TN promulgates ordinance for holding bull-taming sport, crowd stays put
Chennai : Taking the first big step towards ending the ”Tamil Spring”, the Tamil Nadu Government on Saturday promulgated an ordinance facilitating the conduct of jallikattu, the ancient bull-taming sport. Soon after Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao gave his assent to the ordinance, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam declared that all hurdles in the way of conducting jallikattu have been cleared.
Soon after the announcement, the Madurai district administration initiated ste-ps to conduct the sport and began cordoning off the sporting arena in Alanganallur, the most globally renown-ed arena for the sport, to hold the event on Sunday. Howev-er, hundreds of protestors forced the authorities to suspend the work. The protes-tors contended that an ordinance was only a temporary solution and they wanted a guarantee that the bull-taming sport will be conducted year-after-year without any problems irrespective of the Supreme Court”s impend- ing judgment in a case relating to the legality of the banned event.
The Government had in its ordinance removed bulls from the list of “performing animals” under the Prevention of Cruelty Act. Originally, the Central Government had included bulls in the list of “performing animals”, which essentially meant that bulls cannot be paraded in a sporting arena.
Appealing to the people to give up their peaceful protest that has been going on for over a week in Madurai and four days in Chennai and other places, the Chief Minister said, “This is the permanent solution to conduct jallikattu. The ordinance shall be valid for six months. Before that we need to enact a legislation notifying the amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty Act (which is in the concurrent list). We shall do that in the coming Assembly session which begins next week. There will be no more hurdles,” Panneerselvam said.
The Chief Minister then flew to Madurai hoping to release the first bull from the Vaadi Vaasal (the waiting area for bulls) for bull tamers to go after them and display their valour. “I appeal to the people including students and women to participate in the jallikattu in large numbers,” he said adding that the sport will be conducted in other popular places such as Palamedu and Avaniapuram in the coming days.
Madurai Collector Veeraraghava Rao too held talks with the jallikattu committee members and urged them to conduct the event. He said he had convinced the people that this is the permanent solution at hand.
A statement issued from Raj Bhavan also expressed the hope that life would return to normalcy and all would return to their homes now that jallikattu is set to organised.
However, several lakh people stayed put at the protest venues in Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchi, Coimbatore and elsewhere saying they will not leave unless they are assured of a permanent solution in the form of a legislation. Incidentally, in Madurai and a few other places, people braved rains to remain at the protest venues on Saturday.
