Imagine wild bulls charging towards a crowd. Your task? To grab the hump of the bull and hold on for as long as dear life would allow it and lay claim to the money tied to the horns of the bull. Such is the experience of Jallikattu, a traditional sport in Tamil Nadu that is practised during the days of Pongal and has been played since the days of the yore. It is dangerous, no doubt, and on occasions has led to the death of a human or even the bull. It is for these reasons that the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO) and PETA India sort a ban on the sport since a few years now, but tasted victory when in May 2014, Supreme Court banned the sport and upheld its decision, much to the chagrin of the people of the Tamil-speaking state. Mass peaceful protests followed in Chennai, slowly spreading throughout the state, and came to be known as pro-Jallikattu protests. They stated that these games kept the population of native breeds of bulls used in the game steady, which was otherwise on a decline.
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It was on January 22, 2017 that an emergency order was passed by the state of Tamil Nadu which allowed bull-taming festivals like Jallikattu. In some more news, the Malayalam action movie Jallikattu is India's official Oscar entry.
