Jallikattu and Jailbirds

The year has started with two reversals for conservation and animal welfare. In Rajasthan, the High Court has acquitted actor Salman Khan in the infamous blackbuck poaching case and in Tamil Nadu the state has promulgated an ordinance that overturns the Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu, the ancient sport of bull taming. Both are unrelated cases that are only linked overtly by the fact that they deal with animals, one wild and the other domesticated. But I have been fascinated by both for the fundamental lessons that they give those of us who wish to protect the natural world.

- Vivek Menon

TAMING THROUGH TALKING

Let us start with Jallikattu. This sport of bull taming is an ancient Tamil practice that involves training and letting certain prize bulls of native breeds into arenas where contestants tame them by hanging on to their humps. Taming bulls is not essentially a Tamil sport. The Spanish revel in bullfights, the Texans round up cattle in rodeos and even the Epic of Gilgamesh records the sport of bullfighting some 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. The epic Mesopotamian poem narrates: “The Bull seemed indestructible, for hours they fought, till Gilgamesh dancing in front of the Bull, lured it with his tunic and bright weapons, and Enkidu thrust his sword, deep into the Bull’s neck, and killed it.” There are Indus Valley seals that depict the sport and cave paintings of bulls and men in apparent fighting or taming postures.