The native breeds of cows and oxen would face extinction in due course if the ban imposed on rekla race by Supreme Court was not removed, owners of oxen from across the State said.
Stating that rekla race was a traditional sport in many of the districts wherein the oxen used for ploughing and other farming activities were involved, the farmers claimed that there was no harassment of the animals in rekla race.
In the advent of mechanisation in farming activities, the role of oxen had been significantly reduced. “It is no more economically feasible to rear oxen only for ploughing. Many still manage to keep the oxen only because of the entertainment part. If we all give up the rearing of oxen, it will affect the reproduction of native breeds of cows and oxen and eventually affect milk production,” N. Maran of Pudukottai, one of the owners of oxen, said.
Saravana Pandian of Madurai said that rekla race had been a predominant source of rearing native breeds of oxen. “If we give up these breeds, we will have to depend only on foreign breeds of cows for all our milk needs and eventually be at the mercy of those countries for the animals, their fodder and medicines,” he said.
S. Mohansamy Kumar, who has been involved in rearing oxen for rekla race for the last 40 years, said rekla race was a rural sport conducted post-harvest.
“Every festival at the village temple or family deity temple is celebrated with a race. The races are conducted not by the oxen owners but by the villagers. We only take part to entertain the villagers,” he added.
‘Cultural event’Stating that the race was like any other cultural event such as drama and dance, inter-twined with village life, V. Sathyamurthy of Kadaladi said that the sport was designed to suit the varying physical fitness of the animals.
The races were named as thenchittu, poonchittu, karichan, nadu madu and periya madu that decided the distance to be covered by the carts pulled by the pair of oxen.
The distance varied from five km to 16 km.
“We rear the oxen like our children. We spend a lot on special fodder and training like swimming sessions to keep them physically fit,” said Saravana Pandian.
“Farming activity is taken up only for six months a year. We have the sport for the next six months that binds the farmer-animal relationship even during non-farming days,” said another farmer.
The representatives of owners of oxen from 12 districts met here on Wednesday and floated a State-level association named Tamil Nadu Parambariya Mattuvandi Veeravilaiyattu Nalasangam.
“We want the State government to take more efforts to remove the Supreme Court ban. We will also implead ourselves in the case at the apex court and clarify that there was no harassment of animals in rekla race,” Mr. Kumar said.
