Contested Spaces and Specialized Conflicts, WS 14/15

Lecturer: Rene Seyfarth

Adhikari, Pradeep (115303)

Gadhimai Festival:
Abstract
Every five years at November, similar chants and voices are raised against mass
slaughter of animals in Bariyapur town in Bara district of Nepal. Though, this trend of
animal mass sacrifice in the name of "Gadimai Festival" is claimed to have started from
more than 260 years ago, the voices started from November 2004, when more than
20,000 buffalos and innumerable goats and poultries were sacrificed. Afterwards, the
festival was held in 2009 as well as 2014 with no signs of stoppage or mitigation of
number of animals sacrificed. As a result the concern is getting bigger and bigger. This
article is an effort to present why and how Gadimai Festival started and how is it
carrying the scenarios into larger form of conflicts. Lastly, this article tries to look at
possible recommendations to do away with the rising conflicts.
Introduction
However, 28th November
2014 started normally like
other festival days with
millions of Hindu devotees
gathered at the Gadimai
Temple at Bariyarpur, Bara
district. The ritual sacrifice
was started with the offerings
of blood of freshly slain wild rat,
pigeon, rooster, duck, lamb, buffalo and
pig to the goddess. Afterwards, the mass
slaughtering was commenced and it is
claimed that more than 5,000 buffaloes and
100,000 small animals (lambs, pigeon, roosters) were
sacrificed openly at single place in a 2 days. This number is less than that in previous
times (in 2009). This is understood as consequence of the voices raised by animal right
activists and neighboring Indian state restricting the transportation of animal to Nepal.
Usually India has higher stakes for transportations of animals and poultries for sacrifice
in the festival. In 2009, it is claimed that total number of sacrifice was more than
250,000, where 25,000 were only buffalo calves (Boone, 2014). In 2004, 20,000
buffaloes with innumerable other smaller animals were registered to be killed. Similarly
in 1999, this number was 18,000 buffaloes and more than 100,000 of smaller animals

Contested Spaces and Specialized Conflicts, WS 14/15

Lecturer: Rene Seyfarth

and poultries. All these sacrifices are regarded as offerings to goddess Gadimai as
regular offerings.
The history of this blood thirsty event started at about 260 years ago. A feudal landlord,
alleged as a thief, was imprisoned in Makwanpur, another town nearby at the east of
Bariyapur. In his dream, Goddess of Makwanpur came and asked him to take her to his
village. On the subsequent night she appeared in jail in real and freed him. The landlord
then took her to his village and set up a temple for her. Meanwhile goddess vowed for
five human sacrifices. The landlord said he was unable to do so and started offering her
quintuple sacrifices of a rat, a pig, a rooster, a goat and a buffalo. The ritual thus failed
and the children in the village started falling sick and dying. Later, the goddess was
offered five drops of human blood instead of human lives which eventually saved the
village from calamities. Afterwards individuals started making wishes with their offerings
and this trend got to this scale. Still today, thousands of visitors from India visit to this
festival with offerings of animal lives.
The Conflict
The conflict is in
between the animal
right activists and the
temple
authorities
even
to
the
government of Nepal.
Now Gadimai festival,
reportedly,
has
become a case for
largest
number
of
religious slaughter in Image source:
http://www.demotix.com/photo/6126652/protest-berlin-against-biggest-animal-sacrifice-gadhimai-nepalhttp://indi
the world. Large open atoday.intoday.in/gallery/10-photos-of-mass-animal-slaughter-during-gadhimai-festival/1/13556.html
ground with so many animals being slaughtered in such an inhumane way and cruel
circumstances in front of millions of inhabitants is the main concern for these
stakeholders. Cruelty is described by animals suffer at the hand of untrained butchers,
health hazards with piles of carcasses, and events that traumatized the children and
inhabitants.
Famous British Actress Joanna Lumley took part in a rally against Gadimai practices in
front of Nepalese embassy on October 9, 2014 and stipulated to stop these "inhumane"
"festival of slaughter" (Setopati.net). She also handed over a petition of 80,000
signatures demanding the festival to be discontinued. Menaka Gandhi, Indian politician
and right activists and animal right activists, openly appealed Nepalese government to
abandon the killings telling them "superstitious" (ekantipur.com). Former French film-

