Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2018-19/Evidence for the Implications of the Cow in Contemporary India

Discussion on Google Docs: initial planning and prep work by the group
Brief

(Anna) ISSUE: need to look at HOW what we’re doing can be viewed through an interdisciplinary lens relating to an issue (not just speculative)

Introduction: introduce religion (why it’s relevant), all disciplinary issues discussed are grounded in religion in India

(Alex) Point : (school presentation to study basc) That we analysed this issue through different lenses and solved the problem in the ideal solution knowing these issues in all of them. So the solution is to not kill animals and reuse their remaining profit. (religion, politics, anthropology and local economy is happy)

(Anna - layout ideas) INTRO PARA 1: Philosophy Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism: all view the cow as sacred - that IS their truth. Utility links to economics

PARA 2: Economics agriculture - resource. McDonalds? Current issue. Pressure groups?

PARA 3: Politics Urine as health drink political party, campaigns hinge

LINK CONCLUSION

Alex's research: bullet-pointed for group on Google Doc

Illegal Slaughterhouses: http://theconversation.com/cow-economics-are-killing-indias-working-class-79274

Economics not religion drives cattle production 80 million indians eat beef or water buffalo Cattle ownership is driven by expectations of milk yields Cattle ownership has nothing to do with income. The cattle are divided into those who can work or those who can give milk or breed Those who don't do this end up as beef. These are sold https://www.livemint.com/Politics/e6rftggFYyqQJWv2l64SCI/Economics-not-religion-drives-ownership-of-cattle-in-Indi.html

Cow economics are killing the working class: The untouchables and poor muslims mostly work in the leather industry These groups of people have been subject to attacks from hindus to cow traders in the name of religion A legislation dropped in may to protect animal rights - that cows may not be traded for slaughter Because of this thousands of slaughterhouses were shut down making these group of poor people out of work. And also 400,000 people linked to the leather industry This decreased the leather export 3.23% from 5.67 to 5.9 billion The meat trade created 3.32 billion and 6.3 million tonnes of it IN uttar pradesh, this new rules created a loss of 601 million The state also tried to punish cow slaughter as a criminalisation act. Which encouraged harassment toward these poor people. In gujarat killing a cow means you have to spend your life in prison. The indian government is considering giving each cow a identity card, like for its citizens In the west of india it is not legal to kill anny bulls or cows or bullocks and towards the east it is more legal The new rules incentivised to burn down muslim and dalit businesses, beat, kill. They call themselves animal activists. This created fear among people in the cattle industry. the contractors, truck drivers, traders, wage earners and most of them are dalit or muslim IN COMPARISON, hindu slaughterhouses have been spared. Out of the 11 largest meat exporting companies, eight are hindu run. The government plans on keeping india's comparative advantage in production and labour costs and ensure the availability of skilled manpower, but that is complicated if muslims and dalit workers are harassed. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cow-economics-are-killing-indias-working-class_us_594bd812e4b092ed90588c23?guccounter=1

India is the highest exporter of beef (water buffalo) even more than brazil It is the 5th largest beef eater (consumer) in the world One out of 13 indians eat beef. (if that is so then it is vital that religion is kept in place because if everyone eats beef then the environmental consequences would be terrible 40% of indian muslims consume beef 2% of hindus 26% indian christians https://qz.com/india/643433/all-you-wanted-to-know-about-cows-in-india-in-charts/

Mob Lynching and beating someone to death because of cow slaughter So people steal cows from farmers up to 1000 at a time to get slaughtered. So there is this fight about not touching the cow and economically incentivised to steal and slaughter them for beef because of the booming beef market. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/economics-of-cow-vigilantism-dairy-farmers-either-bribe-or-get-lynched/videoshow/65192314.cms

Anna's research

POLITICS: Government committee in Northern India proposing bottling cow urine as health drink: Bharatiya Janata Party run by prime minister Narendra Modi: incredibly extremist politics have led to bovine experiments using cow urine in medicine, food, agriculture etc. Cow ministry in the state of Madhya Pradesh: appealing to voters. BJP attempting to win them by offering cow ministry, trying to trump Congress after declaration that each village in the state will have a cow shelter. BJP controls Uttarakhand, where resolution passed declaring the cow “Mother of the Nation”. Wanting to replace tiger with cow as India’s national animal

