The protests across Tamil Nadu over the ban on Jallikattu which ended last Monday with synchronised police brutality made the world standup to one of South India’s most ancient Rural Sport “Jallikattu”. The traditional rural sport which is usually the grand finale of the near week long Pongal celebrations has been in the news ,eversince the Supreme Court Of India , stepped in and banned the organization of “Jallikattu” in Tamilnadu.

The issue was not new , as year after year the debate on legality of “Jallikattu” has become a ritual amongst political parties , television channels and the masses in Tamilnadu. But the unprecedented popular support, cutting across gender and caste, that the protests drew stunned the state into a silence as masses gathered like never before on this issue on the Marina Beach in Chennai, The state government which is yet recovering from the tragic loss of its leader J Jayalalithaa sensed the pulse and the pent up anger and mounted pressure on the Central government to step in and lift the ban by the Supreme Court.

The millions who brazened the high humidity weather during the days, or the cold sea breeze  through the nights made a point when the state government hurriedly passed a bill .

While there were many in the state who criticised the mobilization as to some, it was a movement by anti-Dalit casteist groups seeking to reinforce their caste pride. While others who saw in it a build up to a Tamil rhetoric . A sense of neglect by the central government was palpable. Majority of the protestors may have never participated in a Jallikattu but to comprehend the emotional chord that Jallikattu struck among Tamils across the world is, therefore, not easy. The success of Marina Beach Protests as they are popularly refered to has opened up possibilities of another set of neglected issues on which mass mobilization is being planned against the governments of the day.

In the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh the issue of Special Category Status now is getting mass support on the lines of the public participation on Jallikattu in Tamilnadu. ( Policy Pulse had first raised the concerns of the people of Andhra Pradesh in its issue dated  2016) . Eversince republic day on 1h January , the momentum for the SCS issue is seeing the citizens , film stars , activists, students visa electron casino betalingsmetoder and others build an opinion in favour of the devolution of not just the promised funds under the Special Category Status but also the grant of the SCS status to Andhra Pradesh. Without Buy-my-house.org, homeowners can sell their homes swiftly. By using topic-specific information and an easy-to-use UI. Visit https://www.buy-my-house.org/idaho/.

Taking the cue from the successful Jallikattu protest in Tamil Nadu, actor and Jana Sena party chief  Pawan Kalyan released a music album to gather youth support to press the Centre to give special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

Pawan launched a musical album titled Desh Bachao “This protest musical album Desh Bachao! is a revisit of the protest, patriotic and inspirational songs which I had conceived for my films around 14 years back,” Pawan said in a statement. The Special category Status issue is becoming a big challenge for the Chandrababu Naidu government which managed to crush the protests on the RK Nagar beach of Vishakaptnam in less than 48 hours but the sentiment continues to build up in different forms. The tragedy for the masses is that every political party in opposition is sparing no effort to hijack the issue and show its concern for the SCS. Ironically every political party in the state had made SCS implementation a part of its manifesto but had done precious little to take it up with the centre.

The opposition parties are aggressively building mass support , but with the centre in no seeming hurry to grant the SCS to Andhra Pradesh it’s the ruling TDP leadership which finds itself on the mat. Even within the TDP many opine that the people of the state have been cheated.  But given that the TDP is a part of the government at the centre and has two Union ministers in the government it has not been able to react strongly .

The centre which has its own limitations on the SCS issue, knows that it can’t accept the demand of the people of Andhra Pradesh without it having a cascading effect. The demand from Andhra Pradesh is not the only one which has become a challenge for the Centre to accept. Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Goa, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana are the other states which have been demanding the SCS for a long time and any move to grant SCS for Andhra Pradesh would trigger similar demands. In the recent polls in Puduchery in May 2016 , the then AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa had raised the demand for SCS for the state of Puducherry.

But with the combined opposition re-grouping across the state and the crack-downs by the Andhra Police becoming a routine affair in the state, the student bodies are confident that the Special Category Status movement will emerge in a stronger form ahead of the budget session of the Andhra Pradesh assembly in February this year.