Jugaad and informality as drivers of India’s cow slaughter economy

Abstract

India’s status as the world’s leading milk producer is significantly sustained by cow slaughter, a criminal act in most Indian states. The paper argues that jugaad, a complex Indian sociological phenomenon of corruption and innovation, is vital in enabling the illegal slaughter of cows on an industrial scale in the informal economy. Jugaad is enacted through ingenious alterations to social processes and material products in two ‘grey’ and informal spaces that are rendered exceptional to formal governance: (1) illicit transportation to slaughterhouses; and (2) intricate social contracts between stakeholders along this production line. Through these processes in informal spaces, the bovine body itself is transformed by way of jugaad from protected dairy cow to contraband beef cow.