The Tamil community in Britain held peaceful protests outside the Indian High Commission (Aldwych), outside Wembley Stadium and East Ham high street to support the tradition of Jallikattu. More than 3000 people gathered in this cold weather at Wembley on Saturday 21st January to support the initiative. Protests were also held at Leeds and Ireland. East Ham saw many people gathered on the high street on Sunday 22nd January to voice their opinion supporting the sport.
When asked for comments from the Asian community on social media, many people came forward to share their opinion.
Diana Suja Madanraj: I'm going to reflect my husband Madan's views on this. He made a very good point of saying the practice should be allowed to continue, but needs moderation/ rules (ie to stop the people who are cruel to the bulls), and penalties applied to those who abuse it.
Abhiroop SenGupta: I am dead against it, but in the name of tradition I have an idea. May be we can a mechanised much safer version of it be made viable. For example bull riding is a rodeo sport, while we also have mechanised bull riding with safety harness for leisure & fun. We can do something like that be put into play here, using a track based moving mechanised bull.
Arundhati Mukherjee: At first the base or route on what it developed should be found out, it may so happen that those are not applicable in present days, so people may understand the reason to discontinue or start a moderate way. May be you need to explore how and why it started.
Poonam Joshi: Although I am not in favor of any animal being used for any kind of sport or entertainment or even meat but if JalliKattu is allowed it should be with strict regulations in place just like other organizations do whether its Polo or Dog race. An animal should also be treated with dignity. Men have the choice to decide if they want to get killed by a Bull, but a Bull against its will is thrown into a crowd by being fed alcohol, his tail twisted, bitten badly or beaten by sticks and causing acute distress which is totally unacceptable. And people also need to think when they talk about centuries old traditions. We also had the tradition called 'Sati' in place. If traditions were superior than someone's life then a lot of widows would still be burnt alive with their dead husbands.
Tanu Kurien Vaswani: How did this tradition come about? Are reasons still valid? Bull fighting a tradition from Spain is on the wane. They're thinking of changing traditions. So is it the same for jallikattu? I don't know enough to talk about it.
Anand Thirumoorthy: People protesting for Jallikattu are asking for a removal of ban on Jallikattu. But here is the basics of what happened and what needs to be done as explained by Karthikeya Senapathy - founder of the Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation who started this protest many years back.
In 2012 , Mr Jayaram Ramesh - minister for Environment and Forest, "defines or terms" 13 breeds of Cows and Bulls into the list of wild animals bringing it under the "Performing Animals Act". This was done out of the blue and in a very clandestine way with no one knowing about it. There was no news and no request made to him. So the only explanation is he was paid to do this by the Corporate organizations behind this.
This is the clause/rule which allowed PETA to file the ultimate case as it was filed using the laws that protect the "Performing Wild Animals". This not only banned Jallikattu but also the participation of Bulls and Cows across India in sports like Rural Olympics. So this not just affected Tamilnadu, but all states.
The Goverment cannot overrule/change Supreme Court Decision. But they can amend the act which was amended by the Jayaram Ramesh which will then lead to the invalidation of the ban. This is what the protesters should ask for.
Pooja Gadoo: This practice should be allowed with few rules imposed so that no one including animals get hurt. The irony is that PETA is banning it for animal protection and they don't care about so much animal slaughter happening in India.
Anita Ghosh: Jalikattu is about protection of one's culture and traditions, rejecting excessive political correctness and and the homogenity of ideas and ideology imposed from the privileged in cities. I understand how they feel but just wish this was not about animals. I wish they were protecting a tradition that did not cause animals to suffer.
