JALLIKATTU: WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

Hello World,

With so much rage being displayed over the ‘Ban on Jallikattu’ in the southeastern end of India, it is hard for me discuss the nonsense that I am noticing.

Firstly, last year, thousands of layoffs were announced. In the coming months most of those layoffs will be executed and more job cuts are fast approaching. 

Secondly, with 100-[or is it 150-days now?]-days-work program, labourers are increasingly not preferring factory jobs which means the manufacturing sector is facing a shortage of workers.

Thirdly, in the name of engineering, grossly misunderstood versions of the same are being thrusted into the minds of students who now have to completely rely on their own efforts to identify and learn what they need to secure their first job. [At least this is the case with this corner of India]

When the very state of survival is becoming a state of strange probabilities, for some reason, the citizens are bubbling with passion for a sport involving bulls. The surprise is not that but the fact that so many stepped out in procession demanding the legalisation of jallikattu.

This is where I find the nonsense. I am happy that there is a sense of unity growing among a section of the citizens and the passion for #jalikattu is playing a good catalyst. What I am ashamed of is the way the ‘protestors’ perceive the issue and and the methods in which they display their protest. I am absolutely frustrated at the very demands they are making. All the #jallikattu protestors are wasting their time demanding the infeasible, never mind the irrelevance.

While some are demanding a special legal provision needs to be created [an ordnance maybe], some are demanding PeTA be banned. Just when I decided I need to focus my attention elsewhere, I had the absolute misfortune of learning complete idiots demanding separation of state from union of the country in exchange for ignorance of the jallikattu issue. 

Even if one were to be a chronic alcoholic and a meth-practioner and in a fit of high, starts making the unrealistic of the demands, will you, in your senses, even imagine, if separation of state from the country will be one of them? That too when the high-flyer is passionate about a sport involving bulls.

When the need is to have the sport conducted everyone is busy explaining how all can make a difference if they stand in unison. Some made their way to the beach in Chennai. Some have made their way to the main roads and their college entrances in protest. In the end, all they ever did was stand, scream and nothing more.

If conducting the sport is of importance, the effort needs to be towards conducting the sport. Given that social media has proven its ability to send messages across large masses within short time frames, the capability needs to be leveraged, not to get to the roads but to the grounds where jallikattu can be conducted. This will bring those passionate individuals to the spots where jallikattu is conducted. They are going to watch the sport anyways, from the safest distance possible, mind you. Hardly 5% of the jallikattu crowd will even set foot into the ring with bulls. The rest are just audience. 

So when they say ‘We want jallikattu’ they are really meaning, ‘We want to watch jallikattu as the real jallikatu players chase the bulls’. 

Jallikattu has happened in the state, in rather small events. Everyone is claiming they did. Well, with all due respect, the jallikattu players did it and you watched them do it. Most of these ‘watchers’ did that on their mobile devices. 

Given the circumstances, this seems to be a situation where the local power houses are being offered a source of political mileage by their big brothers from the federal level. During the British rule, local rulers where given similar mileage where unless the local rulers paid a huge sum, the administration did not build a school [high school mostly]. This way, the innocent citizens, were driven to believe that their local zamindar/king paid from his pocket [which he did not] to get their kids the access to school education.  This is how the smaller rulers who promised allegiance to the British rule where supported by the crown.

Getting back to present, this jallikattu seems to be the game where those at the federal level are providing an opportunity to those at the regional level to establish a wave of faith and reinforce their presence so they can continue with their existing and evolving relations for motives, we need not digress into for now. I am suspecting, the message probably is ‘Let me stop something less-relevant that people are passionate about and when their anger reaches peak-performance, you make a strong request and I will accept to the demand. This way, you will remain the symbol-of-guts-that-brings-glory for your surrounding crowd and you can continue to submit yourself to my reign of nonsense. If you are happy, so am I. Are you game for it? Let’s go fool some citizens. Shall we?’

The protestors are busy claiming many versions of the legalisation of #jallikattu without focusing on the core cause, the inclusion of Bull in the list of animals that will not be used for any sport/display event. 

