Sound the cowbell
Yamini Narayanan’s Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India forces us to confront some difficult questions. In opposing the hate-fuelled politics that seemingly speaks on behalf of the holy cow, we assert a position that defies the vegetarian and savarna morality that is paraded as essentially Indian. Narayanan asks us to look beyond this binary and confront the real maltreatment that cows suffer at the hands of a system that is up in arms to assert their sacredness. Her multispecies ethnography of the dairy industry places the living, sentient cow at the forefront, and shows how the sacralisation of the mothering cow is foundational in violence against animals. It generates ultra-politicised bovine transportation networks, precarity of the humans embedded within them, and intolerably cruel living conditions for the animals. If the discourse of animal welfare is left to such an opportunistic and hypocritical contingent, how can we even begin to think of a future of harmonious co-existence with our non-human fellows?
On 6 October 2023, Yamini will address some of these questions in a discussion organised by Indian Animal Studies Collective and Animal Left. She will be in conversation with Bharati Ramachandran (FIAPO), Susan Haris (IASC) and Krishnanunni Hari (EFLU).
Time: Friday, 6 October 2023; 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM (IST)
Google Meet Video call link: https://meet.google.com/tsi-tecg-dwy
Join us for the video event, as the speakers try to shed light on why the contentious weaponisation of the cow remains a complex issue during a time when oppressed communities are at their most vulnerable.
