India's Super Bowl

We always lay emphasis on changing with time, but surprisingly traditions are inevitable, they don’t change with time. We are encouraged to question the wrong, but traditions exist as exceptions as they are passed from generation to generation unquestioningly. These traditions are so culturally engrained in us that we follow them like a herd of sheep with having absolutely no idea about them. Law and order is given immense respect in an independent nation because people have a hope that it would serve justice to the innocent and operate for the welfare of its citizens but when the rule of law takes on traditions and political muscle, it’s funny that it often loses.

Cockfight is a sport organized and celebrated in January near Makar Sankranti in India every year. It is particularly known in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Telangana, Karnataka, West Bengal and Odisha. Cockfight is an ancient spectator sport that started as a mode of entertainment. The sport is organized for around three days and each event involves dozens of fights every day. This gathers the attention of hundreds and thousands of people including common spectators and people who gamble some heavy amount on their favourite rooster.

The event starts with the owner or trainer giving a sip of water to the bird, stroking their head, tapping their beaks together before retreating and tying a sharp blade or knife to their leg. Two roosters are then made to face each other and participate in a bloody fight till one of them dies. Usually a junglefowl or a rooster is used for the event. Roosters are specifically bred for such fights, they are then fed a supposedly extra ordinary diet, groomed and trained the whole year to fight a bloody battle. A single fighting rooster costs around 50,000 rupees.

Even though cockfighting is illegal in India according to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, it is still celebrated on massive scale. After subsequent judgements by the Supreme Court of India in 2015 and the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2016, the ban on cockfighting was lifted up. In January 2018, the Supreme Court of India allowed the sport to be held in a traditional way, without the use of knives and blades and without gambling. But both of these conditions are openly challenged by the people. Trainers still use sharp blades and knives, and gambling is still a big part of the revenue stream of the sport. In 2019, despite the ban, an amount of rupees 900 crores was used in bets and gambling in Andhra Pradesh during the sport. And now even taking photos and videos is forbidden. Another reason why people organize such events is because the local politicians actively participate in them as chief guests thus giving a false message to the people that law and order means nothing.

Now lets see what happens when law is disobeyed. This year a trainer was killed by his rooster in Telangana. Yes, you read it right. While the owner was trying to recapture the rooster who tried to escape, the three – inch sharp blade on the leg of the rooster got stabbed in the owner’s groin. He died due to heavy blood loss before he could be taken to the hospital. The police continues to find 15 other people who were a part of his group. The rooster has been sent to a poultry where it can live its life peacefully. This shows how actions are taken when the ill has happened and no actions are taken to prevent that ill. And surely even people haven’t leant a lesson.

A similar incident took place in West Bengal in 2010 when the blade attached to a rooster’s leg got stabbed in a man’s neck thus cutting his jugular vein in the neck. Even this man died of blood loss. These were only two terrifying incidents out of the many taken place in the past but tradition and culture have taken such a huge toll on people’s minds that they cannot distinguish between what is right and what is wrong for them and for the innocent animals. Festivals like these aren’t only taking away human lives but hundreds and thousands of roosters are loosing their lives every year. Many might say that it is just a mere rooster but see it as an animal on whom we don’t have any right and particularly no right to kill for entertainment.

Since the people supporting cockfight are in big numbers, the concerned authorities need to take it very carefully and try to educate people about the impact of such sports on the lives of the animals as well as their own lives. People would continue to disrespect animals like this till they are shown how magnificent animals are, even though it is a rooster and this can only be achieved by educating them about wildlife and making them realize their mistakes, not by power but by knowledge.