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The jallikattu debate is playing out much like the game itself, with each side trying to gain the upper hand: animal rights groups alleging animal cruelty, the Tamil people insisting on tradition and future of native cattle breeds, and governments eager to assuage feelings of discontent. Who will tame whom? It is January 29; almost a week after the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly unanimously passed the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2017. The Act allows people to conduct jallikattu, the state’s traditional bull taming sport, as a means of promoting Tamil culture as well as ensuring the preservation of native breeds. In Karungulam village of Tiruchirappalli district, the area in front of St Ignatius Church is packed with hundreds of people. Many of them are perched precariously on top of neighbouring buildings to catch a glimpse of the first jallikattu event after a gap of two years. More than 300 veerans or bull tamers, in blue T-shirts with numbers p...

Without architecture, we cannot remember.”— John Ruskin, ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ When the British occupied Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), they remodelled the city and the Mughal Red Fort to suit their convenience. Around 80% of the buildings inside the Red Fort were demolished to make way for military barracks. Mansions and havelis were brought down to make way for broader, new roads so that the British had easy access for defence purposes, in case the people decided to ‘rebel’ against them again. Perhaps everything would have got demolished but for a horrified Charles Canning who tried to preserve our heritage. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was formed in 1861 by a statute passed into law by Canning, with Alexander Cunningham as its first Archaeological Surveyor, to excavate and conserve India’s ancient built heritage. Preserving heritage In 1904, a Cambridge classics scholar, who was the Director General of ASI, formulated the Ancient Monuments Preservation A...