‘This inhumane event is not part of the mainstream Hindu faith.
‘It is little more than a bloodlust which allows people to revel in the gory deaths of thousands of terrified creatures.’
Joanna Lumley
“Beheading is no easy task and it has been reported that it often takes several attempts to behead the buffalo. Some reports state that buffalo are brought to the ground first by cutting the tendons in their legs. Furthermore, in this festival setting, with thousands of unfamiliar animals penned in together, they will experience huge levels of stress and fear, not least when other buffalo are slaughtered all around them.” CWF
This is my second post concerning this horrific slaughter of half a million helpless animals which is due to take place in Nepal on November 28th and 29th. You can read this first entry here:
https://rantingsfromavirtualsoapbox.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/stop-the-gadhimai-festival/ – Please note it would be better to take the latest actions below rather than those included in the above page.
This barbaric slaughter is funded by the Nepalese government to the tune of over £32,000, which is the sum paid last time in 2009 for the animals to be sacrificed.
Here is a 2009 eye-witness account from Asia for Animals coalition:
The animals were not provided with any water and food in the days before the sacrifice. Many young animals had in fact already died from stress, exhaustion and dehydration before the killings started. Their bodies were left among the live animals. Everyone could kill anything, with whatever knife or sword. Many animals died an unbearable slow and violent death because the butcher was inexperienced and the knives were not sharpened properly. Thousands of buffalo were standing in an enclosure when butchers holding swords started hacking randomly at the animals. Some heads could be severed in one cut; in other cases, it took the butchers a long time to kill the buffalo. No one was holding the animals – many tried to escape. Baby buffaloes were bleating and searching for their mothers. Soon they were walking around in a pool of blood. They were hunted down by the butchers. Needless to say, not a single animal survived the bloodbath. After witnessing the suffering inflicted on these gentle, loyal animals, I feel deeply upset and ashamed of my country.
If you are not convinced of the shocking brutality Enter Gadhimai festival in Google’s images or other search engine. I was going to include a selection of photos here but feel it may put off sensitive people from reading further. Frankly if you do not find the images shockingly distressing you are in the minority.
Please Take Urgent Action
There are a number of actions you can take. Please take as many as possible. All Actions may be taken by anyone anywhere in the world.
Compassion in World Farming CWF and Animal Welfare Network Nepal have made a huge effort to campaign against this festival in an attempt to get it stopped. Please support them.
The simplest and quickest action is to sign the following petition – But please do not stop there:
The Nepalese Government provides significant funding, which makes this festival possible at its terrifying scale. In 2009 the Government paid over £32,000 for animals to be sacrificed. That’s almost 50 times the minimum Nepalese annual wage. We are calling on the Nepalese government to stop this funding. Please join us and sign our petition!
http://action.ciwf.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=119&ea.campaign.id=29144&ea.tracking.id=79a6928a&gclid=CIrVx9C40sECFWL4wgodm4EA_A – Scroll down the page of this petition for more action you can take or click the following link. (You will find more petitions further down)
Please take the following action for a more powerful protest by downloading the action pack:
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5697537/Gadhimai-Action-Pack.pdf
In the pack you will find five activities you can undertake to support CWFs
campaign:
1. The Petition
In this pack is a blank petition sheet, please ask your friends and family to
sign, then send it back to us by September 30th at the latest.
(The deadline for the print out paper petition has been missed but you can still take part in on-line petition and the other actions below.)2. Visa Application
A blank Nepal Visa application form is enclosed and an example of how
you could fill it out. Feel free to also add your own comments at the
bottom. We need you to let the Nepalese Embassy know you will not be
visiting Nepal until this festival is stopped. (If you are not a resident of the
UK, you may wish to download a visa application from the Nepalese
Embassy in your country)3. Letter to the President, Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism in Nepal
Three letters are enclosed which you can sign and send. If you are able to
personalize your letter, or hand-write your letter this will help to make
sure more attention is paid to it when it arrives with it’s recipient.4. Tell your friends and families
Not many people know about this festival and that’s part of the reason it
has gone on relatively unchallenged for so long. We must spread the
word, so please let your friends and family know and encourage them to
take action too.5. Additional campaign letters
You may also like to write to some additional contacts to campaign on
this issue. If you do, you will find some additional names and contact
addresses enclosed within this pack
Extract from the Action pack which you can download:
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5697537/Gadhimai-Action-Pack.pdf –
Please take action as soon as possible, particularly if writing letters. I wrote last time to government officials. However last time there was not the support to get this stopped as there is this time round. This time if we spread the word as widely as possible we may be able to stop this cruel festival that has no place in the modern world or as a part of Hinduism. It is an anachronism of a bygone age used by unscrupulous people to make money. These people prey on the superstitious dread of gullible people.
