Every five years around November and December, hundreds of thousands to millions of Hindus flock to a temple in southeastern Nepal, next to the country’s border with India, in a tradition that has sparked both reverence and controversy. It’s been dubbed “the world’s bloodiest” festival because of the sheer number of animals slaughtered and offered as sacrifice.
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The Gadhimai festival, a quinquennial religious observance dating back more than centuries, sees the killing of thousands of animals—from rats and pigeons to goats and water buffalos—in belief that the mass sacrifice will appease the Hindu goddess Gadhimai, who will in return bring them prosperity. During the last festival in 2019, as many as 250,000 creatures were beheaded, according to animal welfare group Humane Society International (HSI).
The bloodshed has invited increasing scrutiny, as activists who champion animal welfare square off with devotees who believe that the ritual is an important, untouchable cornerstone of Hinduism. The top courts in Nepal and India have both tried to intervene, but the killings look to continue. This year, Nepal’s vice president even led the inauguration of the festival, which advocates had requested he not take part in.
“Gadhimai is infamous for animal cruelty and human exploitation,” said Alokparna Sengupta, HSI’s India director, in a statement last week. “It is disgraceful that the Gadhimai temple committee is exploiting the hopes, fears and frustrations of impoverished people for its own profit. The Government of Nepal must protect against the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of people and animals in the name of tradition.”
Here’s what to know about the festival.
Why are animals killed in the festival?
The mass slaughter is traced back to Bhagwan Chowdhary, the founder of the Gadhimai temple in Bariyarpur, Bara District. In a dream, Gadhimai, the formidable goddess of power, appeared to an imprisoned Chowdhary, promising power and prosperity in exchange for a blood sacrifice. While human blood was sought after, Chowdhary instead successfully offered animal blood.
Today, the Gadhimai festival is a monthlong observance that culminates late in the year with the ritualistic animal killings. Some of these creatures are even brought in from India, and the Nepalese government at one point even donated to the event. Al Jazeera reported that in 2019, five animals were sacrificed to kickstart the mass slaughter, and a local shaman offered his own blood, before some 200 butchers entered an enclosed space that held several thousand creatures for them to kill.
According to HSI, an estimated 500,000 animals were slaughtered in 2009. This has since gone down to around 250,000 animals in both 2014 and 2019—including thousands of water buffaloes.
This year, the animal sacrifices are expected to begin on Dec. 8.
What has been done to stop the killings?
Activists have long condemned the festival, submitting petitions to courts in Nepal and India. French former actress Brigitte Bardot even wrote a letter to the Nepalese government arguing that the killings are “violent, cruel and inhumane.” But the Nepalese government in 2009 said it will not use force to prevent the Gadhimai sacrifices, as they “don’t want to hurt religious sentiments.”
In 2014, the Supreme Court of India ordered the state governments neighboring Nepal to restrict exporting and transporting animals for Gadhimai.
In 2015, caretakers of the temple who also oversee the Gadhimai festival said that the 2019 iteration would be “free from bloodshed.” Days later, however, they clarified to the BBC that devout Hindus could be “requested not to offer animal sacrifice to the goddess, but they could not be forced not to do so—nor [could] the tradition be banned or stopped completely.”
The Supreme Court of Nepal, in a ruling issued in 2016, ordered its government to begin phasing out and discouraging animal sacrifices. However, this remained largely ignored as the killings continued in 2019, prompting opponents to file a case against the temple’s caretakers and the government for allegedly violating the ruling. “We strongly believe that there has been complete disregard, disobedience and non-compliance of the court’s verdict by the government and its agencies since the past five years despite persistent efforts by animal welfare organizations and activists,” a pair of Nepalese conservationists who filed the petition before the Supreme Court said in a statement at the time. That case remains ongoing.