Indian Festival Sports and Cruelty to Animals
Not without profound wisdom did the saying, “Man is the most cruel
animal on earth,” emerge
and we see the whole history of human civilization full of gruesome bloodsheds in
genocidal conflicts leading to extermination of big chunks of its own species and
in egregious cruelty toward and extinction of countless bio-species. The very conduct of
taming and making pets/draught
animals of various animals and birds is doubtless much cruelty to them; one
shudders to even think of what would be our ‘fate’ if those species were to
grow more intelligent/powerful and retaliate in kind on us. This much clearly said, it is also to be
clarified that the sport of ‘Jallikattu’ which has been considered as involving
cruelty to animals and its conduct provisionally banned by the Apex Court does
not in fact involve any stark cruelty to animals, save that perpetrated in
taming animals and, moreover, has assumed the nature of a cultural tradition
cherished and now being assiduously agitated for by Tamil people. It has
already been clarified in this journal earlier that “Jallikattu is a traditional sport of running
with and catching bulls let loose wildly on the occasion of crops festival (Sankranthi/Pongal) days in some parts of Tamil Nadu and also in
some villages of Chittoor district … … more euphorically held in Tamil Nadu
with people’s emotions and sentiments attached to it. Bulls are only tamed but
not killed unlike in the Spanish and French bullfights. Rather, the bull tamers
often get injured and at times some even get killed. When the European Courts
themselves allow the sanguine sport of bullfighting in the name of artistic
expression and longstanding local tradition, there was no reason for our Apex Court to
insist on banning it.” The same argument holds for the cock fights
held in many Telugu districts during Sankranti festivals, though those appear
bloodier and one of the cocks is almost invariably killed. But then, we cannot
also overlook that chicken [meat] is
one of the choicest meats cherished by a big majority of the people in India, and
crores of those birds are artificially reared in poultry farms and cruelly killed
in huge abattoirs. So are lakhs of cattle, especially buffaloes, killed “in revolting manner in big mechanized slaughter
houses and their meat exported abroad to make … India the largest exporter of beef
in the world – all this done legally without any scruples or any
real protest/resistance from
the so-called societies for prevention of cruelty to animals or any
administrative/ judicial bodies.” So, the best
solution lies in Courts not banning those, but directing the framing of strict
regulations to eliminate, to the utmost extent possible, the cruelty and other related
vices in their conduct. §§§
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