roads have become important sites for inauguration ceremonies and campaign trails. Combining the politics and poetics of road infrastructure, Simpson follows the money to provide a geopolitical narrative that puts road building as a never-ending future. Such is the desire to stay connected that the uncomfortable complicities of roads to impact climate change holds little relevance. Road building from the realm of ideas, discourse, and rhetoric presents an interesting, but controversial story.

Highways to the End of the World digs into the history of road building, how it passed through technological phases and became part of ideological projects. What makes this book absorbing reading is the ethnographic account of the road as a way of telling a story, that cuts a route through landscapes, lives and times. ‘I was interested in learning what people say when they look at road’, quips Simpson, ‘as roads raise fundamental questions about the world and the way we relate to one another’. Gandhi had described roads as instruments of oppression, while for Nehru roads evoked modern amenities and methods. However, over the years roads have become comparative national identity projects in both India and Pakistan, giving birth to political strategies of none other than Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif and India’s Nitin Gadkari. It is hard not to agree with the author’s contention that both of them exploited the moral and anticipatory potential of roads for their popularity and electoral success.    

The ethnographic account on roads is illustrative of the broader processes and thought politics that promote a form of market that positions roads as a commodity. Isn’t road part of the economy of elite? Hasn’t levels of corruption in road building been something of a national joke? Despite John Kennedy’s claim that ‘America is rich because American roads are good’, the roadbuilding in the US is not without its share of criticism. Picking up on his longer-term critique of planned obsolesce in his book ‘A Nation of Strangers’, journalist Vance Packard has stated that ‘the mobility enabled by roads and cars is the root of social isolation and loneliness.’ Eventually roads are part of a Faustian bargain, the sacrifice of everything to satisfy desire. 

Simpson’s multi-layered assessment of roads helps realize that road building is more than just the cost of land, working manpower, and inert materials. The narrative on roads asserts that there is nothing better as roads are the only way to address gross inequality and support common responsibility for the future. Travelling across highways in the sub-continent, Simpson found much to the contrary with the highways facilitating drug trafficking, encouraging sex trade, and for connecting land mafia. Not without reason had Gandhi found that the road and its machines enslave people, not only by exploiting their labor but also by binding them to particular forms of consumption. One might wonder if roads contribute to the long-term betterment of the world.

Highways to the End of the World provides a panoramic but contentious view on road building. It is an important anthropological study that examines history, sociology, economy and ecology of road building. It is an inter-disciplinary scrutiny on the process of road building that runs through an unequal world in which scale, friction and speed take the reader along invisible routes ridden with global debt, money laundering, and political conspiracy. It is a must-read book for those who consider road building as a burden on the economy and ecology.   

Highways To the End of The World
by Edward Simpson
Hurst, London
Extent: 351, Price: Rs. 3052.

First published in the Hindustan Times on Feb 5, 2024.

A pop star's raw and stinging honesty

Much is known about the tortuous life of award-winner pop icon, but fighting to take control of life back from patriarchal exploitation and control deserves to be read as an honest autobiography about motherhood, freedom, and hope. Born into a disturbed childhood, Britney was a little girl with big dreams who only wanted her dad to stop drinking, and her mom to stop yelling. None of it worked her way, instead she was precocious to drinking, smoking and boys at an early age. Losing control over oneself at an early age made her guilty conscience with a lot of shame, with the family considering her to be plain bad. Admitting to her own bad deeds, Britney believed in karma catching up with her.

The Woman in Me tells a focused story of a teenager who learnt too early in her life that the music industry, or for that matter the whole world, is set up more for men.  Britney’s career was not spared, she was subjected to disempowering narratives. Conservatorship was legally thrust on her, which is usually served on people who lack mental capacity to do anything for themselves.  Considered as a teenager corrupting the youth, she was perceived as dangerous for the society. To get her back on track, her father was entrusted with conservatorship to control Britney and her resources. She was literally treated as if she was a criminal or predator by her own parents.

What made the state of California pursue the conservatorship upon Britney? Why the court-appointed lawyer didn’t help her? And, why a man like her father – an alcoholic, a failed businessman, and an abusive parent – was allowed to be her legal guardian to control everything she had? Britney’s freedom was curtailed while her earnings were siphoned to help their cash flow. Neither could she contact her kids nor was allowed access to her mobile phone. Such indignation persisted for no less than thirteen years. 

Anyone in such situation would have been pushed to a breaking point. But not Britney, who reflected the enduring power of music and singing. ‘Singing takes me to a mystical place where anything is possible’. As a teenage pop star, she was eyeballed as a pretty sex object, a double denim-wearing singer. On top, the conservatorship tenure left her with a mix of shock and sadness. She was literally exiled from herself for over a decade. Out of the inordinate ordeal, she now wants not to be someone who other people want but to actually find herself. 

The Woman in Me is an honest reflection on what others thought about the pop star, and how she was subjected to constant bullying and relentless abuse for not confirming to the template. Success has a cost that the pop star had to bear for being half herself and half fictional. Britney confesses that fame is real for those who know how to make fame work for them. For her, there was an essence of real life missing from it. Perhaps, the reason for her to be rebellious and shave her head in public in 2007 to demonstrate it. 

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Britney reveals all that she went through her momentous but disturbing career. Without doubt, she could not have been anything but a singer which helped her express herself exactly as she wanted to be seen and heard. ‘Singing took me into the presence of divine.’ Multiplatinum Grammy awards, and more than 100 million records sold worldwide bear testimony to her fledgling singing career. What comes out clear is that the world is rarely kind to successful women. 

It is hard to imagine what all a carefree popstar had to endure; for being lonely at the top. It is hard to fathom that someone who could perform for thousands at a time could backstage be gripped with panic. She has come out stronger to tell her story. ‘You have to speak that you are feeling even if it scares you.’ Freedom for Britney means being goofy and silly, being able to make mistakes, and learn from them. From being passive and pleasing, Britney has come out being a strong and confident woman. The story is indeed inspiring.

The Woman in Me conveys optimistic narrative for women to stand for what they are, or what they intend to become. What kindles a ray of hope is that women themselves have woken up to the cost of being subjugated to the opportunity of asserting their identity. 

The Woman in Me 
by Britney Spears
Simon & Schuster, London
Extent: 275, Price: Rs. 999.

First published in Deccan Herald on Feb 4, 2024.