Indian Sacred Cow: An Interpretation of Marvin Harris

 

A Diagrammatic Model on the Interpretation of 'Sacred 

Cow Complex' by Marvin Harris

 

The book ‘COWS, PIGS, WARS AND WITCHES : The Riddles of Culture’ is written by Marvin Harris with prologue and epilogue along with 11 case studies on some of the irrational and inexplainable lifestyles found mainly among preliterate or primitive peoples from different parts of the world. Marvin Harris has chosen bizarre and controversial cases that seem like insoluble riddles and in opposite to prolonged dilemma of ignorance, fear and conflict to find out the explanations behind these lifestyles, he argued and opposed the debate of ‘only God knows the answer’ by reflecting how a series of important lifestyle riddles can be given a scientific explanation.

Marvin Harris explained that the most bizarre-seeming beliefs and practices if inspected closely can be seen to be build up out of guts, sex, energy, wind, rain and other ordinary conditions, needs and activities where the nature and culture is interlinked in order to adapt with the challenges. Thus in order to solve the puzzle he had framed the cases in a chapter wise manner which can be connected in a linear diagrammatic models of cultural adaptation.

 

Mother Cow

“The cattle convert items of little direct human value into products of immediate utility”

 

In India Cows are treated as a sacred animal. Even if a Hindu individual face poverty and extreme hunger they can not agree for slaughtering their cow. This is assumed to be love for sacred cow and it has many positive and negative responses across the world. According to many experts cow worship is the number one reason of hunger and poverty in India. Some Western-trained agronomists say that “the taboo against cow slaughter is keeping one hundred million “useless” animals alive. They claim that cow worship lowers the efficiency of agriculture because the useless animals contribute neither milk nor meat while competing for croplands and foodstuff with useful animals and hungry human beings”. The cow question remains a major cause of rioting and disorders not only between Hindus and remnants of the Muslim community (thought to be the cow killers as they eat beef and slaughter cows) but also between the political parties.

To western observers familiar with modern industrial techniques of agriculture and stock raising, cow love seems senseless, even suicidal. To investigate this irrational Hindu doctrine (for some), Marvin Harris practically explains some of the logical reason of cow being loved and sacred with his cultural relativist approach and established how in the broader frame of religious taboo the Hindu population is trying to maintain their relationship with their surrounding ecosystem, they are maintaining their sustainable livelihood, facing the extreme crisis in drought and famines and also trying to keep a balance between the human population and cow population with various socio-economic or religious strategies. This can be seen in the chart designed below,

Explanation of the above diagram :

·         As per Government report, there is few number of oxen compared to cows. Oxen and male water buffalo are the principal source of traction for ploughing India’s fields. For each farm of 10 acres or less one pair of oxen or water buffalo is considered adequate . so there is indeed a shortage of oxen. India has 60 million farms but only 80 million traction animal (including both oxen and water buffalo). Ploughing must be coordinated with the monsoon rains so that is impractical for farmers to rent or borrow oxen as the ploughing time is similar and they cannot wait for ploughing other field to be finished. If the cow is getting sick the farmer will be in the stage of losing their land and property in order to buy or rent oxen for the time being. To challenge this crisis they need to have a cow which will be similar to the source of making oxen. (tractors are made by factory but oxen are made by cows so a farmer who owns a cow, owns a factory of making oxen). Even the barren cow is the last desperate defence against the moneylenders in the time of severe crisis. This is a good reason for not to be too anxious to sell his cow to the slaughterhouse. Male water buffalo are also superior for ploughing the flooded rice paddies but oxen are more versatile and preferred for dry-field farming and road transport.

·         Even after ploughing they need their pair of oxen to pull his oxcart which is the mainstay of bulk transport throughout rural India and also it keeps the environment free from carbon emissions and  pollution free.

