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Making Sense of Nepal’s Animal Massacre

December 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment


Opinion

UPDATE: July 28th, 2015 –  Advocacy works. The Gadhimai Temple Trust has responded to the global outcry to ban the ritual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals that takes place every four years: “For generations, pilgrims have sacrificed animals to the Goddess Gadhimai, in the hope of a better life. The time has come to replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration.”

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Every five years, Hindus from India and Nepal participate in Gadhimai, a ritual slaughter that takes place in Nepal. During the two day ritual, which took place in late November, practitioners chopped off the heads of approximately 300,000 thousand buffalo calves, goats and other animals as a sacrifice to the goddess of power, Gadhimai.

Global efforts to prevent the 2014 Gadhimai failed, but the media and activists shined an international spotlight on the massacre before it began. And, once it started, the 12,000 police officers hired to protect the killers were unable to block the cameras, raising even more public awareness. Pressure is mounting on Nepal to outlaw the ritual.

Actress Joanna Lumley at Gadhimai Protest in London (photo: CIWF)

Actress Joanna Lumley at Gadhimai Protest at Nepal Embassy in London (photo: CIWF)

Because Gadhimai is so violent, one would think that just a small number of people would participate, but, in 2014, the animal holocaust attracted 5 million Hindus.

gadhimai participants2

We can, and should, point a finger at the Nepalese and Indians who participate and expose their crimes, but we should also acknowledge that they are no worse than the millions of people who torture and kill animals in other countries around the world.

Denmark whaling

Annual Pilot Whale Hunt in the Faroe Islands (Photo: Sea Shepherd)

We could, and should, point a finger at Hindus, but we must also acknowledge that people from other religions torture and kill animals in the name of God.

Slaughter in the streets of Brooklyn

Observant Jews swing and sacrifice hundreds of thousands of chickens before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement

What is it about the human species that makes us kill gratuitously – for reasons that have nothing to do with our survival? How is it possible that the most intelligent species is the one that is destroying the planet? How did we become so violent?


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