The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the conduct of jallikattu in Tamil Nadu during Pongal festival in January next year in accordance with the law enacted by it for regulation of the event. A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra refused the stay when senior counsel Aryma Sundaram, appearing for the Animal Welfare Board, pleaded for it.
After hearing Additional Advocate General Guru Krishnakumar for Tamil Nadu, the Bench issued notice to the Board on a petition seeking transfer of the cases pending before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court filed by the Board last year for adjudication by the Supreme Court.
In the transfer petition, the State stated that jallikattu was governed by the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Jallikattu Act, 2009.
A writ petition challenging this law was pending before this court. While so, in July 2011, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a notification bringing bulls under Section 22 of Chapter V of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
Keywords: jallikattu, bull fight, jallikattu guidelines
I am having difficulty understanding what is so "ignorant" about
Jallikattu, as Mr Kannan puts it. Bullfighting is practiced everywhere
from Spain to Japan in many cultures, and Jallikattu is uniquely Tamil.
While I agree that some aspects of it may be detrimental to animals,
the SC or government should simply promulgate guidelines for safety of
both the participants and animals involved.
You don't get rid of sports practiced, which is apparently from the
Indus Valley Civilisation (according to an article form the Hindu I
once read) because of the views of a very narrow group of people.
That'll be setting a very detrimental precedent for the whole of Indian
culture, never mind the Tamil culture.
Such practices can go away only when all people introspect more and more what culture means to them as individuals.
I feel, being myself a Tamil guy, that it is really regrettable that a few groups of people of Tamil Nadu are adamant in sticking to this age-old “jallikattu” (Bull Taming Sport) as part of the Pongal festival celebrations. To torture innocent animals and seek pleasure in it is sort of cruel and brutal primitive idea. People should scrutinize their regional cultural practices according to development and changes in science and technology in other parts of the world. I strongly argue that such sports have no relevance to the prevailing appalling social and economic conditions there. Though an appeal to ban this torturous sport is already in the public domain and judiciary, its final end is prevented by narrow minded-regional political parties and groups, with boastful claims to be the so-called champions of Tamil Culture, that are ready to cash in on such cultural ‘ignorance’. Even the Supreme Court has just restated in refined modern legal words what thousands of years of old traditional norms of cruel sport of the Jallikattu had justified!!
Good decision.
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