There has been an increasing hue and cry over the upcoming Gadhimai festival in Nepal where hundreds of thousands of animals are sacrificed every 5 years. There have been numerous petitions to stop this mass killing and even international organizations are getting involved in asking the Nepal government to stop this festival.

At a cursory glance, it seems like a normal compassionate thing to do, i.e. to deplore such mass killings of animals. But if you really start looking at the bigger picture, there are other statistics which might be even more shocking.

It is indicated in the petitition that over 200,000 animals get killed during this festival. This number looks big but when you look at the number of animals killed in the US for food, that number is even overwhelming. In the year 2000, 9.7 billion animals were killed for food. Which roughly comes to about 2.6 million animals a day in the US alone.

We are happy to enjoy the plate of momo in our plate. We enjoy steak, burgers, chicken curry, goat meat and all other non veg delicacies at every chance we get. We know where the meat is coming from but we want to ignore the reality and focus on the food only. If we really care about the killing of animals, then all of us should stop eating meat. We should petition for the governments to ban meat.

Why is there a huge outcry when 200,000 animals are killed in the Hindu ceremonial sacrifices, when in the US alone over 2,600,000 animals are killed everyday. What makes it ok for the 2.6 million animals that gets slaughtered every day in the US, but not ok for 200,000 animals to be killed in Nepal?

Please sign my petition. "Stop the hypocrisy of dehumanizing animal slaughters, until people stop eating meat altogether."

Here are few points that i have made out for myself on this issue.

1. I myself am a hypocritical meat eater. I would not go to an extent of murdering the animal with my bare hands for consumption but if someone has already murdered the animal, i do drool over the bhuteko, sadheko, jhol haleko, and other parikars.

2. I wish i did not love the meat as much, i just love it and i cant give up on it. I know i should give it up but the taste is just too good. Being said that, i am not all evil about animals and fight for the cause of some animal rights when and where i can. I want the animals to enjoy this earth as well, i prefer animals not being caged, i prefer that they get a chance to love their offspring, chase their opposite sex and breed, feed freely, graze freely, and die with dignity and least pain possible.

3. Being said point 2, i also do not support the celebration of animal sacrifices/murders. Also not a big fan of public murders of in the animals in the name of religion and culture. There is not really any difference between those muslims who enjoy the public cow murders and the Hindus who enjoy the public buffalo and goat murders. Celebration of murders in the name of god and culture is just sick.

4.Being said point 3, it is also VERY VERY VERY important to know who is behind those "no animal sacrifice" groups. Like many have said above these groups motives could just be to vilify other religions so that they can market their own religion up front. You would not see any of these groups worry about all the cows that are murdered by the Abrahamic religions and millions of Turkeys sacrified each year by the Christians. Not many Christ lovers come forward on saving Cow's rights, against caging pigs for slaughter, or caging chickens for 60 days from birth just to be slaughtered without those chickens seeing the sunlight.

5.The bigger question for myself is how do i participate against public celebration of animal murders without aiding those political and religious vultures?

Hi Sidster, I also feel the same way about meat and animals. But having said that your point no.4 does imply that some group with the intention of spreading their own religion is behind the move to forbid this ceremonial slughter of animals in mass and to vilify hinduisme. So if that the truth, should we not change some practices in hinduisme so that it adapts to the modern way of life? Continuing these kind of practices would be to give a stick to the people to beat us. Samething with the caste system. Many nepalese from lower castes are converting to christianity because they find injustice in hinduisme. Should we not eradicate completely the caste system?

hurray...we need to discourage the public celebration of animal slaughter and at the same time identify the evils who want to cash in on our own weaknesses to sell their product better.