367
project”.
17
According to some sources, “at least 44 people” have been killed, hundreds injured, in the cow riots between 2016 and 2019.
18
India’s hypocrisy in this matter of cow worship exceeds other countries—like the
United States—where there is no pretense of even fondness for bovines.
Contradicting a vast legacy leading up to Mahatma Gandhi’s embrace of cow protection, one renowned historian, Dwijendra Narayan Jha, has argued that the ancient
Vedic period across the Indian sub-continent saw cows slaughtered, sacrificed, and
eaten for at least 5500 years. Not until there was “an agricultural boom” in India did
the Hindu begin to view cows with more restraint, and eventually a reverential attitude.
19
Writes B. R. Myers in his review of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized
Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat,
20
“If our ancestors had
had—as we now do—full awareness of animals’ sentience, and the wherewithal to
live without red meat, and the knowledge that red meat is harmful in even the smallest quantities, would they have gone on eating it?”.
21
41.4 A Separate Reality
Myers, of course, has no answer but suggests that Americans, and by implication
consumers around the world, have chosen to normalize the slaughterhouse because
they never go anywhere near one. They don’t see it, hear it, and smell it. They just
eat it. As many as 95% of all Americans eat it, in one form or other, 222.2 pounds
of red meat per person per year (versus an average global number of 75 pounds).
22
17 “The Meaning of India’s ‘Beef Lynchings,’” by Supriya Nair, July 24, 2017, The Atlantic, https://
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/india-modi-beef-lynching-muslim-partition/533739/. Accessed April 13, 2020. See also, “Violent Cow Protection in India,” Human Rights
Watch, February 18, 2019, https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/
vigilante-groups-attack-minorities, Accessed April 13, 2020.
18 “Cow Vigilantes in India Killed at Least 44 People, Report Finds,” Iain Marlow, Bloomberg
News, February 19, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/cow-vigilantesin-india-killed-at-least-44-people-report-finds, Accessed April 13, 2020.
19 From “Selling the Sacred Cow: India’s Contentious Beef Industry – In a country where cattle are
considered sacred, they’re also paradoxically becoming a lucrative export,” by Sena Desai Gopal,
February 12, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/selling-the-sacredcow-indias-contentious-beef-industry/385359/. Accessed April 14, 2020. See D.N. Jha’s The Myth
of the Holy Cow, Verso Publishers, Brooklyn, NY, 2002.
20 Every Twelve Seconds – Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat,
Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2013. This political scientist went undercover for
five months at a slaughterhouse in New York where 2500 bovines were slaughtered daily.
21 ibid., “U.S. Slaughterhouse Rules,” by B. R. Myers, November 2012 Issue, The Atlantic, https://
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/slaughterhouse-rules/309113/. Accessed April
13, 2020.
22 “Americans will consume a record amount of meat in 2018,” Global Agriculture, March 1, 2018,
n.a., https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.html, Accessed April 13, 2020.
See also, “The Countries where people eat the most meat,” Skye Gould and Lauren F Friedman,
41.4 A Separate Reality
project”.
17
According to some sources, “at least 44 people” have been killed, hundreds injured, in the cow riots between 2016 and 2019.
18
India’s hypocrisy in this matter of cow worship exceeds other countries—like the
United States—where there is no pretense of even fondness for bovines.
Contradicting a vast legacy leading up to Mahatma Gandhi’s embrace of cow protection, one renowned historian, Dwijendra Narayan Jha, has argued that the ancient
Vedic period across the Indian sub-continent saw cows slaughtered, sacrificed, and
eaten for at least 5500 years. Not until there was “an agricultural boom” in India did
the Hindu begin to view cows with more restraint, and eventually a reverential attitude.
19
Writes B. R. Myers in his review of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized
Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat,
20
“If our ancestors had
had—as we now do—full awareness of animals’ sentience, and the wherewithal to
live without red meat, and the knowledge that red meat is harmful in even the smallest quantities, would they have gone on eating it?”.
21
41.4 A Separate Reality
Myers, of course, has no answer but suggests that Americans, and by implication
consumers around the world, have chosen to normalize the slaughterhouse because
they never go anywhere near one. They don’t see it, hear it, and smell it. They just
eat it. As many as 95% of all Americans eat it, in one form or other, 222.2 pounds
of red meat per person per year (versus an average global number of 75 pounds).
22
17 “The Meaning of India’s ‘Beef Lynchings,’” by Supriya Nair, July 24, 2017, The Atlantic, https://
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/india-modi-beef-lynching-muslim-partition/533739/. Accessed April 13, 2020. See also, “Violent Cow Protection in India,” Human Rights
Watch, February 18, 2019, https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/
vigilante-groups-attack-minorities, Accessed April 13, 2020.
18 “Cow Vigilantes in India Killed at Least 44 People, Report Finds,” Iain Marlow, Bloomberg
News, February 19, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/cow-vigilantesin-india-killed-at-least-44-people-report-finds, Accessed April 13, 2020.
19 From “Selling the Sacred Cow: India’s Contentious Beef Industry – In a country where cattle are
considered sacred, they’re also paradoxically becoming a lucrative export,” by Sena Desai Gopal,
February 12, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/selling-the-sacredcow-indias-contentious-beef-industry/385359/. Accessed April 14, 2020. See D.N. Jha’s The Myth
of the Holy Cow, Verso Publishers, Brooklyn, NY, 2002.
20 Every Twelve Seconds – Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, by Timothy Pachirat,
Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2013. This political scientist went undercover for
five months at a slaughterhouse in New York where 2500 bovines were slaughtered daily.
21 ibid., “U.S. Slaughterhouse Rules,” by B. R. Myers, November 2012 Issue, The Atlantic, https://
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/slaughterhouse-rules/309113/. Accessed April
13, 2020.
22 “Americans will consume a record amount of meat in 2018,” Global Agriculture, March 1, 2018,
n.a., https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.html, Accessed April 13, 2020.
See also, “The Countries where people eat the most meat,” Skye Gould and Lauren F Friedman,
41.4 A Separate Reality