The widespread protests to lift the ban on Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu reached unprecedented levels. The protests which were started by the students on the sands of Marina beach in Chennai quickly spread throughout the state. In every district headquarter, the students participated in large gatherings and have stayed round the clock for more than a week. There are many finer points that are to be noticed in the protests which is being labelled as an uprising.
Jallikattu Marked Identity of Valour
The word Jallikattu is a medieval misnomer that denotes the prize money that is tied on the horns of a bull. The able youths who tame the bull are entitled to the prize money. This sport has been played in Tamil Nadu, especially in the environs of Madurai, from the ancient days. It has been depicted in the Tamil literary canons of the Sangam age as Eeru Thazuvudal, meaning the “embrace of the bull”. Thus, this “embracing of the bull” as it is originally called, is an act that reminisces the domesticating of wild cattle to the farming needs, and it is a sport that reminds of the organic relationship between man and animal.
Jallikattu, as it is popularly called, has variants like Manju Viratu, which denotes just the chasing of bulls. The sport of Jallikattu is part of Pongal festivities. It is organised during the third day of Pongal marked as Maattu Pongal – a Pongal for the cow.
Pongal, being a festival that is free from any myth or puranic legend, is the prime festival of the Tamils and revolves around the celebration of farming and agriculture. It is a known fact that the Tamils belong to an agricultural community at large and many of the current social practices of the Tamils are still connected to their agrarian past. The 2,000-year-old Tamil literary anthologies are divided into two genres – that of Agam (household; romance) and Puram (worldly; chivalrous).
The Jallikattu tradition is drawn from the Puram genre and is a marked identity of valour. Thus the raison d’être of Jallikatu can be easily understood, given the background of Pongal and the culture of Tamils.
What Led to the Uprising?
Though Jallikattu was in trouble for the past few years and there were pro-Jallikattu agitations, this year witnessed sudden and unprecedented uprising by the student community for the lifting of the ban. The students are leading agitations on their own and any delegation of political parties are unwelcome and are sent back from the venues.
The reasons for the uprising are manifold. There are reasons that are intrinsic and there are reasons ascribed. The supposed reasons and the attributed repercussions of this year’s agitations range from cultural identity to sedition charges.
The agitations by student groups are spontaneous but not instantaneous. This unprecedented level of uprising is an aggregation of various other resentments and reflects the general mood of the masses on the recent happenings in the backdrop of India’s as well as Tamil Nadu’s social scenario. On the surface, the denial of Jallikattu in the recent years may be the prima facie reason. But on the deeper level, the state has long been perceived to be at the receiving end on various fronts by the Tamils.
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Tamil Nadu’s Anguish
Among the perennial problems of Tamil Nadu is that of its riparian rights on the rivers that are a lifeline for its agricultural economy. The Cauvery waters are a source of tussle for the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with the Centre often seen as playing its mediator role to favour Karnataka. Last year, as the Supreme Court pressed the Karnataka Government to release the Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu and also asked the Centre to set up the Cauvery Management board, both the Karnataka state and the Central government deferred the orders.
Another persistent problem is that of Tamil Nadu fishermen’s fight with the Sri Lankan authorities in their traditional fishing waters. Here too, the Tamils harbour deep bitterness for the central and state governments, citing their failure in their respective roles. Also the language policy of the centre, which is favourably tilted towards Hindi and Sanskrit, has made the Tamils of the south feel as a marginalised ‘Other’. Tamil Nadu is a state that prides in its lingual and literary richness.
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Pacifying the People of Tamil Nadu
As such, antipathies have resided at the subliminal level among the Tamils for quite sometime, and the continued ban on Jallikattu has just given the needed impetus to release a deep-seated feeling of opposition. The recent Jallikattu agitations are visible marks of a long-felt victimhood by the Tamils at the hands of both the governments, especially the Centre for its failure to keep distance between its subject states and its unwelcome intervention in the traditions of the state.
The Jallikattu ban is perceived as an added insult to the existing list of disappointments. Jallikattu agitations are not just for sport or for the exhibition of masochism and animal cruelty but for the assertion of an identity. The long-pending grievances and the accumulated antagonism of the Tamils are finding a vent in Jallikattu agitations. The governments at the Centre and state must look into the sentiments of the masses and attend to the needs of the state in a just and fair manner.
(The author is an Assistant Professor, based in Chennai and can be reached @teach_new. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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