LINKS TO REFS: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34513185 https://www.ft.com/content/f28160ca-6acb-11e7-bfeb-33fe0c5b7eaa https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/indians-told-cow-urine-is-health-drink-rxmc9mzlk https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-40505719 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-19/shuttered-abattoir-a-sign-of-rising-political-risk-in-india https://www.ft.com/content/f28160ca-6acb-11e7-bfeb-33fe0c5b7eaa

Ziyu's research

Hinduism (79.8%): Ancient texts highlight the importance of the cattle: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=92Ct9iD1QTYC&redir_esc=y

Marvin Harris, India’s sacred cow, Anthropology: contemporary perspectives ISBN: 0-673-52074-9 ( Food and feasting on animal slaughter were widely considered as a form of violence against life forms, and became a religious and social taboo.)

“the central fact of Hinduism is cow protection” : https://web.archive.org/web/20111125093504/http://dahd.nic.in/ch2/an2.6.htm

Jainism(0.4%): Jainism is against violence to all living beings, including cattle. “All beings should help each other live and prosper, according to jainism, not kill and slaughter each other.”: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qiQlDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

Ahimsa in Jainism: Ahimsa in Jainism is a fundamental principle forming the cornerstone of its ethics and doctrine. This term means nonviolence, but in a little bit different way with other philosophical concept of the word. According to the Jain philosophy, violence refers primarily to injuring one’s own self, though also apply to others. ： https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa_in_Jainism

Buddhism(0.7%): Ahimsa is also one of five ethical precepts in the texts of Buddhism, and they required the practicing Buddhist to “refrain from killing living beings”.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fidwAgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y P100-101

Also, since the Buddhism believes in the endless rebirth cycles in “Samsra” which says that cattle is reborned from human beings, protecting animals is a good karma and this further leads to better rebirth.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oZCvAwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y P187-191

However, though all these religions don’t eat cattle and have a plant-based diet, there are still other religions in India that do eat cattle such as Islam and Christianity (which contributes to about 16.5% of population).

It is also a commonly accepted view that Indian people did eat cattle in ancient time and there were no rules to prohibit killing cows in early Hinduism. It was the agricultural-centred economy at the time that made cows extremely useful in the daily life which combined with religion and political reasons that made cows sacred in India. Cow is like a totem in India culture.

Facebook Conversation Update: Approaching deadline, 8-9 December 2018
Anna: i've added a small section on use in the fashion industry because it seemed relevant and i was worried we didn't have enough relevant points 🙂

SAT 17:04 Alex: Guys, so I wanted to check something, when I talked to James I told him that the value in our wikibook is that we solve an issue by looking at these multiple disciplines. But the issue I think should be the slaughtering of cows that do not produce milk anymore (and not the production or beef) because we found a solution to still use cows for economic purposes without killing them. And that is the problem we solved. (Religion politics and economics is happy this way) I don’t think we should mention the beef industry because we have no solution to meet the demand for beef. We don't have to solve the issue I mean I can say a couple of sentences that Indians export and consume beef but that doesn’t help our argument that we found an ideal solution to just use non-producing dairy cows in other ways

Anna: We're just presenting the issue and demonstrating why it's an issue It doesn't need to be resolved

Alex: Ahh okay So I don’t even have to mention that it could be a solution to just not kill the cows and use them in other ways Or

Anna: No you don't need to mention that!

Alex: Oh Just explain how cows are used economically

11:29 Anna: how do we link our chapter to the main page? Also I think we should probably get rid of the Anthropology section as it doesn't seem entirely relevant. thoughts? & have we done word count? &Alex have you done your references?? YAY whoever managed to move it!!

Ziyu: I linked our page to the book 👍 1 Let’s do word count

Anna: If we keep anthropology it needs to be more linked!!

Ziyu: I tried for the second paragraph about interfaith marriage but it still seems not much relevant.

Anna: Yes that's not relevant

Ziyu: OK without anthropology we still have 1457 words

Anna: Does that include references or without?

