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The Devi’s call
NOV 06 - In the past week, Nepal has once again come under the spotlight of the international media. It wasn’t for the protests or the politics. Instead, the focus is on Nepal’s standing as a ‘land of peace’, a moniker that threatens to be undone by the largest mass slaughter of animals ever. At the Gadhimai festival in Bara this November, at least 350,000 buffaloes, goats and poultry will be sacrificed in what has been termed “the world’s biggest ritual slaughter” which happens every five years.
Despite calls by various religious groups and several animal rights organisations to ban the killings, the festival organisers continue to stick to tradition. “This is a centuries-old tradition, and no power in the world can stop the sacrifices,” says Mangal Chaudhary, head-priest at the Gadhimai temple.
The Gadhimai temple in Bara district, 17 km east of Birgunj, has historically been tied to the Karnat kings of the Mithila belt, for whom the deity was their royal goddess. The Valley’s Taleju is believed to be a replica of this goddess. According to legends, the Gadhimai deity has six other sisters, who are assumed to assemble every five years at the Gadhimai temple. Hence the festival that occurs once every five years, and involves animal sacrifices to ‘propitiate’ the goddess. The previous festival in 2004 saw the sacrifice of at least 20,000 buffaloes and innumerable goats and poultry, a number which will certainly increase in this year’s festival, which will begin on Nov. 24.
But the organisers this year will not have it easy. Starting from Ram Bahadur Bomjan, the hermit who’s also been dubbed the ‘Living Buddha’, religious and animal welfare groups have come together to appeal to the government to impose a legal ban on the killings. The other noted campaigner who has joined forces is Maneka Gandhi, Indian politician and animal rights activist.
Reports suggest that a month ago, Bomjan called upon the Bara Chief District Officer Taranath Gautam to “stop the killings anyhow”. This past week, different religious leaders came together with the aim of ensuring that the killings are stopped, even as Chaudhary says they will not. “If there are no sacrifices, the importance of the festival will decrease.”
Gandhi has called upon the Nepali state to “abandon the killings”. She says the superstition behind sacrifices is assiduously spread by a coalition of priests, butchers, and animal sellers. “There is still a belief in miracles in the subcontinent” and this coalition assures the poor villager that “miracles happen if sacrifices are made and bad things happen when they are not,” she told the Post over email.
Gandhi says the sacrifices push power back to the hands of a feudal society due to the indebtedness caused by the purchase of animals. “Animal sacrifice is simply commerce.” There is truth in the statement, for there are suggestions by the festival organisers that Rs. 20 will be collected from every goat sacrificed, and Rs. 50 from every buffalo, to raise money for ‘development’ in the Gadhimai region. This toll collection could see funds worth at least Rs. 5.5 million being raised from the slaughter.
Equally appalling is the spectre of diseases and psychological trauma. Prabhakar Pratap of the Department of Livestock Services relates how Goat Plague, or Pest des Petite Ruminants, first surfaced in Nepal after the Gadhimai festival in 1994. “There was no evidence of the disease before the festival in Nepal.” The viral disease—though it affects only goats—has an extremely high mortality rate of nearly 80 percent, and this has serious repercussions in Nepal, where many farmers practise goat farming. Though every goat that is brought in for the festival is vaccinated at the border checkpoints, “there is a high chance of the disease entering through the open border.” Reports suggest that at least 50 to 70 percent of animals sacrificed at the festival are brought in from India.
For humans, the dangers are exacerbated by fact that blood and meat are sensitive products that are easily spoilt, and prone to dangerous parasites such as tapeworms. In such large numbers, a single diseased animal can easily spread the illness to other animals, and probably to humans. “The blood will be a breeding ground for bottle-flies and maggots, and it will also seep into the groundwater table,” says Gandhi. Dr. G.D. Thakur of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division says that without proper disposal, there is a very high chance that meat-borne diseases will be spread. “The organisers should be aware that disposal needs to be carried out quickly and properly.”
The psychological impact that a slaughter on this scale will have is huge. Dr. Govinda Tandon of the Stop Animal Sacrifices Alliance says that children will be the most affected. “A mass massacre of this scale is sure to let violent tendencies develop in their minds and lead them to believe that murder is correct.”
Correct it is not, but it doesn’t look like the state is very keen to stop the killings. Shankar Pokharel, the Information and Communications Minister, has said, “We can’t use force to stop the animal sacrifices…we have to keep in mind the psychologies and sentiments of different communities.”
Three weeks before the slaughter begins, the animals are being bought and prepared for the killings, with the traditional goat markets already flooding with customers. “If we don’t sacrifice, misfortune will visit us,” says Hulasidevi Sahni of Pipradhi, a devotee who has kept aside two goats. Misfortune will certainly visit the animals if nothing is done, and soon.
(For Maneka Gandhi’s article on the Gadhimai killings, please refer to
the Nov. 4 edition of The Kathmandu Post)
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