The 'ruling' class slowly waits to leverage this situation. Amidst the accusations, what they are about to establish still remains outside the focus areas of the general public, including the protestors. This gameplay is looking to fool the general public in large scale by giving them the feeling that it is them, the 'ruling' class who took up the issue and got #jallikattu legalised. In the end they successfully created a 'demand' and are taking the credits for providing the 'supply'. The wave of voters posting selfies with dotted fingers will only grow. That is the real reason behind this entire drama being orchestrated by the 'ruling' class. The economy has grown so much that citizens are busy with their own lives. The rulers need newer reasons to build their business on without doing the actual public service. The only way is the enrage the public with trivial 'designed situations' and then appease them with a suitable 'political solution.' Digressing here, I still don't understand why the voting public is still sticking to political parties. They can as well vote independent candidates. If independent candidates get the attention they deserve, the parties will resort to more meaningful ways than requesting the centre ban traditions and build vote-bank out of it. I don't think, the protestors have the awareness to ask the question, 'Why parties? Let it be independent forever' just because they don't want to be in a situation where they seem naive or specifically without a mouth-shut answer. This is the heuristics that has been leveraged by the 'ruling' class for centuries across the planet. But that's a democracy joke which is slightly off-topic for this post.

While the region is beginning to ride the wave of victory over the fact that groups of 15 managed to drag their farming bulls into dirt and claimed conducting jallikattu, what remains unaltered is the fact that the ban on the sport is live.

On a very different note, for some reason, a sport largely associated with a festival of a specific religion, often practiced in or around the temples of the same specific religion is being projected as the sport of the larger ethnic group being named after a language. Unfortunately, that larger ethnic group [based on the language] comprises more than one religion which do not cover this specific festival or the temples. This jallikattu, while being claimed as the identity of a language based ethnic group is merely a sport closely associated with a festival of a specific religion often practiced in front of places of worship associated with that specific religion alone. 

I am not surprised that this fact remains incomprehensible for the larger segment of the population. They are just not equipped enough to understand the concept of realistic segmentation. They are however, very emotional individuals who will not give up on anything that is thrown at them with their ethnic identity as the package. 

Civil disobedience, can be non-participance when something is forced on citizens or wilful practice of something that is banned. When such is the state, the 43rd distantly remote option of making a human chain along the beach and blocking the main roads are gaining prominence which to me means, absolute nonsense is gaining prominence. In a democracy, citizens have the right to display civil disobedience. So when something important is banned they can very well go ahead and practice it to display protest. But if they choose to do other theatricals to gain media limelight, then that becomes the case study for a failed democracy, largely on the basis of the demos being irrevocably stupid.

All I can ask is …… When will they ever learn?

Update as of 19th Jan:

There it comes, the metaphorical 'Aapu' [sharpe wedge] for the protests. Again, the fact of the situation is that the intentions of the public/protestors is right but their efforts are headed in the wrong direction.

In the interest of those whose brains are blocked by their perceived concepts of 'confidence' and 'conviction', I would like to break this down further:

There are laws prohibiting bribes and there are laws that demand all motorcyclists wear helmets. Bribes continue to be given and taken. There are many riders who don't bother about the helmets. I would assume this rings a bell [I am not in the mood to hallucinate though].

While rationality demands those who are really passionate about the sport, might very well play it in their own towns, what's happening now is very odd [I am using empathy here, trust me]. The problem is #jallikattu proponents want to conduct the sport with a large audience where the event involves lakhs of rupees in prize money and the other business opportunities around it. 

If that is really not the issue, the bull owners can meet every Sunday morning with their bulls, at grounds at the outskirts of their respective villages and play the sport as long as they want. There are soft and hard tennis ball cricket tournaments. There can be a #jallikattu tournament every month if not weekly. Now, the problem is, the religious and caste-dominated social behaviour cannot happen if the sport is democratised this way. Those who dominated want to dominate the same way they used to. The players don't want to just chase the bulls. They want to chase the bulls in front of a big audience with a huge prize money waiting for them. 

Now everyone will focus on how one should first understand the concept of #jallikattu and the methodology behind the sport. 

The protestors seem focused on 'Uprising of Youth' 'Rising of the Student Power' and how an ethnic group stands up for its cultural rights. I may be very wrong here but I can only describe and comment what I observe.

One can either hold a hero's image or get their favorite sport into practice. Those who want the ban to be live need to engage the crowd on banning PeTA, establishing a state as a separate country and how international companies are dominating their cultural roots. 

Again, all I can ask is 'When will they ever learn?'....

