Water buffalo, goats, chickens, pigs, ducks and rats, most of them illegally transported from India to Nepal, all beheaded with metal swords: these are the rites of Gadhimai Festivala celebration that lasts a month and culminates in sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of animals.
“A terrifying bloodbath”, say the animal protection organizations Humane Society International/India, People for Animals, Sneha’s Care and Federation of Animal Welfare of Nepal who urge the Nepalese Government to take measures to ensure that this is the last Festival of Gadhimai where animals are killed.
Already a small step forward has been made: HSI/India, PFA and the border police managed to confiscate and save over 750 animals destined for sacrifice, after having been illegally transported from India to Nepal.
The Gadhimai Festival
It involves a month-long celebration, or “mela,” culminating in the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of animals. Water buffalo, goats, chickens, pigs, ducks and rats are beheaded with blunt metal swords in a alcohol-fueled killing spree. Most of these animals are transported illegally from India to Nepal due to poorly controlled borders.
Regulations are openly flouted, as most animals are illegally transported across the border without an export license. Which is why mass sacrifices entail serious risks to public healthexacerbated by the unhealthy conditions of the Festival site. Without toilets for millions of pilgrims, the air is filled with the stench of feces, blood and death.
The origins of the Festival date back to approximately 265 years ago, when the founder of the Gadhimai Temple, Bhagwan Chowdhary, had a dream in which the goddess Gadhimai asked him for blood in exchange for freeing him from prison, protecting him from evil and ensuring prosperity and power. The goddess asked for a human sacrifice, but Chowdhary successfully offered an animal; since then, all this has been repeated every five years.
This year the massacre began in the early morning hours of December 8, when, according to entry recordings, 4,200 buffaloes were beheaded in the arena and thousands of goats, pigeons and other animals were killed outside. It ended on December 9 with the killing of thousands more goats, as part of an ancient ritual aimed at appeasing the goddess Gadhimai.
Animal rights groups had sent their teams to checkpoints on the India-Nepal border more than a week before the sacrifice, to assist the border police in intercepting and confiscating animals illegally transported for sacrifice. Thanks to them, it was possible to save more than 750 animals: 74 buffaloes, 347 goats, 328 pigeons and two chickens.
Younger goats in need of immediate or specialist care will receive permanent care at the “Happy Home” sanctuary, while procedures are underway to find homes for the buffaloes and chickens, and the pigeons have been safely released into their natural habitat.
Despite this, estimates based on eyewitness testimony indicate that, during the two-day Festivalbetween 250 thousand and 500 thousand animals were killed. And the shocking thing is that before the sacrifice of 2024, the Gadhimai Temple he urged the faithful to once again bring the number of animal sacrifices to 500,000.
I have never seen anything so shocking and disturbing – says Arkaprava Bhar, Campaign Development Manager at Humane Society International/India – as what I witnessed with Gadhimai’s sacrifice. The scale of the killing is unimaginable: there are animals being decapitated everywhere, and bright red blood stains on the ground wherever you walk. Animals such as buffalo and goats are sensitive and sentient creatures, extremely aware of what is happening around them. It must be a horrible ordeal. This appalling bloodbath must stop.
What has been done so far
HSI/India and PFA have been working since 2014 to stop animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai Festival. It is estimated that over 500 thousand animals were killed in 2009 and around 250 thousand animals in 2014 and 2019.
Just 10 years ago, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Government of India to prevent the illegal transportation of animals across the border into Nepal for sacrifice at the Gadhimai. The Court also called on animal protection organizations, including HSI/India, PFA and others, to formulate an action plan to ensure enforcement of its orders, which HSI/India has since implemented.
Finally, in September 2019, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered an end to live animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai Festival and urged authorities to draw up a plan to phase out the practice nationwide.
But it is clear that the provision has been widely ignored and that it is not enough.
