Madras Kraals, animal labour and Veterinary Corps: colonising wild elephants in British South India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Animals, animal labour and animal capital, were vital in developing colonial capitalism. For labour theories, working animals constituted only as tools or resources and affirmed the property rights of humans over animals by capturing, confining, breeding and training. The capitalist interactions with animals developed from the early warfare and hunting practices to the later discourses of conservation, juridical control and the commoditization of animals in the capital-intensive colonial industries. This article examines the entangled histories of wild elephants in colonial settings who were captured, tamed, and trained as working animals and sold as commodities to the capitalist timber industries. By using Jonathan Saha's conceptualization of 'undead capital', this article addresses how the wild elephants were transformed from being hunted to being protected, fed, provided for and kept healthy by veterinarians through the Kraal system only to be commoditized as working animals. However, such commoditization resulted in the subjugation of animals, the transformation of ecologies, and the fostering of new interspecies relationships between the elephants and their caretakers. The knowledge and experience of caretakers of elephants became central in colonial animal management and was perceived as a route through which colonialism created new knowledge about wild animals and the forests.