The Supreme Court recently imposed a blanket ban on jallikattu, Tamil Nadu’s version of Pamplona, Spain’s running of the bulls. Animal lovers supporting the ban may point to the hoary tradition of the Spanish bullfight being suspended, at least for a while, in the famous San Isidro festival because three bullfighters were gored this week.
The point, however, is not about whether humans or animals suffer more in such events that boast of a cultural tradition and are supposed to bring out the valour in men. We must learn to stop applauding cruelty to animals just because there is a history to it.
Those who have been voicing their protest over the ban citing the long history of the event in Tamil Nadu might like to know that even the Spanish bullfights are not the glorious events they are made out to be, and that the bulls inevitably end up dying at the hands of the matadors.
In fact, Spanish tradition demands that the bull must die and thousands of them do so every year. The thing to be said in favour of the saner jallikattu though is that the angry bulls merely run away. In fact, the protagonists say that if not for jallikattu the bulls would end up in the abattoirs of Kerala.
While the bullfight has the protection of cultural-heritage status in Spain, lovers of jallikattu know the pointlessness of the bull run as it is staged here save for a pocket of social acceptability in a rural society.
