Even as the rest of India dives into Google, Wikipedia, history books and dictionaries to figure out what “Jallikattu” is, Tamil Nadu is in ferment over the banning of this ancient sport involving the bull.
The protests may not be, as yet, on the scale of a Tahrir Square or Tiananmen, but a cocktail of resentment, anger and frustration is showing on the Marina beach in Chennai – a seemingly spontaneous protest-gathering of thousands of Tamils led by students demanding the restoration of Jallikattu.
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Not an Isolated Issue
The issue is obviously Jallikattu. But to understand the nature of the protests, unique, as it is overtly leaderless, completely voluntary and totally non-violent, Jallikattu cannot be seen in isolation.
The slogans on the beach make it clear what the issue is all about – the cry to protect “Tamil culture”. Jallikattu is but the latest in a long line of deep resentments that the state has expressed over the years, some violent others not that violent, especially when local culture is perceived to be under threat.
North vs South Debate
In fact, the people of Tamil Nadu have always made it known that there is a deep cultural disconnect between themselves and the other states, particularly to the north of India. Around the time of Independence in 1947, the Dravida Kazhagam even floated the idea of a separate southern Dravida nation, which was eventually given up.
But the simmering unease with northern India blew up into a major conflagration in 1965 when Delhi sought to make Hindi the sole official language. The resulting violence and deaths forced Delhi to backtrack and retain English, along with Hindi, as the official language.
The anti-Hindi agitation in 1965 culminated in the fall of the Congress party, identified with northern dominance in the state. In effect, the Tamils closed their doors to the major Delhi-based political parties and that is how it has remained to this day.
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Grouse of the Tamils
But why the deep distrust in Hindi? It is not that Tamil Nadu had anything against the language per se, but it was seen as the Trojan horse which would facilitate the domination by northern culture. Since then, the actions of the federal government have always been viewed with suspicion by the Tamils.
In the 1980s, when the Delhi-based government-controlled Doordarshan television channel spread its network across India, for the first time Hindi news was introduced in a prime slot before English. As protests started in Tamil Nadu, the Hindi slot was quickly replaced by Tamil only for the state feed.
The other major grouse of the Tamils was the handling of the Sri Lankan conflict by the Central government in Delhi. The fight for a separate Eelam in Sri Lanka by Tamils there was embraced by their fellow-linguists in Tamil Nadu as their own and the support for the liberation movement across the border was unbridled. Delhi, for its own reasons – internal and geopolitical – supported the homegrown Tamils right through the 1980s until the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
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Resentment Against Centre’s Insensitivity
Eighteen years later, when Velupillai Prabhakaran and his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were on their death throes, the killing of Rajiv Gandhi was all but forgotten with a chorus of pleas to Delhi to save the Tamil liberation movement. But Delhi this time did not budge and looked the other way as Colombo decimated the LTTE and all but snuffed out the insurgency.
Though this did not trigger large scale protests, Delhi’s refusal to help the Lankan Tamils was perceived by large sections in Tamil Nadu as proof that the Centre was insensitive to the feelings and the culture of the Tamils. This resentment has remained since, though not articulated extensively in public.
Into this simmering culture cauldron enters Jallikattu – another classical Tamil symbol that is celebrated in popular culture. Movies featuring Jallikattu are aplenty. Murattu Kaalai, Virumaandi and Aravaan are among the recent movies that were box-office hits.
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Arguments for and against Jallikattu may figure in the courts or in the Parliament, but the point is that the judicially-enforced ban is being viewed as yet another attempt to stifle Tamil culture. Now that Jallikattu has taken on this emotional hue, it is well-nigh impossible for the Central government and the apex court to ignore the consequences.
(KS Dakshina Murthy is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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