Hindu devotees hold knives as religious mantras are chanted prior to the start of offerings to the Hindu goddess Gadhimai during the Gadhimai festival in Bariyarpur, Nepal, south of the capital Kathmandu, on December 3, 2019. Credit – Prakash Mathema-AFP / Getty Images
EEvery five years around November and December, hundreds of thousands to millions of Hindus flock to a temple in southeastern Nepal, next to the country’s border with India, in a tradition that has stirred both reverence and controversy. It is also called ‘the bloodiest’ festival in the world, due to the sheer number of animals slaughtered and offered as sacrifices.
The Gadhimai festival, a five-yearly religious celebration dating back more than centuries, involves the killing of thousands of animals – from rats and pigeons to goats and water buffalos – in the belief that the mass sacrifice will appease the Hindu goddess Gadhimai, who in return will bring them prosperity . As many as 250,000 creatures were beheaded during the last festival in 2019, according to animal welfare group Humane Society International (HSI).
The bloodshed has sparked mounting criticism as animal welfare activists battle devotees who believe the ritual is an important, sacrosanct cornerstone of Hinduism. The highest courts in Nepal and India have both tried to intervene, but the killings appear to continue. This year, Nepal’s vice president even led the inauguration of the festival, which advocates had asked him not to participate in.
“Gadhimai is notorious for its animal cruelty and human exploitation,” Alokparna Sengupta, India director of HSI, said in a statement last week. “It is shameful that the Gadhimai Temple Committee is exploiting the hopes, fears and frustrations of impoverished people for its own gain. The government of Nepal must protect against the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of people and animals in the name of tradition.”
Here’s what you need to know about the festival.
Why are animals killed during the festival?
The massacre has been traced back to Bhagwan Chowdhary, the founder of the Gadhimai temple in Bariyarpur, Bara district. In a dream, Gadhimai, the formidable goddess of power, appeared to a captured Chowdhary and promised power and prosperity in exchange for a blood sacrifice. While human blood was sought, Chowdhary successfully offered animal blood instead.
Today, the Gadhimai festival is a month-long celebration that culminates in the ritual killings of animals late in the year. Some of these creatures are even brought in from India, and the Nepalese government even donated to the event at one point. Al Jazeera reported that in 2019, five animals were sacrificed to trigger the massacre, and a local shaman offered his own blood, before some 200 butchers entered an enclosed space containing thousands of creatures they could kill.
According to HSI, an estimated 500,000 animals were slaughtered in 2009. This has since fallen to around 250,000 animals in both 2014 and 2019, including thousands of water buffalo.
This year, the animal sacrifices are expected to begin on December 8.
What has been done to stop the killings?
Activists have long condemned the festival and filed petitions in courts in Nepal and India. French former actress Brigitte Bardot even wrote a letter to the Nepalese government stating that the killings are “violent, cruel and inhumane.” But the Nepalese government said in 2009 that it will not use force to prevent the Gadhimai sacrifices because they “do not want to hurt religious sentiments.”
In 2014, the Supreme Court of India ordered state governments bordering Nepal to restrict the export and transport of animals for Gadhimai.
In 2015, caretakers of the temple, who also oversee the Gadhimai festival, said the 2019 edition would be “free of bloodshed.” Days later, however, they clarified to the BBC that devout Hindus “could be asked not to make animal sacrifices to the goddess, but they could not be forced not to do so – nor [could] the tradition should be banned or completely stopped.”
Nepal’s Supreme Court, in a 2016 ruling, ordered the government to begin phasing out and discouraging animal sacrifice. However, this was largely ignored as the killings continued in 2019, prompting opponents to file a case against the temple’s caretakers and the government for allegedly violating the ruling. “We strongly believe that over the past five years there has been complete disregard, disobedience and non-compliance with the court order by the government and its agencies, despite persistent efforts by animal welfare organizations and activists,” they said. Nepalese conservationists who filed a complaint. petition to the Supreme Court said in a statement at the time. That case is still ongoing.
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