QNA WITH SRI SRI
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2016

Q: Should Jallikattu (an ancient bull vaulting sport in some states of South India) be allowed or not? There seems to be a lot of controversy over this in the recent days and people are saying it is a Western conspiracy.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Well, there are many traditions like that. If people are so compassionate then they should first ban all the slaughterhouses, and all the horse-riding tournaments.
In the Rajpath in New Delhi, there is a horse-riding sport. Horses are tamed and trained and people ride those horses. Jallikattu is one such game and there are proper rules for that which were made thousands of years ago: You are never supposed to harm the animal. You are never supposed to go play with the animal if you are drunk.

These are all a kind of ancient sports. I do not see any big harm being caused to the animal through this. In Tamil Nadu this sport has been in practice since many centuries, even millenniums. I would say banning will create more passion. Persuading people not to play or engage in it is a different thing. The moment you ban it, then people would feel that their rights are being infringed upon; they would feel that their cultural age-old traditions are not being respected. This is an issue. I am not in favour of Jallikattu but I am also not in favour of banning Jallikattu. People should have the freedom as long as they cause no injury to the animals.

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