What to do about cows? Princely versus British approaches to a South Asian dilemma

Bibliographic Data

ID2808941
AuthorsIan Copland (Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume68
Issue1
Pages59-76
Publication date2005-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0041-977X • E-ISSN: 1474-0699
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0041977x05000030
OpenAlexW2122047246
LanguageEN
Citations received4

For more than a millennium, cow slaughter has been a source of bitter contention in South Asia. Hindus revere the animal; Muslims like to eat it and, until recently, the cow has been the preferred animal of sacrifice at the Islamic festival of 'Id-ul-Adha ̄. This paper looks at how, over the twentieth century, Indian governments of differing type and ideological colour-British and princely during the late colonial period and Congress nationalist after 1947-have tried to mediate this vexed question. It finds that while policies differed widely, there was a tendency for all governments in the early twentieth century to be guided by social custom and local opinion, so that in the small Muslim-ruled state of Mangrol, which had an official ban, the Muslims who killed cows occasionally for food were never prosecuted so long as they kept their activities discreet-but this 'discretionary' option became politically unviable once the country embraced democracy

Ancient history · Art · Colonial period · Colonialism · Democracy · Dilemma · Economic history · Ideology · Islam · Nationalism · Period (music) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sacrifice · Sociology · State (computer science) · History · Law · Philosophy · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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