·         The main economic function of the zebu cow is to breed male traction animals apart from milking which is the major source of meeting nutritional needs even a small drop in the crisis of starvation. For milking farmers prefer female water buffalo which has longer lactation periods and higher butterfat than zebu cattle. Zebu breed also remarkably rugged and can survive the long droughts that periodically afflict different parts of India. Zebu cattle have small bodies, energy-storing humps on their back and great powers of recuperation which are adapted to the specific conditions of Indian agriculture. Native breeds can survive for long period with little food or water and are highly resistant to disease that afflict other breeds in tropical climates. They can work till their last breath.

·         Agriculture is part of a vast system of human and natural relationships. In the United states, chemicals have almost completely replaced animal manure as the principal source of farm fertilizer as they began to plough with tractors rather than mules or horses. And all around the world today there is a vast integrated petrochemical-tractor-truck industrial complex that produces farm machinery, motorized transport, oil and gasoline and chemical fertilizers and pesticides upon which new high-yield production techniques depend.

India’s farmers cannot participate in this complex not because they worship their cows but because they can’t afford to buy tractors. To convert from animals and manure to tractors and petrochemicals would require the investment of incredible amounts of capital. Which is not possible in present Indian economic condition. The inevitable effect of substituting costly machines for cheap animals is to reduce the number of people who can earn their living from agriculture and to force a corresponding increase in the size of the average farm. Large scale agribusiness destruct the small family farm. Also it could lead to industrialization to urbanization to massive pressure of population in urban setting which would lead to high competition and then socio-economic imbalance.

·         Oxen and cows should be credited for carrying out the functions of a petrochemical industry. They excrete about 700 million tons of recoverable manure. Half of the total used as fertilizer, most of the reminder is burned to provide heat for cooking which helps to keep the balance in demand of thermal energy which have highly scarcity in India  and the amount of cow dungs works as equivalent to 27 million tons of kerosene, 35 million tons of coal or 68 million tons of wood. Cow dung is most preferable fuel for the Indian wife to balance both the taste of the food and carrying out their domestic works and taking care of children, helps out in field or to perform other chores as it burns with a clean, slow and long-lasting flame that doesn’t scorch the food. It is also used as household flooring material for having smooth and dust free surface.so every bit of dung is carefully collected. Also villagers sells to the housewives in cities.

·         The slaughtering of aged and decrepit animals could not result in nutritional gains for people who need it most. But meat is eaten by untouchable Hindus, the lower most caste. They tend to be the leather-working castes. They have right to dispose of the skin of fallen cattle so via them India manages to have a huge leathercraft industry. It brings to the view that an established principal of ecological analysis states that communities of organisms are adapted not to average but to extreme conditions. The relevant situation in India is the recurrent failure of the monsoon rains. So anti-slaughtering and anti-beef eating taboos mean in the context of periodic droughts and famine. Also a substantial rise in beef production would strain the entire ecosystem, not because of cow love but because the laws of thermodynamics. More calories are available per capita when the plant food is eaten directly by a human population than when it is used to feed domesticated animals and eat their fleshes. Since the per capita calorie intake in India is already below minimum daily requirements, switching croplands to meat production could only result in higher food prices and a farther deterioration in the living standards for poor families.

“The farmer would rather eat his cow than starve, but that he will starve if he does eat it”

So, Cow love with its sacred symbols and holy doctrines protects the farmer against calculations that are rational only in the short term. The problem of misconceptions regarding cow being loved or sacred lies in the different implications for the rich and poor. For poor cow is a holy beggar and for rich it is a thief. If the cows invade someone’s pasture or planted fields, the landlord complains but the poor peasant plead ignorance and depend on cow love to get their cow back. So if there is competition it is between caste and caste or man and man. So in order to adapt with the surrounding socio-cultural  and ecological environment people in India (mainly farmers) formulated and adopted an Ideological perspective of Cow love which mobilizes them to resist cow slaughter and beef eating. For them denying cow slaughtering is more beneficial and adaptive for the future time if there is any necessity.

Reference: Harris, M. (1990). Cows, pigs, wars & witches: The riddles of culture. New York: Vintage Books.