Mother Cow and Maternal Behaviour in Colonial North India

This article offers a historical analysis of the interdisciplinary question to what extent animal behaviour influences domestication, by exploring how socio-cultural representations of cows as mothers were shaped by perceptions of their maternal behaviours. It does so by providing an analysis of the evolution of dairying practices in both the colonial and vernacular sciences of modern India. Mother cow (gau måtå) was imbibed with spiritual and material significance in the discourses of public health, food security and gastro-politics from the late nineteenth century. But to what extent were cultural representations influenced by the maternal behaviours of the cow? Analysing animal husbandry practices, it is shown here that in contrast to the Western tradition of segregating the mother from her calf, the maternal behaviours and emotions of Bos indicus zebu cows were perceived by many dairy farmers to be an evolved characteristic that needed to be nurtured.