Jallikattu festival begins in Sri Lanka's Trincomalee

TRINCOMALEE [Sri Lanka]: Sri Lanka hosted its first Jallikattu in Triconmalee with the country's Eastern Province Governor Senthil Thondaman and Malaysia's member of parliament Saravanan Murugan flagged off the event on Saturday. "We will be conducting Jallikattu and Rekla races, silambam fights, boat races, beach kabadi. We have a lot of events connected to Pongal which are happening here. We are proud that the cultural events are restored with the Tamil community," Thondaman told ANI.

Thonadaman who hails from Tamil Nadu's Sivagangai district and in charge of organising the event said that Pongal is one of the popular festivals celebrated by the Tamil community worldwide. A week-long Pongal festival has been planned with the community set to hold the Jallikattu and Rekla race today, he said.

Thonadaman and Malaysia's member of parliament Saravanan Murugan flagged off the Jallikattu event at the ground in the Sampur area of Trincomalee. More than 200 bulls and more than 100 bull tamers will participate in the Jallikattu competition..

Jallikattu is a popular bull-embracing sport traditionally played in Tamil Nadu during the Pongal harvest festival in the second week of January.

Thondaman said, "Jallikattu, Mattu Pongal continues as a part of Pongal festival. We are starting the Pongal festival with 1008 Pongal pots and 1500 Bharatnatyam dancers."

Over 1,000 trained bulls will be released from a closed space called 'vadi vassal', one after the another, and the bull tamers will be on the ground in an attempt to grab the hump of the bull and hold on to it to win the award. Only one person is allowed to attempt it at a time.

The traditional sport is practised annually and is quite popular in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, especially in Madurai. In the age-old practice, a bull is released into a crowd of people and participants of the event try to grab the large hump on the bull's back, attempting to bring the bull to stop.

Due to the risk of injury, both to the participants and the bull, the animal rights organizations had called for a ban to the sport. In 2014, the Supreme Court of India imposed a ban on Jallikattu but in 2017, the Tamil Nadu government passed an ordinance to allow Jallikattu, introducing regulations to ensure the safety of both participants and bulls. However, after long protests by the people against the ban, the Supreme Court in India , in May 2023, upheld the Tamil Nadu government's law allowing the bull-taming sport 'Jallikattu' in the State.

A five-judge Constitution bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar heard a batch of petitions challenging Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra governments' laws allowing the bull-taming sport 'Jallikattu' and bullock cart races.

The Tamil Nadu government had defended the event of "Jallikattu" and told the apex court that sporting events can also be a cultural event and there is no cruelty on the bulls in "Jallikattu".