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ID: 169997

Bovine Politics in South Asia: Rethinking Religion, Law and Ethics / Adcock, Cassie; Govindrajan, Radhika

Adcock, Cassie	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

This introduction outlines how the essays in this special section contribute to scholarship on cow protection in India. It argues that they disrupt three powerful framing binaries—religion/economy, legality/illegality and cow-lover/cow-killer—that have tended to dominate the literature on cow protection. Making tangible the analytical limits of these categories, the essays find new critical leverage in the everyday situated relationships between humans, bovines and the state. The essays are distinguished by their attention to bovines as creative and productive forces that are not mere symbols for human politics, but materially embodied and agentive beings that play a significant role in shaping the social and political worlds which emerge around them.

Key Words

Ethics ; Secularism ; Hindu Nationalism ; Legality ; Materiality ; Cow Protection ;
Human–Animal Relations ; Sacred Cow

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ID: 160072

Cow protection and minority rights in India: reassessing religious freedom / Adcock, Cassie

Adcock, Cassie	Journal Article
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Recent efforts to prevent cow-slaughter in India have prompted U.S. concern about violations of religious freedom. But although the politics of cow protection poses a significant threat to disadvantaged groups in India, efforts to ameliorate that threat through an international policy of religious freedom also carry serious risks. This paper reviews reports issued by the U.S. Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom and by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It argues that by unnecessarily portraying the politics of cow protection in terms of a stark conflict between Hindus and Muslims, they threaten to undermine the goal of reducing anti-minority discrimination and violence in India.

Key Words

Minorities ; Caste ; India ; Muslims ; Discrimination ; Religious Freedom ;
COW ; Hindus ; Cow Protection

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ID: 170000

Preserving and Improving the Breeds: Cow Protection’s Animal-Husbandry Connection / Adcock, Cassie

Adcock, Cassie	Journal Article
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Many of the controversial actions of the central and state governments in India in recent months—from strengthened anti-slaughter laws to the issuing of ‘identification cards’ to cattle—have been made in the name of animal husbandry or breed improvement. Such gestures are generally understood to be superficial, and recent. They have been attributed to post-colonial influences: the pressure of India’s Constitution on cow protectionist legal strategy, or the pressure of national planning and ‘modernisation’ on cow protectionist institutions. This essay argues that breed improvement has been integral to the politics of cow protection since the early decades of the twentieth century. Breed improvement has long been a central component of cow protectionist arguments and activity. It has been the basis for an alliance with the state that began in the colonial period and continues to the present. Far from superficial, breed improvement is integral to the cow protectionist discourse that supports vigilante violence today.

Key Words

India ; Hindu Nationalism ; Communal Violence ; Improvement ; Cattle ; Cow Protection ;
Animal Husbandry ; Animal Shelters ; Gaushala

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