Gadhimai report
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Transcript (English — en-x-autogen)
The Gima Festival is a religious event in which several
thousand animals are brutally slaughtered every five years.
In 2014, animal equality campaign tirelessly
to phase out the animal sacrifice at the festival.
Most of the animals sacrificed are made to walk for hours,
sometimes days, while others are transported in cramped,
stifling conditions.
In buses, trains, trucks, and on bicycles.
These animals endure this long journey
starved of food and water.
Pigeons and chickens are jam packed into bamboo baskets,
cages and plastic or net bags with no breathing space.
They are sometimes tucked under Ss, sweaters and shoals.
The wings of the birds are clipped and their legs
and wings vote tied for easy carriage
with the noose around their throats,
goats are hoisted roughly onto the roof of buses
or crammed into tiny luggage compartments
with no ventilation.
Some of them are stuffed into bags
and transported on bicycle.
The animals sacrificed at the festival are mostly young.
These animals are being managed callously by young boys.
When they collapse from exhaustion due to the endless hours
of walking, they are pushed, pulled,
and forced to march on devotees gather in the evening
before the festival to watch the punch bully.
This is the sacrifice of the first five animals.
It marks the beginning of the carnage
and starts with the lighting of a lamb
that the devotees believe lights
by itself in a supernatural act.
The ritual sacrifice begins with the priest holding the net
of a pigeon against the machete.
He then slices the animal's head off.
The priests themselves don't stand true
to the ritual tradition of sacrificing five animals
as seven animals are actually slaughtered.
These include a rat, pigeons, roosters, goats,
a ram, a pig, and finally, five buffalos.
Though the temple Committee members assure
or one blow quick death to the animals,
this is really the case.
According to reports,
about 300 deputies were given a license
by the Temple Committee to carry out the sacrifice.
None of these butchers have any experience in the humane
killing of animals.
From a headcount of the aerial footage taken by us
of the buffalo enclosure,
we counted approximately 2000
animals, one by one.
Each of these buffalos is hacked to death,
many knowing they are next huddled together in corners
and against the wall in a desperate bit to save themselves
some of the bigger animals
that have some energy left attempt to run away.
The killers chase after them slashing away ruthlessly from
behind to immobilize them.
In spite of police presence, the impatient crowds
outside managed to secure a place on the wall
to view the spectacle.
Much like the spectators in a Roman arena of ancient times,
the onlookers appear mesmerized by the carnage,
which goes on for several hours.
No more is the festival a sacred tradition
as it is made out to be.
While the slaughter of the buffaloes happens
inside the arena, in the surrounding fields, outside
goats are being sacrificed by thousands of devotees.
Holy water is sprinkled on the animals
before they are killed.
The normal involuntary reflex
of the animal shrugging off the holy water is translated
by the priest as the supernatural sign
that the animal has volunteered to be sacrificed.
This perverse roof invites cheerful applause from the
onlookers and the animal is promptly executed.
Once decapitated, the priest begins to tremble
as though possessed.
The priests claim that 10
to 20,000 buffaloes were slaughtered in 2009.
While the head count of the smaller animals,
including fouls, goats, et cetera,
was impossible to calculate.
They estimated that more than a hundred
thousand were sacrificed that year.
These figures are likely inflated.
To convey the significance of this festival,
we told the priests of
how some temples had adopted the symbolic
sacrifice of vegetables.
What emerged in our conversation with the priest
was the dark underbelly of the Gima Festival.
It appears to be a moneymaking racket feeding a profitable
leather and meat industry.
The priest issued tenders to agencies
or contractors for meat and leather.
The person to whom the contract was issued in 2014 fled
as the number of animals brought for sacrifice
was nowhere near the target, which was 10,000 buffalos
In their blind faith
and out of desperation, the devotees fail to see the R
of the myth that the God is gima will fulfill their wishes
After the animals sacrifice,
devotees predominantly from the poorer Dali community
who can hardly afford the expense, will
nonetheless take a loan to purchase a pair of pigeons
for 500 Nepali rupees
or a goat for 9,500 Nepali rupees,
or a buffalo for 15,000 Nepali rupees.
Most of the pigeons
with wings clipped are thrown like garbage on the rooftop
of the temple to be slaughtered later for their meat.
The scam allows young boys to catch some of them
and resell them to devotees by the evening.
Large numbers from the Dali community enter the enclosure
and pile as many carcasses as they can lay claim into.
Armed with blunt knives, they skin the carcasses,
remove the entrails, and chop the meat out for themselves.
Many devotees are seen setting up their
cooking pots in the fields.
The flesh of the wasted animals is salvaged and cooked.
Others dry the animal into stains under the sun
for consumption over the next one month.
The religious belief makes one blind to
what is clearly visible to the eyes.
Devotees will not realize
nor accept the health hazards
involved in consuming stale meat.
Instead, they believe that this offering cannot decay
By the end of the two day festival.
The entire landscape looks like a barbaric bloody massacre
on a battlefield, typically, there is no concept of hygiene
inside the enclosure.
An unbearable emanates from the carcasses outside.
The fields are covered with human excretion
and the unwanted remains of the slaughtered animals
stomachs, decaying intestines, and the severed heads.
This is moved by an earth moving tractor into an open pit
to simply rot.
Children who witness this m killing
of animals are terrified.
Many are seen crying and shaking in fear.
At a mental hospital in Nepal, ajita pane, a medical student
and an animal activist met an 11-year-old boy suffering
from serious depression.
The parents told her that the boy had not uttered a word
after witnessing the horrific slaughter at Kadima.
What lasting impression does this coldblooded carnage
of animals leave on the minds of children?
What associations may be made between acts
of brutal violence and religion?
What will be the ripple effect of violence thus generated?
What precedence does it set for society?
The Gima Festival has today become a fun fare, which extends
to the adjoining village
and attracting massive crowds from the
bordering Indian states.
Although officially, the sale of alcohol has been banned
during the festival, it's freely available at 20
or 30 a bottle maybe
for the women devotees who come, hoping
for a male offspring from the goddess.
There is still a sacred element to the festival,
but for the majority of the crowds
numbering over a million people.
It's a social event
and a time to indulge the animal slaughter in the grounds.
Adjoining the temple is the major attraction for a crowd
desensitized to the college.
It can even be viewed on large TV screens in the village.
Animal equality. India has been working on the issue
of kamai animal sacrifice since early 2014.
In April, 2014, our efforts managed
to obtain an order from the government of India
restricting the movement of animals across
the border with Nepal.
During the month of November in October,
protests organized outside the Indian embassies in Spain,
Germany, and Italy appealed
for implementation of this order.
Earlier we met with Inspector General
of Bihar Police Department
and the Deputy Inspector General of Bihar Border Force,
seeking permission to assist them with border patrolling.
The Bihar Nepal border stretches over 625 kilometers
and is porous along its full length,
and 90% of the visitors are from India.
The animal quarantine post just a few hundred yards into
Nepal was found absolutely deserted.
We learned that during the days of the festival,
animals were not inspected.
This was in violation of the Animal Health
and Livestock Services Act of Nepal.
Thanks to the Indian government, animal equality
and other organizations
and activists, about 2000 animals were
stopped at the border.
The 2014 Gima Festival saw a dip
of about 70% In the number of animals sacrificed.
The total number of animals sacrificed was around 30,000.
The two day long buffalo slaughter was reduced
to half a day, as per the headcount.
Less than 2000 buffalo were slaughtered as opposed to the,
which meant it reduced by.