Jallikattu

Vidyuth Chikoti

Through out last week, most of the news coverage, debates, were regarding the protests that arose in Tamil Nadu after the ban on Jalikattu. Most of the discourse surrounding this has been about the activists point of view who claim this sport can be cruel to animals versus the pro Jalikattu people who say this sport is in fact about embracing the bull not being harmful to it . While this is the central conflict of this situation there are many other aspects and questions that arise from these protests, this article tries to look at them.

What are the priorities of Supreme Court ?

The gravity of the situation with regards to the number of pending cases in Supreme court can be understood when the CJI the top most judicial officer broke down in a gathering of the Chief ministers and Chief Justices. As of 2015 September the number of pending cases in supreme court alone is around 60,000 cases. Given this situation what should be the priority of the Supreme court in dispensing cases, Should it not give out judgements on much more important cases than Jalikattu and petitions like Santa Banta Jokes. yes I am not exaggerating the SC has admitted a petition on banning the Santa Banta jokes.

Survival of Native Breeds : In today’s world where Farmers are barely surviving for a livelihood it is imperative that anything and everything is about the economic incentive, Hence the survival of Various kinds of Native Breeds of Bulls is question of the economic viability they have. If the Bull that is not useful in any way to the farmer is sold to the Slaughter houses for some income. One of the reasons why these bulls are well fed and maintained well thought out the year is Jalikattu, now by banning this sport your taking away this incentive and the farmers are forced to sell them away to slaughter houses as feeding this bulls is not viable any more. Even without the ban, the number of native breeds has come down drastically and with this ban there is a danger of making many of them extinct. Above all if the motive of the activists who are fighting against Jalikattu is to protect the animal then by banning it they are making sure it is slaughtered.

Class Bias : One more striking fault line which has emerged from this debate is the class bias of the elite Delhi media who never cared to cover Southern states nor know what the sport of Jalikattu constitutes, yet take the side of the activists and the same media attacks the government if slaughter houses or Beef ban is imposed, how is that Slaughter houses are ok but sport like Jalikattu is banned.