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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: October 2007

Progress toward abolishing animal sacrifice in Nepal and India

 

KATHMANDU--"Though a ceasefire between the government and the Maoist guerrillas has held for over a year now," India News Service reporter Sudeshna Sarkar wrote from the Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu on October 19, 2007, "Nepal is passing through one of its goriest periods with thousands of animals being sacrificed daily on the occasion of Dashain, the biggest Hindu festival in the country.

"On the eighth day of the nearly fortnight-long celebrations," Sarkar explained, "animal killings reach a crescendo, with buffaloes, goats, and chickens being slaughtered."

But since the recent dissolution of the Nepalese theocracy, Sarkar noted, dissent against the sacrifices--formerly personally led by the king--has emerged.

"Amid growing protest by animal rights activists, hundreds of red-robed lamas stopped speaking in monasteries across 22 districts," Sarkar said, "to issue silent prayers for the welfare of all creatures of god. The prayers started from Lumbini in southern Nepal, where the Buddha was born."

Sarkar cited an "opinion poll by a private television station," which "showed over 60% of the respondents said the festival would remain incomplete without animal sacrifices."

But Damodar Neupane of the Kathmandu Post approvingly profiled the villages of Chumchet and Chhekampar, in Gorkha, "eight days' walk" from the seat of regional government, where the Bhutan-born guru Dukpa Ringpoche Serab Dorje abolished animal sacrifice in 1917.

"Five years after his arrival all the villagers had gone vegetarian," Neupane wrote.

"Nobody breached the rule," recalled 91-year-old villager Chhewang Laharke. "Everyone follows the teachings of the guru, which have become an integral part of our precious culture."

Added local guru Dawang Khenrab, "We have taken the decision to discourage other people from animal sacrifice."

Kathmandu-based BBC reporter Charles Haviland observed that "New dissenters are questioning both the scale and the methods of the killing. An article in the Nepali Times weekly says most buffaloes, like smaller animals, are decapitated but the bigger ones are battered to death with a heavy hammer on the forehead.

"Respected botanist Tirtha Shrestha, writing in the same paper, says that in Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, pigs are skinned alive and their beating hearts offered to the temple, while in a nearby village people tear apart a live goat. 'Decapitating a bleating buffalo or goat should not be the symbol of the Nepali civilisation,' he says. 'Why are we exhibiting such cruelty, and how does this reflect on our society?'

"The suffering of the people of Nepal [in the recent civil war] and the slaughter of [nine members of] the family of the King" in a June 2000 rage massacre attributed to a prince who later shot himself "is due to such stupid practices," opined Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna, who has made personal efforts to encourage Nepalese opposition to sacrifice.

"I am convinced that all the troubles for the kings of Nepal is due to their cruel participation and perpetuation of this barbaric practice," Krishna continued. "If the kings believe in the Hindu philosophy, they must surely know that there is an inexorable law of action and reaction under which cruelty begets more cruelty and suffering."

But similar sacrifices continue in parts of India, exempted from prosecution by Section 28 of the federal Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960, which says, "Nothing contained in this Act shall render it an offence to kill any animal in a manner required by the religion of any community."

Reported The Statesman, of Kolkata, "Reports of slaughtering of nearly 200 animals poured in from three prominent shakti shrines during the midnight hours on 19 October.

"Tradition was allowed to prevail. Animal sacrifice is practised by the local politicians, the police and the revenue officials," explained animal advocate Bijoy Kabi. "The first goat butchered at the Satabhaya shrine was offered by a police station," Kabi alleged.

"Eid followed by Durga Puja, and you have blood and more blood flowing country-wide," lamented Assamese activist Azam Siddique, referring to the Feast of Atonement slaughters practiced by Muslims and the more common Indian term for the occasion called Dasain in Nepal and Dasara in southern India.

Siddique described several sacrifices he had heard about in Assam, and recalled that "in a place called Belsor," where 100 buffalos were sacrificed this year, "the superintendent of police last year sacrificed and danced with a buffalo head on his shoulders. This year it is alleged that a senior minister in the state government was also party to the slaughter," Siddique added.

But Bano Haralu of New Delhi Television profiled the Haatkhola Dutta Bari family of north Kolkata, who gave up animal sacrifice in 1794, and have now shunned sacrifice for 28 generations.

State and city governments have some leeway to ban or restrict sacrifice in public places. "Animal sacrifice as part of Dasara festivities has been banned under the Karnataka Prevention of Animal and Bird Sacrifice Act since 1959," The Hindu reminded Bangalore residents on October 19.

The Hindu mentioned the next day that, "Animal sacrifice for Dasara has been banned in the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation limits," and that "Violators would be prosecuted under the Andhra Pradesh Animals and Birds Sacrifice Prohibition Act of 1950, according to city veterinary officer N. Karunakara Rao."

In Cuttack, The Hindu noted on October 22, "In the absence of any specific law banning animal sacrifice in the country, the district administration was able to sensitize the people against this age-old practice."

Said district deputy collector [deputy chief administrator] Aditya Mohapatra "No report of any animal sacrifice was received from any part of Cuttack district."

The four major temples in the district reportedly ended animal sacrifice in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively.