The making of the modern cow: India, 1860-1940

In nineteenth-century India the British encountered a bovine culture radically different from their own and an established network of bovine knowledge and management. Building upon this, while also importing their own ideas of agricultural improvement, colonial administrators and veterinarians sought to divide Indian cattle into recognizable breeds and to promote better feeding and breeding (including cross-breeding with other local or imported breeds), by means of cattle shows and state-run cattle farms. A further part of the making of the modern cow involved an increasingly scientific approach to livestock management and the intensified commodification and commercialization of cattle and their products, including the establishment of modern dairying. The article examines how the British sought to implement schemes of bovine improvement, the extent of Indian agency in these projects, and how the regime responded by the inter-war years to the growing crisis of Indian cattle.