Jallikattu: What, How and Why – The History of A Contested Sport

Everything you need to know about Jallikattu – origin, ban and impact on farmers.

After the statewide protests in 2017, Jallikattu has become legal again.

(Photo: PTI)

Music: Navneeth Sundar, Big Bang Fuzz
Producer & Editor: Vikram Venkateswaran

It's that time of the year when youngsters across Tamil Nadu share WhatsApp forwards and FB statuses with a charging bull and a man in bright yellow shorts and T-Shirt holding on to its hump.

Televisions across TN will play ‘Padayappa’, ‘Virumaandi’ or other films where the hero reins in the bull; rarely credulously, mostly not. And let's not forget animal rights activists protesting vehemently against this violent sport that espouses cruelty to animals.

Welcome, to Jallikattu, Tamil Nadu's most controversial sport.
#TamilPride. Also #Jallikattu.

Origins

In 2017, after thousands gathered in protest at the Marina in Chennai, and tens of thousands more across Tami Nadu, conducting Jallikattu became legal again.

Oh, sorry. Let me start from the beginning. It’s almost impossible to imagine Tamil Nadu as it was a few thousand years ago. But Sangam literature from that time allows us beautiful glimpses of the agrarian culture, the four types of landscapes – plains, hills, forests and the sea.

And of course, the Jallikattu sport from 2,300 years ago!

Jalli - Kattu

Jallikattu is the colloquial corruption of the word ‘Sallikkattu’. Sallie means coins. And Kattu is the string bag that’s still popular in villages in south India today.
It refers the bag of coins tied to the horns of the bull, which contestants had to get hold of. Or at least try.

The sport was also called Yaeru Thazhuvuthal, which means, hugging the bull.
With stands on each side and a narrow pathway softened with ploughed earth. The bull is allowed to run from the ‘Vaadivaasal’, an opening or arch through the passageway where contestants try to hug the bull from the flanks and hold on to it for a few seconds.

Today, the count is a minimum of seven seconds.

Tamil culture, as with agrarian traditions across India, shares a special bond with the cow, bull and the domestic hen.

Of the fifteen or so different breeds of cattle once thriving in the state, only seven or eight survive. Through generations of selective breeding and animal husbandry, the farmers created and strengthened these breeds; some of which yield milk, others that take to ploughing like it’s second nature, and a few who can carry huge loads with ease.

The pinnacle or top model of each breed is the Jallikattu bull, raised for the sport and used for breeding as a stud bull, once the bull retires at eight or nine years.

Politics and Jallikattu

There have been repeated attempts to ban the sport due to complaints of cruelty against the animals for about two decades now, and for good reason. The rules of the game grew lax over the years and both bulls and men have died. Between 2008-14, 43 humans and 4 bulls died during their participation in the sport.

In the standoff between the Supreme Court, animal rights activists and the farmers, much has happened since 2014. Jallikattu is now a legal sport again in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the statewide protests that erupted in January 2017.

But the sport since then has become a symbol of ‘Tamil Pride’, a trope that is being used by politicians across the state to claim ownership of that elusive concept of ‘Tamil Identity’.

With due consultation and consideration with and to the farmers, who are the real stakeholders, the sport needs to be made safer for both man and bull. That’s the only way it can survive for a few generations more.

On that note, a Happy Pongal and Jallikattu to you!