Supreme Court of Nepal orders end to Gadhi Mai massacre

(Beth Clifton collage)

Government directed to “halt the inhuman act of slaughtering animals at Gadhi Mai”

KATHMANDU, Nepal––Supreme Court of Nepal Justices Ishwori Prasad Khatiwada and Anil Kumar Sinha on August 4, 2016 ordered the government of Nepal “to form a special committee and take appropriate measures through it to halt the inhuman act of slaughtering animals at Gadhi Mai,” Supreme Court of Nepal spokesperson Bishworaj Poudel told reporters for the Kathmandu Post and the Himalayan Times.

Wrote Justices Khatiwada and Sinha, “People need to be made aware that slaughtering animals is not a good deed. The government should create such an environment that the people make the code of conduct themselves and abide by it.”

The two-judge Supreme Court of Nepal bench ruled in response to a writ petition filed by animal advocate Arjun Kumar Aryal on November 20, 2014, naming as defendants the Office of the Prime Minister and the Gadhi Mai Temple Management Committee.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Priests wobble on 2015 pledge to stop killing

Under pressure of a previous Supreme Court of Nepal injunction won on November 24, 2014 by Nepal Animal Welfare & Research Center founder Uttam Dahal, “We have decided to completely stop the practice of animal sacrifice,” Gadhi Mai Temple Trust secretary Motilal Prasad told the Himalayan Times on July 28, 2015.

The announcement appeared to mean the end of mass sacrifices held every five years at Bariyarpur, in western Nepal near the Indian border, which have become increasingly controversial since first emerging into media view in 1999.

Volunteers, including Jim Myers of Animal Aid Unlimited in the white shirt, posed with guards at the Nepalese border with India during efforts to enforce a Supreme Court of India order against exporting animals to Nepal for the 2014 Gadhi Mai sacrificial festival.
[Facebook photo]

But some Gadhi Mai Temple Trust representatives issued statements reneging on their statements, less than 24 hours after signing an agreement to stop the Gadhi Mai sacrifices brokered by Humane Society International, the global arm of the Humane Society of the U.S.

Next Gadhi Mai festival due in 2019

The next Gadhi Mai sacrificial slaughter is scheduled for 2019.

Boosted by former King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Dev during his brief reign, 2001-2006, the sacrifices in honor of the local goddess Gadhi Mai are commonly said to have originated in the 18th century, but there appears to be no unequivocal written documentation of any such event having been held before 1999.

Overview of the 2014 Gadhi Mai sacrificial festival at Bariyarpur, Nepal. This is the Humane Society International drone photo, with enumeration by ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton.

Overview of the 2014 Gadhi Mai sacrificial festival at Bariyarpur, Nepal. This is a Humane Society International drone photo, with one-by-one enumeration of the animal victims by ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton.

Inflated claims

As many as 2,500 buffalo and hundreds of goats and chickens were killed at the 2004, 2009, and 2014 Gadhi Mai sacrifices, according to analysis of the available photographic documentation. Both the local priests promoting the sacrifices and animal advocacy organizations campaigning against them have exaggerated the verifiable toll of animal lives by as much as a hundredfold.

Investigative work by Beauty Without Cruelty-India indicates that the inflated claims about the numbers of animals sacrificed probably started with priests selling each animal multiple times to absentee sponsors. Activists then swallowed the inflated claims whole, and exaggerated them further to try to drum up global support for protest.