Dhirio to be legal from New Year 2016?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 30 December 2015 18:50 IST
Dhirio – the bull fights – are likely to be legalised from the first day of the New Year 2016.
The initiative is taken by the central government in order to allow the cultural and traditional practices of India, which were banned by the Supreme Court earlier.
“You will get good news by 1 January where cultural practice would be followed without causing cruelty to animals”, union minister for environment and forest told the media recently.
According to him, Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu, bullock cart race in Maharashtra, Kambala in Karnataka, Dhirio in Goa and some sort of race using bullocks in Punjab has been traditionally and culturally practiced for centuries.
“We want to respect that but also ensure that there should be no cruelty”, said Jawadekar.
The minister however does not want to disclose what legal remedy it has found out to allow these ‘entertaining events’, which were banned by the Supreme Court while the high courts had also banned it in some states like Goa.
As per the news reports, the centre has decided to issue an executive order in this regard on 1 January after consulting Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.
Goa’s politicians across political lines have been trying to legalise Dhirio since it was banned in 1996 by Bombay high court at Goa.
Pressure however is mounting on the government from a big southern state of Tamil Nadu to legally allow holding Jallikattu, also known as Eruthazhuvuthal, as a part of Pongal celebrations.
People for Animal, the NGO led by Goa’s leading green lawyer Adv Norma Alvares, has been vehemently opposed all the moves made by the politicians.
Goa Assembly has also constituted a House Committee, led by BJP’s St Andre MLA Vishnu Wagh, to find out ways to legalise Dhirio, in spite of knowing that the Cruelty to Animals Act cannot be changed by the state government.
While stray incidents of secret organising of Dhirio was taking place in connivance with the police, it suddenly became a big news in Goa when Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar allowed almost eight rounds of Dhirio in his Mandrem constituency on 20 September, on the occasion of Chovoth.
BACKGROUND
The Bombay high court at Goa, in December 1996, had banned Dhirio following instances of spectators also getting killed.
The ban was imposed under the provisions of the Cruelty to Animals (Prevention) Act, 1968.
As Dhirio was a popular sport and even politicians like Churchill Alemao owned fighting bulls, Goa government as well as many MPs had tried their level best to get the ban revoked, even by raising the issue in the Parliament.
But no central government of any party had reacted in favour of the request.
The erstwhile Congress government, when Pratapsing Rane was the CM, had even managed to pass an amendment to the Act, by adding a new clause to section 11 (3).
The clause had stated that “Dhirio is a traditional, popular, unique sport, where bulls are trained properly by owners to fight each other and to develop their strength and stamina".
It was then forwarded to the union law ministry as the act falls into a concurrent list and requires assent from the Centre as well. But the response was negative.
Adv Alvares, on the other hand, had given a different dimension to the issue when she was fighting to get it banned. She had said:
"The 19th century witnessed the slaves getting liberated from human exploitation. The 20th century began a process of liberating women from human exploitation. Let the 21st century be the beginning of liberating the animals from any kind of human exploitation".
hope its true