Mapping India by Sutapa Dutta;Nilanjana Mukherjee;

Mapping India by Sutapa Dutta;Nilanjana Mukherjee;

Author:Sutapa Dutta;Nilanjana Mukherjee; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2019-06-28T21:00:00+00:00


The Calcutta riot of 1789

Another mention of a conflict involving the cow appears in 1789 in Calcutta, a city believed to be free of Hindu-Muslim strife until the 19th century. On the event of the collision of Durga Puja and Muharram, some Muslims attacked the procession of a wealthy businessman, who in response gathered “fifty or sixty armed peons and demolished all the Mahomedan durgahs they could find in the neighbourhood of Boitacannah” (Bayly 1985: 199). Later, a mob of Muslims plundered several Hindu houses and burnt and killed a couple of cows.

Both in the Ahmedabad and the Calcutta riots, the cow is used as a site for revenge. Offence is taken by one community over the actions of another and as an act of revenge, the ‘sacrilege’ of cow slaughter is committed. The body of the cow, much like that of the woman, is one laden with ‘purity’ and ‘honour’ and in the ‘violation’ of this ‘honour’, revenge is sought. Two other similarities can be noted between the Calcutta and Ahmedabad incidents, apart from the involvement of the cow in very different capacities – the occasion of a religious festival and the participation of businessmen/traders and merchants. In Ahmedabad, cow slaughter as revenge led to the riot, whereas in Calcutta, the riot culminated in cow slaughter as revenge. However, these appear to be scattered and spontaneous outbreaks over ceremonial rites on religious festivals or processions where cow (slaughter) is one of the elements in the riot situation and not the conclusion of an organised, sustained, long-term mobilisation overtly in the name of the cow. Nonetheless, these constitute significant moments in (re)telling the story/ies of the beginning of the becoming of a ‘movement’ in the name of the cow.

We now move towards an examination of moments where the mobilisation in the name of the cow begins to acquire a more explicit character.



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