Contested Spaces and Specialized Conflicts, WS 14/15

Lecturer: Rene Seyfarth

star Brigitte Bardot, who is also an animal right activist, wrote an email to the president
of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav to stop this killing telling this practice as "violent, cruel and
inhumane" (BBC). Animal rights activists of Animal Equality protested at Brandenburg
Gate against the world's biggest animal sacrifice in Gadhimai in Nepal, with blood on
the hands and signs with sacrificed animals (Demotix). Indian Supreme Court, in
september 2014 issued an order to state governments of Bihar, Utterpradesh,
Uttarakhand and West Bengal to stop the animals transportations to Nepal. These are
the areas from where majority of animals are imported to Gadimai during the festival.
There were a lot of rallies and campaign against this practice from animal rights activists
in Nepal also. This has resulted in decrease in the number of sacrifices in 2014 but
government has not taken any steps to ban the rituals altogether but finalized action
plan to ensure the post sacrifice management. The debate is still on that is expressed in
the form of media articles and rallies in the Nepalese streets during the festival year.
With the growing number of protests and voice against this mass sacrifice, security of
Gadimai premises at the time of festival is also becoming tighter. Within the nation also
the voices are becoming louder with time. For 2014 event, the security force had been
made alert with the possible confrontations among the protestors and temple
authorities. The protestors have other issues also like possible health hazards of the
open slaughter due to water pollution, air pollutions, mental effects upon the individuals
of the area, etc.
Another side of the conflict
There is not much talked
about the mass sacrifice
that happened before 1999
in Gadimai festival. Temple
priests always express the
number on higher sides and
advocate for the continuity
of
the
offerings
with
increasing
number
of
offerings.
Though
the
temple authorities claim
that this is historical ritual Image source:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/gallery/10-photos-of-mass-animal-slaughter-during-gadhimai-festival/1/1355
process,
nothing
is 6.html
mentioned about this large number of sacrifices in the past offerings. The geographical
area of influence (areas of Northern India and whole southern Nepal) that this festival
covers clarifies the large number of sacrifice that could have happened. There are
other talks as well. Meritt Cliffton, editor of "Animal 24-7" writes, "Sometimes an atrocity
of shocking magnitude turns out to be more of a brazen scam. And that can be good

Contested Spaces and Specialized Conflicts, WS 14/15

Lecturer: Rene Seyfarth

news, since scams involving cruelty tend to be much more easily ended than atrocities
of enormous scale with authentically deep cultural roots." For Cliffton, the number of
offerings that is being lauded is not the true number as it is not well authenticated.
However, the growing number of lives offerings in every next festival has raised the
concern. And the number, as is mentioned for 2009 and 2014 festivals are much nearer
to reality.
Newer direction
Marritt Clifton has a way out for
this issue. Clifton claims that in
Hindu tradition coconut offering
can replace the animal sacrifice.
This trend is popular in other
shakti cults (temples of goddess)
like Dakshinkali, Guheshwori, etc
where animal sacrifice is much
practiced. She states that the
presence of coconut marks on the Image source:
place where Gadimai is enshrined http://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/2014/10/joanna-lumley-nepal-say-no-to-mass-animal-sacrifice
/http://indiatoday.intoday.in/gallery/10-photos-of-mass-animal-slaughter-during-gadhimai-f
means there was tradition of estival/1/13556.html
coconut offerings in the past. This one way stabilizes the trend of mass offerings without
any blood-shed of innocent animals, on the other hands, is much easy to manage the
post sacrifice circumstances of Gadhmai Premises.
Stopping this deep rooted religious practice is not easy in shorter period of time. For this
the stakeholders have to feel the urgency of changing the trend. State has to take over
the practices and manages for newer way of running it. Like Northern Indian states
started curtailing the transportations of the animals, Nepalese government has to tether
this growing number of animal sacrifice. Or it can just manage this large number of
animal killings into some less numbers and rest offerings can be done with some fruits
and coconuts. Else, the growing number of animal killings in every next time and
growing concerns against this within and outside the nation is leading this verbal conflict
into confrontations.
Sources

1.
2.

http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/11/11/news/frenchactress-against-sacrifice/269543.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8369740.stm

Contested Spaces and Specialized Conflicts, WS 14/15

3.
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5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

11.
12.

13.
14.

Lecturer: Rene Seyfarth

http://www.demotix.com/photo/6126652/protest-berlin-against-biggestanimal-sacrifice-gadhimai-nepal
http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2010/11/23/oped/neveragain/215205/
http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/11/13/national/uttarakhand-bans-transportof-sacrificial-animals/397610.html
http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/11/19/nation/securitystepped-up-as-gadhimai-festival-starts/269889.html
http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/10/03/seeking-the-truth-of-the-gadhi-maisacrificial-slaughter/
http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/03/12/427/
http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/10/24/supreme-court-of-india-rulingcovers-tracks-on-gadhi-mai-sacrifice/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/gadhimai-hindu-festivalglobal-condemnation-of-slaughter-of-more-than-5000-buffaloes9892632.html
http://nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Overkill-in-Gadhimai,1794
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789504/end-nepal-s-festivalslaughter-joanna-lumley-calls-ban-sacrifice-250-000-animals-hindugoddess.html
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/11/20/how-many-animals-will-die-in-thisyears-gadhimai-festival-in-nepal/
http://m.setopati.net/news/3681/