New Delhi, March 26 -- It was while watching the Kannada film Kantara (2022) that we first contemplated about the contradictory perceptions regarding pigs. Although pigs have had both material and religious importance in Indian tradition, it has been simultaneously stigmatised and excluded from mainstream Indian society. People are uncertain whether pig should be completely deified or should be merely used for consumption purposes.

In many parts of India, pigs have been religious and cultural motifs. It is thus astonishing to note that pigs are stigmatized at the same time, as are communities rearing them. The domestication of pigs, along with their symbolic and ritualistic associations, constructs a typology of civic disabilities, rein...