That time of the year and that debate again - should Jallikattu be banned?
Not fond of violence of any kind, I have never been a great fan of this game. I am not a convert either now.
The bull is tortured during jallikattu, given arrack, scared with firecrackers and made to run helter-skelter, goring and killing people in the way...
Now, the counter question - what will happen to the indigenous breed if this game is banned? They will be slaughtered... that is the fear.
All these points and counter points are frustrating. It is again and again about human beings, how they use the animals and what they do when that animal becomes useless... If a bull is bred, then, of course, it has to have an ROI and that is jallikattu. If it cannot be used for that purpose, it has to at least become meat. Or leather.
In this god-given nature, no other creature has any place if it is not useful one way or the other to man.
It occurred to me that unlike stray dogs (which are also neutered and killed because they are useless...) we do not get to see any stray cows/bulls. Do we have free horses or are they bred only in captivity?
What animal rights are we talking about then? Are we the custodians of all creatures on this earth? If a bull is useless, why not just let it roam around freely?
Long back, when I visited the beneficiaries of an NGO, I was struck by the fact that the cows they owned, when in heat, are impregnated with frozen and thawed semen of Jersey bulls. Isn't the animal allowed to even indulge in that one act one season in a year while man needs no season or reason to copulate?
The frustrating emptiness of our way of thinking does not even shame us... We question, support or dispute based purely on the assumption that the decision is for us to take.
Let the animals lead their lives. Let us lead ours... Where our lives intersect, let us respect the animal. We have a need, let us use them with maturity and restrain. But beyond that, let's not presume too much on our intelligence. Time and again, it has failed us. It is doing so on this matter too...
Not fond of violence of any kind, I have never been a great fan of this game. I am not a convert either now.
The bull is tortured during jallikattu, given arrack, scared with firecrackers and made to run helter-skelter, goring and killing people in the way...
Now, the counter question - what will happen to the indigenous breed if this game is banned? They will be slaughtered... that is the fear.
All these points and counter points are frustrating. It is again and again about human beings, how they use the animals and what they do when that animal becomes useless... If a bull is bred, then, of course, it has to have an ROI and that is jallikattu. If it cannot be used for that purpose, it has to at least become meat. Or leather.
In this god-given nature, no other creature has any place if it is not useful one way or the other to man.
It occurred to me that unlike stray dogs (which are also neutered and killed because they are useless...) we do not get to see any stray cows/bulls. Do we have free horses or are they bred only in captivity?
What animal rights are we talking about then? Are we the custodians of all creatures on this earth? If a bull is useless, why not just let it roam around freely?
Long back, when I visited the beneficiaries of an NGO, I was struck by the fact that the cows they owned, when in heat, are impregnated with frozen and thawed semen of Jersey bulls. Isn't the animal allowed to even indulge in that one act one season in a year while man needs no season or reason to copulate?
The frustrating emptiness of our way of thinking does not even shame us... We question, support or dispute based purely on the assumption that the decision is for us to take.
Let the animals lead their lives. Let us lead ours... Where our lives intersect, let us respect the animal. We have a need, let us use them with maturity and restrain. But beyond that, let's not presume too much on our intelligence. Time and again, it has failed us. It is doing so on this matter too...
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