Protests Fail to Stop The Biggest Animal Sacrifice in The World
The Gadhimai Festival in Nepal, which is held at the temple of Bariyarpur, is home to one of the most interesting and violent festival traditions in the world.
The Gadhimai festival is a month long festival in the Hindu religion. The festival is held every five years in Bara District, near the Indian border, and about 100 miles south of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu.
Throughout the festival, between 300,000 and 500,000 animals, including water buffaloes, goats, pigs, chickens, pigeons and rats are slaughtered in order to please the Hindu goddess of power Gadhimai, which the festival is named after, according to The Guardian.
The organizers of the festival claimed that five million people attended the festival this year, some of them crossing the border from India to show their gratitude to the goddess. People attend the festival for religious reasons, but the festival also provides opportunities for families to gather for shopping and picnicking.
While family is a focus, the most popular event during the festival is not for the weak of heart. Thousands of water buffaloes are placed in a huge compound surrounded by high walls and then hundreds of men who are experienced in slaughtering walk around and decapitate the animals instantly with long curved machetes, The Guardian reported. Animal rights advocates have urged authorities and the public to end the ritual, which they say is bloody and brutal. The campaign to stop the sacrifice of almost half a million animals has failed in its attempts to do so, but according to the numbers of animals slaughtered this year, it is fair to say that the efforts have helped to cut the numbers down.
The chair of the Gadhimai temple management committee Ram Chandra Shah told the Guardian: "The numbers went down because the Indian court banned the ferrying of animals from India to Nepal." The Indian government had banned the cross-border transportation of animals in an attempt to discourage the ritual after animal rights advocates called on authorities to take action.