Update as of 20th Jan:

The students and youth asked the political parties to stay away from them during the protest and they are maintaining that stand even now. However, now, the political class has planned for rail roko. So the 'youth-only' protest now is a multi-dimensional protest with one dimension controlled by the political class. The fast approaching irony is that the political class will invite the students to the railway stations and then declare that the parties have joined hands with the students and youth. From then on, any criminal act that happens will be thrown on everyone involved in the protest, including students and youth. Their absence in the real sense will be ignored once the political class claims their joining hands with the students and youth. By now, the ruling class would have asked around the admin circle about the possible repercussions of any protest activity and choose the safest protest zones for their respective political parties. In the end, the efforts of students and youth is about to be misused in a large scale effort.

Again....when will they ever learn?

Update as of 20th Jan [Evening]:

Now that a promise for a state-level law has been made, the law is yet to be passed. The political class have finally established their control over this issue. 

From now on, it will be the 'PARTIES' which will claim, their efforts at local and federal levels resulted in the special law.

The point is, this could have happened anytime in the past. Unfortunately there was no need. Now that a 'demand' has been created, the 'supply' is being prepared by the political class. 

While most of the protestors will claim the youth and students did it, after a few weeks it will be the 'PARTIES' who will hold the limelight for doing something ground-breaking. 

When the citizens have multiple pressing issues related to their well being, the political class picks a distant yet sentimental area and installs a tailor-made chaos. The citizens get all raged up and when they reach a state of despair, the political class presents a solution. 

The solution is not there yet. By the time the solution is delivered and it is ready to meet the next obstacle, the protesting citizens will be back to their busy lives, some thinking their unity got them their victory and the rest blaming others for not supporting early on. 

The political class will get back to business as usual. They are fairly new here, they needed something that will stay on their cap for a while. That's why this ban-drama was written and directed.

Meanwhile, the political class can have their youth wing cadres dressed in black, without any party logo/mercandise commit small acts of vandalism so that 'students and youth' get branded as hooligans. While the chances for this are low, the potential impact will be too much to handle. 

Still don't believe it? Look at this screenshot below:

The court order is being purposely delayed to buy time for the regional political class to create local law and claim that as a victory of their respective PARTY. This way, the protesting citizens will assume their local political class has delivered value against a not-so-friendly federal political class. The order could go in any direction but that is still being delayed on purpose. Nobody cared for the order until protests erupt and when that does erupt, the process is delayed. If this is not a clever plan to create a 'hero' out of a political class, then what else could it be?

Still finding it harder to believe? Have a look at this:

What could have happened years before is happening just now. out of the blue all the procedures and processes have the room to accommodate this immediate request. If the request had been anything more relevant, it would not have got this attention. 

Now look at this:

This 'fast-food-law' might not end up on the right side of the constitution for long. What if this short term effort appeases the protestors and the issue goes back to square-1 in a few weeks time? 

All I see is, a game of big brother helping little brother establish a new hero's image in front of his home audience. Banning a sport is a mere trigger and the scores of youth and students are mere pawns who voluntarily brought themselves forward and are risking their well being.

If the animal rights have to be upheld, why add the bull to the non-performer list? What if the jallikattu sport started using other animals and the abuse went to a whole new level? When the real solution is in regulating jallikattu, why is the usage of one animal being banned rendering the game invalid? 

If you are still finding it hard to even consider this angle, look a this:

The activist organization's Indian chapter was founded in 2000. The ban on using bulls in Jallikattu came in 2014. 

An activist organization that is capable of investigating secret and privately organized acts of cruelty to animals in labs and slaughterhouses, took a little over a decade to get to jallikattu, which although rural, was a fairly popular festival-sport played in public view year after year. What stopped the them for over 10 years and what supported the activist group out of the blue? Ban on bulls could have happened years before 2014. What stopped them until 2014? 

Big corporations do have deep pockets and they can always offer a higher price in exchange for any conversion or upgrade. They don't have to 'ban' the usage of an animal and disrupt a sport. They have other profitable options which I am sure they are working on.  

This is a case of 'Political Acts of Brotherhood Among the Political Class' which just happened to play around with the emotions of the citizens. 

And still everyone is busy looking to claim a cultural victory assuming the game being played is all they care about. 

Again, when will they ever learn?.....

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Best regards,