Thousands of rural folk in Tamil Nadu will be extremely disappointed that their traditional sport of bull taming will not be allowed this harvest season too. To let another Pongal pass without jallikattu is akin to denying an addict his “fix”. However, since the Supreme Court has stayed the Centre’s notification lifting the ban, the democratic tradition of bowing to the highest judiciary is more important than giving in to demands to hold the local cultural festival. Considering that neither jallikattu nor rekla races featuring bulls in states like Karnataka and Maharashtra have been held for four years, this is not the time to defiantly consider a state ordinance to overrule judicial wisdom.
Tamil sentiment has been building up over the last few years and all Tamil leaders have been appealing to the PM to promulgate an ordinance to override the judicial ban. To do so in the face of an interlocutory petition in which the sport has been stayed at least till March 15 would be embarrassing for the executive. A Union minister’s advice that the state should issue an ordinance is gratuitous. Had jallikattu been an unbroken tradition, things might have been different.
To accept that the feelings of animal rights activists have gained primacy would be wisest until the top court’s judgement.
The Indian bull-taming sport is not like the Spanish bullfighting tradition in which the bulls die, or run to their slaughter as in Pamplona, a point that has been missed. But in these times even running a zoo for animals to be stared at by people is considered cruel. Our thinking has to evolve to a higher plane.
