Chennai: With youth and students jumping onto the protests demanding the lifting of jallikattu ban and even trying to defy the Supreme Court ban on the traditional sports at several places in Tamil Nadu, the situation seems to have a parallel with fiery anti-Hindi agitations of the mid-60s. The similarity between the two protests is that the previous one was for Tamil language and the present agitations are to save Tamil culture.
After a social media campaign to promote jallikattu, about 5,000 youth gathered at the Marina beach to conduct agitations to lift the ban on jallikattu. Besides, thousands of youth gathered in the historic city of Madurai and held rallies for the last two days, evoking support from many sections of people.
At a time when political parties are finding it tough to mobilise youth and students for their protests, the spontaneous gathering to drum up support for the traditional bull sport has revived the memories of the 1965 anti-Hindi agitations which saw such an involvement of students.
The southern town of Palayamkottai, often referred to as the Oxford of the south, also saw a huge gathering of students and youth for jallikattu. The calls for the protests are given through Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp and youth cutting across party affiliations or without party loyalties are thronging the venue.
Besides the southern districts, the students in the delta region too have joined the protests and in Pudukottai, the students held demonstrations inside the college campuses, expressing their support. Students of colleges in Kumbakonam boycotted their classes, while in Sivagangai and Karaikudi, the students gathered inside their colleges when police denied permission to hold rallies.
What surprises everyone is that the youth coming in support of jallikattu belong to the elite sections of society working as computer engineers and IT professionals.
They do not belong to the rustic background of hail from families of farmers. Even when voicing their support to jallikattu, many of them are heard using English phrases mixed with a few Tamil words to describe the importance of jallikattu for Tamils.