Maneka Gandhi, an Indian politician and activist, is outspoken in her disapproval of the tradition. She has explained that many villagers refuse to end the slaughter for fear that they will dishonor the goddess of power, called Gadhimai. In addition, Gandhi explained that the festival is an incredibly profitable enterprise for priests, moneylenders, and animal sellers, who have incentive only to continue the inhumane practice out of greed.
More Actions to take
Petitions
Stop animal sacrifice Gadhimai Festival Nepal mass animal sacrifice
http://www.change.org/p/stop-animal-sacrifice-gadhimai-festival-nepal-mass-animal-sacrifice
End Gadhimai: The World’s Largest Animal Sacrifice
http://forcechange.com/59185/end-gadhimai-the-worlds-largest-animal-sacrifice/
Other Actions
“We urge you to do all you can to encourage the Nepalese government to stop this slaughter.”
A sample letter to send to Nepalese Embassies and a petition:
ACT: The Killing Fields – End Animal Sacrifice In Nepal:
More information and more action including a sample letter and Nepalese embassy addresses in a number of countries:
http://www.kinshipcircle.org/action_center/letter_new3.asp?LetterID=1913
Click this link to contact your local Nepalese embassy or consulate in your country:
http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/Nepal
To the disgrace of the Nepalese government, the brutal killing of over half a million animals at the Gadhimai Festival in 2009 was sponsored by the country’s Government. Nepal is the birthplace of Buddha, a religion revered throughout the world as a religion of peace and non violence. Nepal is predominately Hindu, according to the 2011 census, 81.3% of the Nepalese population was Hindu, 9.0% was Buddhist, 4.4% was Muslim, 3.0% was Kirant/Yumaist, 1.42% was Christian, and 0.9% follow other religions or no religion. There is no place in Hinduism or Buddhism that allows for or condones or demands such barbarity.Compassion in World Farming say the mass killing is opposed by the global Hindu community and that there is no religious justification for it.
The Nepalese Hindu Forum UK completely opposes animal sacrifice as Hinduism does not sanction the killing of living beings… There should not be any place for this inhumane, barbaric sacrifice of innocent animals in the name of any religion.
Surya Upadhya, Chairman
Furthermore Nepal is a secular state predominately socialist/communist. There is no place in communism for superstitious belief. The fact that the Nepalese government support such barbarous festivals based on primitive superstition is incongruous to say the least.
To avoid any misunderstanding Please Note:
The Gadhimai Festival is Not a part of mainstream Hinduism. Please read more about this in the following link from my website:
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
Scroll down to the section
What Has The Gadhimai Festival Got to do With Hinduism
More information:
End Nepal’s festival of slaughter: Joanna Lumley calls for ban on sacrifice of 250,000 animals to Hindu goddess
“I love Nepal – both the land and its people.
‘The Gadhimai festival entails horrendous suffering and is a complete anomaly in this wonderful country.’”
Two articles from my website concerning the last festival in 2009:
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
Stop the Gadhimai Festival
http://www.stopanimalsacrifice.org/how_to_help.php
Home Page:
http://www.stopanimalsacrifice.org/
Rantings From a Virtual Soapbox 
Reblogged this on "OUR WORLD".
Dear Authors, while I myself love animals and do not eat meat, I wish you had a more realistic view, from he terrain, about the Gadhi Mai festival held in Nepal, as I myself do. Then you would not write that Gadhi Mai is part of the mainstream Hindu religion – as you did above. It is NOT, and if you ever wander around the South Nepali town where the Gadhi Mai temple is located, you would soon find out that this festival is attended 99% by Indians who cannot practice this bloody tradition in India, because there (to your surprise, I a Hindu country!) many states had abolished animal sacrifice already. It s vey unfortunate to connect Gadhi Mai with Hinduism and the nations of Nepal, especially of Hindu Nepalese. In case you would have traveled Nepal all-over like I did, you would meet mostly vegetarian Hindus, and meat-eating Buddhists. The truth is often different in reality than you se it from your Western armchair… And the truth is that Nepali Hindus themselves condemn animal sacrifices, at least in all temples and holy places which I visited, the Babas, Sadhus and Gurus always condemned animal sacrifices, and considered them something solely “commercial”, just to satisfy people’s desire for meat, justifying it with religion. It is deeply offending and hurting when you blame and put the responsibility on “mainstream” Nepali Hindus for Gadhi Mai. it is terrible to kill animals, but similarly terrible is to create religious enmity in the name of animal protection, based on disinformation. Hindus themselves criticize meat eating in Nepal, but Hindusim always being a religion of tolerance, they do not fight against it. On the other hand, the Gadhi Mai had been misused by non-Hindu Nepali nations (Buddhists and Christians) to create anti-Hindu sentiment with a political agenda. It is very apparent that Westerners’ emotional care about animals are misused by such groups . On of such groups is surrounding the Nepali Buddha Boy, who raised his voice against sacrificing goats in 2009. Yet, he himself has along history of brutally attacking human beings instead, of putting them on chains, torturing and letting raped etc. The victims go to dozens… This group is using animal-right sentiments for creating a religious upheaval, yet their own activity is violent. So please be careful to whom do you give your animal-protecting enthusiasm, as it can, because had already been, misused to support political and cultist propaganda. You can see more about the Truth about Gadhi Mai and Nepal here: http://www.halkoria.myewebsite.com/articles/their-pr/the-truth-about-nepali-hindus-and-gadhi-mai.html
Thank you for your comments. However I do not understand how you thought I was blaming Hinduism, or that I am implying that the Gadhimai festival is part of mainstream Hinduism or condoned by Nepali Hindus. If you read carefully what I have written this is simply not true. Quite the contrary in fact. To begin the blog entry I opened with a quote from Joanna Lumley, which said: “This inhumane event is not part of the mainstream Hindu faith.”
