Seeing Through India's Ocean of Milk

Abstract

Despite there being considerable writing on the fraught issue of “cow protection” in India, there has been little attention given to the pervasive violence inherent in India's massive dairy industry. An important exception to this neglect is Yamini Narayanan's Mother Cow Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India. This review article provides a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book, highlighting its thoroughness, depth of analysis, and significance for challenging Indian (especially Hindutva) ideology that assumes (falsely) to be on high moral ground while weaponizing vulnerable bovines against vulnerable human populations.