Ziyu: without

Anna: Hmmm ok I'm out ATM but in about 20 mins I will have a look we can definitely just make it more concise 🙂

Ziyu:👍 1 13:20 Anna: have we decided that we're going to delete the anthropology section? can i get rid of it?

Ziyu: Yeah just delete all of it

Anna:ok! I think we should change the title - we should delete 'Contemporary'. We discuss historical value so it's a misleading title.

Facebook Chat conversation
Hi guys! I've put some ideas in my sandbox - I've been doing some research. I was wondering: while I was researching, a lot of threads seemed to come back to McDonalds from so many different perspectives - economic, philosophical, scientific, ethical etc. I've put some info in my sandbox if you'd like to read it!! What have you guys been reading? https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Annachippendale/sandbox You named the conversation: Wikibooks Chapter Group. 21 NOVEMBER 23:46

Alexandra Great stuff you have already worked on!

Alexandra CsT Case Study Final WORD.docx this is the case study I did last year with some of the reaserch Oh cool thanks! 22 NOVEMBER 10:43 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JlGN0kd_MOkH1wwxYaduCDZ14wrJZ3i0IS_T_3UswLY/edit

Ziyu https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-is-the-movie-Cowspiracy How accurate is the movie Cowspiracy? Answer (1 of 11): It is superficially accurate until a lot more research and background uncovers the truth of just how full of bull-schitzen the film Cowspiracy really is. Then it's undoubtedly one of the most inaccurate films I've ever had to watch. The whole premise about the film was very si... quora.com 27 NOVEMBER 13:16

Ziyu Are u guys in the lecture room? yes at the front SAT 16:33 Hi guys, what would you think about doing Evidence as our topic? I think it would be easier to form a precise argument about. We could call it "Evidence for the Importance of the Cow in Indian Society" ? thoughts?

Ziyu Oh this topic sounds suitable for us I think truth would be very difficult to relate

Ziyu Yeah this one is easier to approach TUES 11:31 Hi guys are you free after the seminar on Thursday? We really need to work on our chapter properly

Ziyu I am

Alexandra Yeah guys I mean to text you guys about this I am not free from Thursday onwards untill Monday Hence could we meet up today or tomorow ? I’m sorry about this, but maybe we could all work properly on it today and then meet up tomorow I can't I have an architecture critique I have to do a lot of work for 😕 unless you can meet at about 5:30 tomorrow??

Alexandra And then over the weekend I can chime in but only online Are you leaving london?

Alexandra Yes exactly Im Free After 1 tomorow so that is Fine Ok, 5:30 tomorrow then!

Alexandra Cool, where ? And untill then we have done research about our respective topics yes ? BASc common room?? Yes But read the email from James this morning carefully We really need to make sure everything is interdisciplinary 👍 1

Alexandra Okay 👍 2 I’ll be working on the wikibook today

Ziyu 5:30 tomorrow then

Alexandra Is that when your architecture stuff ends Anna ? Yes! WED 16:13 Can you guys meet at 5? 🙂 WED 17:33

Ziyu I’m in the common room right now I'm a minute away! 👍 1 Ziyu please can you let me in? My card isn't working https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Issues_in_Interdisciplinarity_2018-19/Evidence_in_the_Gender_Pay_Gap Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2018-19/Evidence in the Gender Pay Gap - Wikibooks, open books for an open world We will be exploring the different examples and interpretations of evidence used by various disciplines, and how these inform their opinions on the the gender pay gap. In particular, we will be investigating how different disciplines approach the potential causes and solutions to this social phenome... en.wikibooks.org

Ziyu https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Issues_in_Interdisciplinarity_2018-19 Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2018-19 - Wikibooks, open books for an open world This book is collaboratively written by students at University College London (UCL) taking the module 'Approaches to Knowledge', a first-year undergraduate course that forms part of the core of the Arts and Sciences degree programme. en.wikibooks.org https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Implications_of_the_Cow_in_Contemporary_India THURS 21:45 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Implications_of_the_Cow_in_Contemporary_India tried to create the page! hopefully it won't get deleted this time.. Chat conversation end Type a message, @name...

Discussion in person: 5 December 2018

 * Discussed whether to focus on Truth or Evidence: Evidence seemed to be a more logical and reasonable thread to follow
 * Discussed ordering of paragraphs