Examine the tension between cultural tradition and animal welfare ethics using a case study of a globally known cultural practice.

Q. Examine the tension between cultural tradition and animal welfare ethics using a case study of a globally known cultural practice. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Bull-running and bullfighting in Spain — globalised by the 1926 centenary novel The Sun Also Rises and enacted yearly at Pamplona's San Fermín festival — sit at the sharpest edge of a global conflict: whether inherited practice can justify inflicted animal suffering. The tension is real but not irreconcilable; it is best mediated by law rather than by absolutes.

The cultural claim - Identity and continuity: Spain's Law 18/2013 declares bullfighting part of national cultural heritage, obliging public authorities to conserve it [1]. - Livelihoods: festival tourism sustains local economies, breeders and artisanal trades, giving the practice an economic constituency beyond sentiment. - Parallel in India: Jallikattu is defended as a marker of Tamil valour and a safeguard for native cattle breeds.

The welfare counter-claim - Sentience-based ethics: suffering deliberately inflicted for entertainment fails the harm test, whatever its antiquity. - Statutory duty: India's Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 criminalises such treatment; the Supreme Court in A. Nagaraja (2014) held jallikattu to violate its Sections 3, 11 and 22 [2]. - Tradition is not static: practices have historically been reformed once ethical standards shifted.

How institutions have arbitrated - International filtering: UNESCO's Representative List includes Spain's Flamenco (2010) [3] but not bullfighting — showing that global heritage recognition is selective, not automatic. - Domestic accommodation: Indian States legislated exemptions after the ban, and the Supreme Court's Constitution Bench (2023) upheld them as regulated, not unrestrained, conduct [4]. - Harm-free heritage thrives: Kumbh Mela (2017) [5] and Durga Puja in Kolkata (2021) [6] gained UNESCO listing without any welfare cost.

The dispute is therefore less tradition versus ethics than tradition under ethics. The workable path is regulated continuity — strict welfare codes, veterinary oversight, penal accountability and phased substitution of harmful elements — so that heritage survives through adaptation. Culture, like law, retains legitimacy only when it evolves with society's expanding moral circle.

(~315 words)

Sources: 1. Ley 18/2013, de 12 de noviembre, para la regulación de la Tauromaquia como patrimonio cultural (BOE) — Spain's statutory declaration of bullfighting as protected cultural heritage 2. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (India Code) and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Puducherry Amendment) Bill, 2017 — Statement of Objects (PRS) — PCA Act provisions; Supreme Court holding that jallikattu violates Sections 3, 11 and 22 3. Flamenco — UNESCO Representative List, 2010 — Spanish tradition inscribed, unlike bullfighting 4. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Second Amendment) Act (PRS) — State amendments creating regulated exemptions for bull-based sports 5. Kumbh Mela — UNESCO Representative List, 2017 — harm-free Indian heritage inscribed 6. UNESCO inscribes 'Durga Puja in Kolkata' on the Representative List (PIB, 2021) — 2021 inscription