Abstract

In October 2016, protests erupted across southern India opposing a Supreme Court judgement banning an annual agricultural festival featuring jousts between men and bulls. The Court ruled the contests as infringing animal rights. Rural constituencies rallied behind the festival as a customary practice and symbol of agrarian culture. This essay suggests that the conflict between the two constituencies turns on whether animals are legal subjects or social persons. I analyse this festival-complex in Maharashtra to show that the ritual imagines animals not as rights-bearing species, but as members of the agricultural community. The rite does not disavow violence, rather it embeds its symbolisation within familial and productive relations between people and bullocks.

摘要

2016年10月，印度南部爆发了抗议活动，反对最高法院的一项裁决，该裁决禁止一年一度的农业节，包括人与公牛之间的争斗。法院裁定比赛为侵犯动物权利。在节日之后，农村选民聚集起来，作为一种习惯做法和农业文化的象征。本文认为，这两个选区之间的冲突取决于动物是法人还是社会人。我分析了马哈拉施特拉邦的这个节日情结，以表明该仪式将动物想象为不是具有权利的物种，而是作为农业社区的成员。该仪式并未否认暴力，而是将其象征嵌入人与牛之间的家庭和生产关系中。