Animal rights activists are pressuring the Indian and Nepalese governments to ban a mass sacrifice by Hindus of goats and other animals after 50,000 were killed in one week in one city alone.
Every 5 years hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshipers make a pilgrimage to temples dedicated to Kali, the goddess of destruction, and also Gadhimai, the Hindu goddess of power.
Many of these pilgrims offer animal sacrifices, mostly goats, to the Hindu god to stave off bad luck.
East Indian governments are under pressure to ban the practice.
One campaigner told the
Austrian Times, "There are so many sacrifices now that they have started to affect the country's agriculture. There are whole farms devoted to raising goats for slaughter rather than producing food."
The religious festival, which has been celebrated for the past 300 years is scheduled to take place in the small village of Bariyapur in Nepal close to the Indian border.
For two days, November 24 and 25, the village will "flow with blood" as many travel from India for the world's biggest ritual slaughter of animals, reports
AFP.
Animal Nepal is one such group that will pit themselves against Hindu worshipers to stop what they call senseless cruelty to animals and they have also launched an
online petition calling on the banning of the practice.
In an interview with AFP, Pramada Shah, director of campaign group Animal Nepal said, "We launched our campaign to put a stop to the gruesome killing of animals in the name of God. Even in the 21st century, innocent animals are facing cruel treatment due to people's superstition."
The campaign to stop the slaughter did receive a boost this year when Ram Bahadur Bomjam, nicknamed "Buddha Boy" by Nepalese media said, "Human beings have turned brutal by offering animal sacrifices to the goddess. This practice must be stopped now."
Bomjam is a young Nepalese man who is believed to be the reincarnation of Buddha by his followers, reports AFP.
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Ram Bahadur Bomjan (Buddha Boy)
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Some states in India have outlawed the slaughter making the event in Nepal hugely popular.
The temple of Gadhimai's head priest, Mangal Chaudhary Tharu said in an AFP interview that the last festival in 2004 saw approximately 800,000 attendees with over 400,000 animals being sacrificed, and he expects the crowds to be even larger this year.
Tharu said, "We are not forcing devotees to sacrifice animals. It is an age-old practice and it must continue. The festival will lose its charm and become meaningless if we break with tradition."
The Nepalese government has allotted $60,000 for this year's festival.
