Jallikattu must stop! : Blog #286

Jallikattu must stop!

Let me begin by saying that I have the greatest regard for Tamil Nadu and the people from there. Some of my dearest friends are from Tamil Nadu. Having said that, I feel there is a need to have a hard look at this cruel practice of Jallikattu which many people from Tamil Nadu seem to be supporting. It is beyond doubt that this “tradition” involves cruelty towards animals. Imagine a poor animal being tortured and trained to be aggressive all its life. What kind of an existence will it have? And one fine day, it is let loose to a crowd waiting to attack and surmount it. The bull is out there not putting up a performance for us. It is undergoing a great deal of trauma.

Now, the strongest argument that comes across is that it is part of tradition. There are good traditions and bad ones. Don’t you think this practice leans more towards the bad side of the continuum? Of course traditions add value and flavor to our existence. But are our existences so weak that it gets affected by preventing a practice which involves harassing a poor animal? Shouldn’t we take pride in doing away with such a practice and show to the world that we are moving ahead collectively?

There is a visible pattern to the responses coming across. Largely, people in Tamil Nadu want to continue this practice. They do not look at this as something which harms the animal. This is a trap that all of us fall in to. Many a time, we are too close – literally and figuratively to the subject/topic that we fail to look at the larger picture. We lose a bit of objectivity.

A while ago, I had written a blog supporting the usage of elephants for festivals in Kerala (Link : An Open letter to Pamela Anderson ). Back then, I couldn’t see the torture that elephants go through just so that our eyes can have a feast. Not that I wasn’t aware of it. Just that I refused to see it. One of my colleagues told me that educated, well read people do not even participate in the debate. I feel that is true. We do not even make a conscious effort to discuss the rights and wrongs about it. Now when I look back, I feel I lacked objectivity to a great deal. Today I feel the practice of using elephants for festivals need to stop. Although during festivals, many precautions are taken to ensure that they aren’t harmed, elephants belong in the wild. It takes a great deal of torture and confinement to break their spirit and control them so that they listen to the mahout. This needs to stop.

An actor as intelligent as Kamal Hassan should have refrained from making the comparison to biryani.  It trivializes the whole debate. No doubt, it is a very popular argument. But it is not a very intelligent one. The reason being, food is about existence and entertainment is about fun. Lack of entertainment will not kill people but lack of food can. Should we stop killing animals for food? May be we should. But I feel that is too idealistic an argument to make.  May be years down the line, when we have enough sources of food, we should try and stop killing animals too.

Most of us will not willingly harm even an ant. Then why are we failing to SEE the cruelty that we are committing towards these animals in the name of tradition?

Tweet