Critical Insights on Colonial Modes of Seeing Cattle in India (1850–1980)

Dr Himanshu Upadhyaya teaches Development Studies at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. With a deep interest in environmental history, he completed his doctoral research on the late colonial policies on Livestock and Agricultural Development in Western India, on which this book is based. His research papers have been published in academic journals such as Economic and Political Weekly, Journal of Land and Rural Studies, and International Development Practice. His research papers have also appeared in edited volumes, focused on Agrarian History of Colonial India (Tilling the Land edited by Deepak Kumar and Bipasha Raha, Routledge), Development Studies (Intractable Conflicts in India (edited by Savyasachi, Routledge). He holds a MA in English Literature from North Gujarat University, Patan, Gujarat, India, and a MA in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He also wrote a research dissertation on the Syntax of Negation in two varieties of Gujarati Language for his M.Phil. degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Hyderabad, India. Outside of his academic work, he was actively involved with several environmental justice movements from 2000-2010, such as Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the River Narmada Movement) and communities fighting displacement due to large mining projects and large dams. He has spent time working with several civil society and academic organisations such as the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People; Hydro Monitor India at Delhi Forum; Intercultural Resources (with prominent Post-Development scholar Smitu Kothari); the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (where he authored a research study titled Performance and Development Effectiveness of Sardar Sarovar Dam Project in 2008) and Environics Trust, New Delhi. A collection of his popular articles on the Narmada Dam were published in 2010 under the title 'Big Dam, Bigger Questions' by the Delhi Forum. He was also part of an oral history project culminating in the publication of testimonies by environmental activists titled 'Plural Narratives from the Narmada Valley (2010).

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Revisiting ‘Surplus Cattle’ and ‘Sacred Cattle’ Discourse: Why a History of Cattle in India needs to move beyond this framing?.- 3. Famines, Cattle Diseases and Cattle Mortalities: History of Civil Veterinary Departments in India.- 4. Breeding Bovine Animals for Better Productivity: High Modernist Mission.- 5. Writing the Pre-History of Amul:Emergence of Milk Markets and Dairy Cooperatives in Late Colonial India.- 6. Discourse on Dairy Development, Scientific Instruction and Emergence of Technocracy.- 7. Chasing Productivity Dreams: Intensification in Crop and Cattle Development in Post-Colonial India.- 8. Replicating Anand Pattern Milk Cooperatives: Studying the Operation Flood.- 9. After the Operation Flood: Studying Transformations in Bovine Holding Patterns.- 10. Conclusion.- 11. Endnotes.