A lot of dust has been raised, not by the bulls participating in Jallikattu, but by people who speak for and against this ancient sport. Those who speak in favour of the sport are more vociferous than those who support a ban. Rightly or wrongly, the many people in Tamil Nadu feel that their tradition, their culture, are being destroyed.
This sport, of taming wild bulls, has been there for centuries in some parts of South India, notably Madurai, Sivaganga, Dindigul and Pudukottai districts of Tamil Nadu. What’s more, it may have been prevalent in ancient days in North India too. A seal belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation period, preserved in the National Museum in Delhi, shows a bull tossing a man, who was possibly trying to tame it. That is some evidence that some form of what is now called Jallikattu existed even 3,000 years ago.
Additional evidence is available in the Sangam literature of Tamil Nadu where there are details of what was then known as Eru Thazhuvuthal, hugging the bulls. From the ancient poetic literature of the Sangam period, which dates back to many centuries before Christ, there are several references to bull-taming as a sport used to measure men’s valour. The era when these poems were composed is known the Sangam period. The poems from this period number about 2,381 and are said to be composed by about 473 poets.
It is obvious from the poems that money (salli) in small bags was tied (kattu) to the horn of a bull (Eru), and brave youth were required to hug (Thazhuvudhal) and hold on to the hump of the bull and untie the bag and take the money away as a prize. The sport which involved embracing the bull (Eru Thazhuvudhal ) was then known as Sallikattu. Over the years, it has come to be known as Jallikattu.
Many of the 2,381 poems of the Sangam period describe the strength, breed and colour of the bulls that took part in the sport. They also provide a graphic description of the attitude of parents and how the girls teased one another. They show that the girls desired that the youth they were in love with would emerge victorious in embracing the bulls.
Kuravaikooththu, a collection of folk songs sung by teenage girls, also has references to embracing the bull. Some songs urge the boyfriends to take part in embracing the bulls. Some others describe how the girls celebrated the victory of their lovers. Others depict how boys who succeeded in the sport were most sought-after by girls. Valour was much-admired.
The 102nd verse from Mullaikali – Ezhunthana thugal Ettranar maarbu Kavizhthana maruppu Kalanginar palar – describes a scene at a bull-taming contest, dust rising in the air, able physiques (of tamers), enraged bulls trying to conquer as well as excited and agitated spectators.
Kollerru Koduanju Vaanai marumayum
pullaalay Aayamagal
The Kalithogai verse mentions that a girl would not marry a youth, even in his next birth, if he hesitated to hug a bull.
In Silapathikaram, the Aayichiyar kuravai also gives a vivid description of the sport.
In the fifth volume of his book Castes & Tribes of Southern India, Edgar Thurston has written that it was a game worthy of bold and free people. It was regrettable that certain Collectors (District Magistrates) should have discouraged it under the idea that it was somewhat dangerous. He has written that an enraged bull lowered its head and charged at the people. But when a man dropped on the sand, the bull leapt over his body instead of goring him. He has pointed out that the bulls never trampled on the people lying down. If any one was hurt, it was because he was not vigilant. That was not too often.
It must also be pointed out that rarely were the participating bulls injured or harmed in any way, unlike in Spain, Portugal and Mexico, where the bulls are ultimately killed. In those countries, it is considered an art form and a highly ritualised cultural event which is deeply tied to Spanish culture and identity. Matador, the principal performer, thrusts a sword between the shoulder blades of the bull and kills it. In Jallikattu, no harm is done to the bull.
Besides being a sport, Jallikattu also has a bearing on the local economy. Bulls are reared from the time they are calves. Virile bulls are in great demand as they are used to sire calves. “While land is our immovable property, bulls are our movable property,” declare some farmers. Some of the bulls that take part in Jallikattu fetch as much as Rs 2 lakh. There would be no incentive to rear bulls if Jallikattu was banned, declare farmers.
It is to be noted that only native bulls are allowed to participate in Jallikattu. There are five native breeds now. A sixth, known as Alambadi, has become extinct. There were more than 1.1 million Kangeyam bulls at one time. They have now come down to just 15,000. It is these bulls that are extensively used in Jallikattu. If they are not allowed to participate in the sport, the locals fear that not only the famed Kangeyam bulls but also the other breeds may become extinct.
There was a time when bulls were extensively used in agriculture. They were essential for ploughing the fields and for drawing the carts. With mechanised agriculture, where tractors are used, there is little use for the bulls. If the ban is not revoked, farmers may not raise local livestock. They point out that when the stress is on conserving electric and fossil energy, animal energy would be useful, as in yesteryears.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the main opponent of Jallikattu, claims to operate “under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment, while educating policymakers and the public about animal abuse and promoting an understanding of the right of all animals to be treated with respect.”
A supporter of Jallikattu asks why PETA is concerned only with animals. He wants it to extend its principle to include birds also. He points out that every day several lakhs of chicken are transported in cages in which they cannot even stand. When animals are “not ours to eat,” has PETA done anything to prevent the slaughter of cows, bulls, goats and sheep, not only in India but also in foreign countries? No wonder film actor Kamal Haasan says people should stop eating biryani.
“The lives of lakhs of animals are being extinguished every day to feed the people. PETA and the Supreme Court are keeping quiet, while they seem very concerned about a few bulls,” says one of those demanding that the ban on Jallikattu be revoked. Another supporter says that in horse racing, the horses are goaded with electric whips. There have been occasions when a horse, while running, has stumbled and broken a leg, only to be put to sleep later. “Why is PETA not bothered about it?” asks another supporter of Jallikattu.
Should it be banned or not ? Well , that’s a question for the society to answer and the judiciary to understand and comprehend in its entirety.
What are your view on it ? Write in comment sections.
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.