The Sunday edition of Indian Express, a popular daily in India screams in the front page:
TAMIL NADU WANTS BAN ON BULL FIGHT (JALLIKATTU) REVOKED. THE TAMIL NADU GOVERNMENT WILL FILE AN APPEAL BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA SEEKING TO VACATE THE BAN ON JALLIKATTU OR BULL FIGHTING.
Ok. Again I may sound controversial. But I feel very strongly against this tradition of JALLIKATTU/BULL FIGHTING/BULL TAMING. I am not a pro-animal activist who is supporting the ban in the name of cruelty towards the animal. Nor am I a so called pseudo-modernist who abhors anything which has something to do with Indian tradition. But can we justify the loss of human life in the name of tradition, sports, velour, and bravery?
Now my friends who wants to know about JALLIKATTU, please read on this article reproduced from 13th February 2005 edition of “The Hindu,” a leading English daily of India.
A LONE bull against several hundred young men. But the contest is fairly even. When the animal is not running away from the men, the men are running away from the animal. In the end, however, the bull, though badly bruised, would have accounted for three or four youths: all gored to death.
Every year, about the time of Pongal, the harvest festival, the southern districts of Tamil Nadu play host to jallikattu, a rural sport that involves the taming of a bull by a crowd of unarmed youths in an open arena. Young men try to prove their valour by holding on to the hump of the bull for as long as they can. In the process, many are pierced by the horns, many more injured in the stampede caused by those fleeing from the scene of action, and the animal is put through great suffering. But the sport endures.
The origins of jallikattu date back several centuries. However, what was once a test of strength that pitted one man against a raging bull is now a free-for-all in a large open space. In the past, contenders for salli or coins in a kattu or bundle tied between the horns of the bull could also hope to win a bride from among the women who watched the game. Now, however, the rewards are household articles and some cash: young women are not so easily enamoured by bull-tamers. Fame too does not last for more than a few weeks and rarely travels beyond the hero's native village.
Jallikattu is then an adventure sport. Flirting with danger is intrinsic to it. Without the fear and the danger, there is no thrill. The young men get a kick out of overcoming their fear, and not in being oblivious to the danger. Thus the most ferocious and specially trained bulls are chosen; the horns are sharpened. Sometimes, the animals have lime squeezed into their eyes to make them wild; at other times, they are fed with liquor or their tail is twisted or bitten to achieve the same purpose.
The bull taming in Alanganallur, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, is the most famous of all jallikattus drawing comparisons with Pamplona in Spain.Unlike in bull fighting, the animal is not killed in jallikattu. But the bull, beaten and battered into submission, often ends up maimed. The death toll of bull tamers, however, is at least four or five every year.
SEE THESE PHOTOS OF JALLIKATTU.
SEE THIS VIDEO WHICH GIVES A COMMENTARY ON JALLIKATTU.
It has been reported that close to two hundred people have been gored to death in last ten years. Is it not irony that it is the same Karunanidhi’s government in Tamil Nadu who disregards the sentiments of million of Indian on RAMA SETU issue ,now talks of feeling of people to plead for lifting the ban on a 400 years old bull-taming sport?
But all credit goes to the Supreme Court of India which refused to lift the ban on this 400 years old tradition stating that “Men were not as civilized 400 years back as they are today. We can not allow such barbaric acts in the name of tradition.”
Sure, tradition must and should be disregarded if it does not respect the value of human life. Have the pro-traditionalists ever thought of those who lost their lives in so called act of bravery? Do you call it bravery?! Not at all.
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