Pongal, the annual harvest festival in Tamil Nadu, has become an issue for the ruling AIADMK and the main Opposition DMK to play a game of one-upmanship. Jallikattu (traditional bull fighting), associated with Pongal, has become a subject for the turf war between the AIADMK and the DMK.
The Supreme Court, through a landmark judgement on May 8, 2014, had banned the Jallikattu following pleas by animal lovers. While DMK chief M Karunanidhi (92) blamed the State Government for not putting enough efforts to get the Supreme Court ban vacated, the AIADMK Government in Tamil Nadu is on a mission to get the bulls removed from the list prepared by the Animal Welfare Board of India, which formed the basis for the Supreme Court verdict.
This year’s Pongal falls on Wednesday and marks the conclusion of the festival season of 2014. In normal circumstances, Jallikattu would have continued for another two months in various places in southern parts of the State.
This traditional sport earned the wrath of animal lovers and rights activists because of the cruelty meted out to animals during the fights. Bulls are let into the arena where a group of bull fighters try to tame the animals. The winning fighters stand to gain a lot of money and gifts sponsored by business establishments. But every year number of persons get killed and wounded in the sport.
The animals are subjected to worst kind of treatment, according to Chinni Krishna, vice-chairman, Animal Welfare Board of India. “The Supreme Court was approached in order to save the dumb animals from the cruelty of human beings. It was after serious consideration and expert opinions that the apex court ruled in favour of the animals,” said Dr Krishna.
A division Bench consisting of justices KS Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Mishra had ruled that bull fighting and bullock cart racing were cruelties of the worst kind. “Forcing a bull and keeping it in the waiting area for hours and subjecting it to the scorching sun are not for the animal’s well being. Forcing and pulling the bull by a nose rope into the narrow, closed, subjecting it to all forms of torture, fear, pain and suffering and forcing it to go to the arena and also over powering it in the arena by bull tamers are not for the well being of the animal,” Radhakrishnan and Mishra had said in their verdict.
Krishna said the Supreme Court had taken into consideration the list prepared by AWBI and the arguments by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals before pronouncing the verdict. “If the officials of the ministry agree to tamper with the list, it is equivalent to overturning and sabotaging the court order. The State Government is bound by rules of the land to enforce the court order howsoever unpopular the verdict is,” he said.
Nanditha Krishna, noted environmentalist who won the first Indira Gandhi Environmental Award instituted by the Union Government said heavens would not come down if Jallikattu was not held in the State. “For us what matters more is the welfare of animals. Just because they are dumb, traditionalists have no right to force them to the arena,” she said.