I made the point that the festival is incongruous with the fact that nearly 90 per cent of the population are mainstream Hindu, which along with the quotations was intended to suggest that the festival has nothing to do with Hinduism of Nepal.
In the first entry https://rantingsfromavirtualsoapbox.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/stop-the-gadhimai-festival/
I stated the following:
“This is not religion, this is not Hinduism – you can read quotes from Hindu Scripture in my article mentioned earlier (http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm) as you will read there is no place for such brutality in Hinduism – this is appalling and barbaric cruelty, this is superstitious fear exploited by greedy people who will make money from the misery and fear of both human and non human animals as a result of this festival.”
Towards the end of the more recent blog entry I also pointed out that :“there is no place in Hinduism or Buddhism that allows for or condones or demands such barbarity“. Surely in this sentence it is obvious that I am not saying that this festival is a part of mainstream Hinduism. What I am attempting to say is that because of the teachings of Hinduism regarding non violence to all beings the festival has nothing to do with Hinduism
I have included extensive quotes in my website article showing that the Gadhimai festival has nothing to do with the concepts of Hinduism. I have included the following quote among many others
“He who injures harmless creatures from a wish to give himself pleasure, never finds happiness in this life or the next.”
Manu-samhita 5.45
and an extensive section which includes much information confirming that the Gadhimai festival has nothing to do with Hinduism :
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
“What Has the Gadhimai Festival Got to do With Hinduism?
In one word, nothing!”
Please continue reading this:
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
I said in the above article included in my website that
“The major sects of the Hindu religion hold vegetarianism as an ideal for several reasons, probably the most important of which is in order to comply with the principle of Ahimsa and also to attain spiritual development.”
Also a section:
What Hindu scriptures say about vegetarianism and the treatment of animals
Did you click the links to my website included in both blog entries?
I cannot of course include such detailed information in a blog entry no one would read it, I assume that people click and read the material included in the links provided.
I regret very much that you thought my article implied the Gadhimai festival was a part of mainstream Hinduism. This was most certainly not my intention at all. I have a great respect for Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism as religions of peace and non-violence towards all creatures. I in fact blamed the Nepalese government with such comments as:
“Furthermore Nepal is a secular state predominately socialist/communist. There is no place in communism for superstitious belief. The fact that the Nepalese government support such barbarous festivals based on primitive superstition is incongruous to say the least.”
Please read both my articles included in my website:
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/Useful_Links_Action_You_Can_Take_The%20Gadhimai%20Jatra%20Festival.htm
The intention of the blog entries is to highlight the plight of animals and hopefully get this stopped. I was not aware of the contention between religious groups in Nepal and was most certainly not intending to malign Hinduism in anyway whatsoever! I had hoped that my article, along with links to two extensive articles on my website, in fact pointed out that I considered that unscrupulous people used primitive superstition that had no place in mainstream Hinduism in order to make money from gullible people. I still do not understand where in my article you consider that I was blaming Hinduism.
To be clear I will state I do not consider the Gadhimai Festival as part of mainstream Hinduism. I have no intention of creating religious enmity, the article is simply a small attempt on my behalf to help stop the killing of thousands of innocent animals.
Whether or not animal rights issues are used in religious contentions between Buddhist, Christian and Hindus I do not know. However for me and most people who campaign for the rights of animals it is the animals that matter and how they‘re treated. Regardless of who is to blame the sacrifice of animals has to stop. I agree that many use religion as an excuse to eat meat, most notably Christianity. I had hoped that with all the information and quotations included in both the blog entries and my website, that I had stated clearly that there was no Hindu teaching or doctrine that could justify the massacre at the Gadhimai festival.
To avoid any further misunderstanding I have added the following update to my blog:
The Gadhimai Festival is Not a part of mainstream Hinduism. Please read more about this in the following link from my website:
http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/The_Gadhimai_festival_Why_it-must-never_happen-Again.htm
Scroll down to the section
What Has The Gadhimai Festival Got to do With Hinduism?
Thank you for your link which I will look at as soon as I can
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