FESTIVAL EXTRAVAGANZA- JALLIKATTU

               

             A festival or a gala occasion is often centered to a particular community or a society. Over time, the tradition and practice change as this isn’t followed in some places or the fact is that the mode of celebration and merriness changes from time to time. Many religions follow festivals constrained to them and their ritual way of commemorating it. Usually a festival is associated with a traditional dance, song, game or rituals to be performed. Jallikattu is one such game in Tamil Nadu which is nothing but the art of taming the bull.

          As a part of ‘Pongal’ celebrations in Tamil Nadu, Jallikattu is a bull taming sport which is usually played during ‘mattu pongal’ (the festival pongal is celebrated for three days. The third day is celebrated as mattu pongal, when bulls and cows are worshipped). This is a tradition old game which has evolved from popular Tamil classical period and which is being followed in villages of Tamil Nadu even today.

          This form of sport is mostly centered to Madurai district. But it has become a legendary game in villages of other districts like Alanganallur, Tiruvapur, Sravayal near Karaikudi, Kanduppatti near Sivagangai etc. There is a strenuous training of the Jallikattu bulls and are fed with complete nutritious food to compensate and withstand the preparation.

          This game today, is under a serious threat to several bullfighters and villagers who come to participate. There have been numerous deaths and severe injuries to them every time when Jallikattu happens. This has led cases to the Supreme Court concerning risk to the public safety. Copious oppose from animal activists, public and Animal Welfare Board of India were remonstrating this issue. Another reason about this sport is that, this was a game for the girls in the village or the locality to choose their apt life partner who is bold, strong and intellectual. As time passed by, this has become a business for a few. In some cases, there have been investments on this game and this has rather become like a bet game at times. The beauty of this game lies in the Vadam manjuvirattu which is a version of Jallikattu in which the bull is tied to a 50-foot-long rope and is free to move within this space. The training is not only given to the bull. But an arduous practice to the bull fighters or the matadors which has been progressed from years, involves building body and stamina.

         This sport or game is one of the age old traditions of Tamil Nadu. But the controversies behind it today, which implicated in killing and injuring hundreds of people is still on the run as many organizations and NGO’s are opposing this game.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

            “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington.

          The article 19 (1) (a) in the fundamental rights say that the freedom lies in a citizen to express his/her views and opinion in any conceivable means including by words of mouth, writing, printing, pictures, banners, signs and even by way of silence. This right has a broad purpose to serve. It helps an individual to attain self fulfillment and assists in discovery of truth by making them express and communicate their desires and beliefs. An opinion is considered to be self estimation. But when it is conveyed to a broad audience, every individual has a dissimilar grab towards it.

            The presumption of a truth or a fact which is put across might have a negative impact in the society which happens often. Rather than looking it as a political right, people make it obvious that the opinion turns as a conflict among a particular community as the words might harm or hurt their community, religion, cast, creed or sect.

            Now the movie ‘Vishvaroopam’ by eminent actor, director and dancer Kamal Haasan hitting the screens all over the world after the release of the ban from screening it, people are giving multiple comments to it. The Tamil Nadu state government banned the release of ‘Vishvaroopam’ for two weeks when around 25 Muslim organizations objected to Kamal’s movie on the ground that it portrays the community in bad light. Made with the budget of 95 crores, the movie typically portrays the life of a Khathak dancer who gets aware of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group’s plot to plant a Cesium-bomb in New York City. He was later described as a Muslim RAW agent whose mission is to blast the sleeper cells in connection with the New York bomb blast conspire. In association with this, the Muslim groups in Tamil Nadu and across the country have demanded to cut 15 scenes from the movie as it depicted their community in a wrong sense.

Rasiya Banu, a student from Chennai said that, “the movie is really appealing and had brought out more than what we had expected. Though the movie illustrates a larger part of our community and terrorists from Afghanistan, it reveals the truth and there is no representation of a wrong thing about our community or god.” Few population think that its mere expression of truth. While, a larger group of public look at it as it has been directed to hurt a particular sect. This is similar to the case of the movie ‘Dam 999’ which was banned in Tamil Nadu considering “people’s safety” as it critically analyzed the Mullaiperiyar Dam dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Now since Indians are meant to be more conservative and conformists (as many of us do not include our country in the list of avant-garde countries), they are more traditioned to their society and casts. India is the country mixed with casts and creed and religion as we say ‘Unity in Diversity’. Such movies are thus seen as a disgrace to a religion or an organization and not as a fact to analyze and think.

Now coming back to the freedom of speech, all of us have the right to pose opinion on a particular topic or an issue. But we do not have the right to neither insult nor pin-point a particular group of inhabitants or utter any comments that could wound them. There have been numerous hate speeches and opinion by politicians, journalists and bureaucrats. One such news was about an Indian political psychologist and a social theorist Asish Nandy, who was in the news recently. He blamed OBC’s, SC’s and ST’s for corruption menace in the country. He made a controversial statement at Jaipur Literature Festival that "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBC and the Scheduled Caste sections, and now the Scheduled Tribes. The maximum amount of corruption these days is by Dalits, the backward and the oppressed classes," he said. This triggered a major disagreement and clash between SC, ST and dalit groups for discouraging them in public and misleading the public’s view towards their communities.

He has been quoted as “misusing his intellectual powers” by dalit writer Chandrabhan Prasad who voiced his views on him at IBN LIVE recently. However Nandy stood firm by his statement saying that his opinion was misquoted and misinterpreted by the media. Such statements which deeply throbs and insults a particular sect should not be said in public which forms a dishonor to the people belonging to the community.

Is this called freedom of speech or expression? The right is made only to raise their voice and views and opinion in any form but not identifying people or a group of people and affronting them publicly.