What You Should Know About the Gadhimai Festival—And Its Controversial Animal Sacrifice

Eevery five years between November and December, hundreds of thousands of Hindus flock to the temple in southeastern Nepal, near the country's border with India, in a ritual that has sparked both reverence and controversy. It has been called “the bloodiest festival in the world” because of the large number of animals that are slaughtered and sacrificed.

The Gadhimai festival, a quinquennial religious festival that dates back over hundreds of years, kills thousands of animals—from rats and pigeons to goats and water buffalo—in the belief that the mass sacrifice will please the Hindu goddess Gadhimai, who will also deliver. to them prosperity. At the last festival in 2019, up to 250,000 animals were beheaded, according to animal welfare group Humane Society International (HSI).

The bloodshed has invited growing scrutiny, as animal welfare activists have joined forces with devotees who believe the ritual is an essential, inviolable foundation of Hinduism. The high courts of Nepal and India have both tried to intervene, but the killings look set to continue. This year, the vice president of Nepal even presided over the opening ceremony of the festival, which the lawyers had asked him not to participate in.

“Gadhimai is notorious for animal cruelty and human exploitation,” Alokparna Sengupta, HSI's India director, said in a statement last week. “It is disgraceful that the Gadhimai temple committee is exploiting the hopes, fears and frustrations of poor people for its own benefit. The government of Nepal must protect against the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of people and animals in the name of culture.”

Here's what you need to know about the festival.

Why are animals killed at the festival?

The massacre is traced back to Bhagwan Chowdhary, the founder of the Gadhimai temple in Bariyarpur, Bara district. In a dream, Gadhimai, the fearsome goddess of power, appeared to the imprisoned Chowdhary, promising power and prosperity in exchange for a blood sacrifice. Although human blood was wanted, Chowdhary successfully donated animal blood instead.

Today, the Gadhimai festival is a month-long festival that culminates at the end of the year with a ritual animal slaughter. Some of these creatures are even brought from India, and the government of Nepal at one point even donated to the event. Al Jazeera reported that in 2019, five animals were sacrificed to start the mass slaughter, and a local shaman donated his blood, before about 200 butchers entered the enclosure that held several thousand animals to kill.

According to HSI, an estimated 500,000 animals were slaughtered in 2009. This has dropped to around 250,000 animals in 2014 and 2019—including thousands of water buffalo.

This year, animal sacrifices are expected to begin in December.

What has been done to stop the massacre?

Activists have long criticized the festival, filing petitions in courts in Nepal and India. Former French actress Brigitte Bardot even wrote a letter to the Nepalese government arguing that the killings were “violent, cruel and brutal.” But the Nepalese government in 2009 said it would not use force to prevent Gadhimai's sacrifices, because “they do not want to hurt religious sentiments.”

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India ordered the governments of Nepal's neighboring states to restrict the export and transportation of Gadhimai animals.

In 2015, the temple caretakers who also oversee the Gadhimai festival said the 2019 iteration would be “free from bloodshed.” However, a few days later, he clarified to the BBC that devout Hindus could be “asked not to offer animal sacrifice to the goddess, but they could not be forced not to do so—or. [could] the custom should be banned or stopped altogether.”

The Supreme Court of Nepal, in a ruling issued in 2016, ordered its government to begin eliminating and disallowing animal sacrifices. However, this was not ignored as the killings continued in 2019, prompting opponents to sue the temple guardians and the government for allegedly violating the decision. “We strongly believe that there has been complete disregard, disobedience and non-compliance with the court order by the government and its organizations since the last five years despite the continuous efforts of animal welfare organizations and activists,” a couple of Nepalese conservationists filed a petition in court. petition before the Supreme Court said in a statement at the time. That case is still ongoing.