Jallikattu revisited

From The Hindu

              The uproar over Jallikattu, it turns out, is about much more than the sport of bull wrestling, itself. It is a Rorschach test for a multitude of social, political and cultural concerns. It's a proxy for a drought that doesn't seem to end and grieving so many farmers who have killed themselves as a result. Villagers believe it won't rain until Jallikattu returns, someone told me. It's about identity, protesters claim. Another colleague dismissed the whole thing as a feudal throwback. The demonstrations are also a proxy for protesting demonetization, which has robbed day laborers and business owners  of the currency their cash economy relies on.

The fight, organized by students, brought tens of thousands to Marina beach, where they camped for four days. It was to be a defiantly unpolitical stand, but as usual the major parties abducted the spectacle for their own purposes. And the demonstration ended with a show of force by police, who swung their latihis, used tear gas and torched a fish market and motorbike as they claimed to search for culprits in a fishing village. While the right to conduct Jallikattu is still being sorted out, one village went ahead and set more than 300 bulls loose down a narrow lane, The Hindu reports. Eight spectators were injured. And in another village, a bull plowed into a tree and "died on the spot."

For more on the police brutality, here's a link to a story by one of my former students:  http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2017/jan/25/nadukuppam-still-in-fear-of-police-reprisals-after-jallikattu-violence-1563245.html