RECHERCHE: Gadhimai Opferfest Reportage | Animal Equality
Die internationale Tierrechtsorganisation Animal Equality enthüllt in einer neuen Reportage unveröffentlichte Aufnahmen ihres bahnbrechenden Erfolgs gegen das Massaker beim Gadhimai Fest in Indien.
Bitte unterstütze unsere wichtige Arbeit für die Tiere und werde Mitglied: animalequality.de/mitgliedschaft/
#gadhimai #opferfest #reportage #tierschutz #indien
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Animal Equality ist eine internationale Organisation, die gemeinsam mit Gesellschaft, Politik und Unternehmen daran arbeitet, Grausamkeit gegenüber landwirtschaftlich genutzten Tieren zu beenden.
Wir verbreiten in acht Ländern auf vier verschiedenen Kontinenten Informationen und Hilfestellungen für einen tierleidfreien Lebensstil und inspirieren Menschen dazu, ihre Ernährungsweise zugunsten der Tiere zu verändern.
Neben Deutschland sind wir auch in den USA, Großbritannien, Italien, Spanien, Mexiko, Brasilien und Indien aktiv.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Abonniere unseren Kanal, damit du die nächsten Recherchen und Videos nicht verpasst: youtube.com/c/AnimalEqualityGermany/
Mehr unter:
www.animalequality.de
www.animalequality.org
www.loveveg.de
www.loveveg.org
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/AnimalEqualityGermany
Instagram:
www.instagram.com/animalequality_de
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/AE_Germany
Featured in
Transcript (English — en)
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
The Gadimai Festival is a religious
event where every 5 years
several thousand animals are brutally
slaughtered
[Music]
. In 2014, Animal Equality worked
tirelessly to end the
animal sacrifices at the Gadimai Festival to
[music]
. Most of the animals
sacrificed during the Gadimai festival have to
walk for hours or even days. Others are transported in overcrowded,
sweltering buses, trains, trucks, or
even on bicycles.
The animals endure this long journey
without food and
water. Pigeons and chickens are crammed into
bamboo baskets, cages or plastic bags
, where they have little air to breathe
. Sometimes they are hidden under saris,
sweaters, or scarves
. To
facilitate transport, the birds' wings are
clipped and their legs are tied
together. Goats
are hoisted onto the roofs of
buses with a rope around their necks or crammed into tiny luggage
compartments without ventilation
[music]
. Some are stuffed into bags
and transported on bicycles
.
[Music]
At the festival, mostly young animals are
sacrificed. Buffalo calves are led by
inexperienced children
. If the animals collapse from the stress
of the hours-long marches,
they are forced to
continue walking. Followers of the goddess
Gadimai gather on the evening before the
festival to see the Punch Bali, the
sacrifice of the first five animals. It represents
the beginning of the bloodbath and starts
with the lighting of a
lamp. The followers believe they
glow by themselves due to supernatural powers. The ritual sacrifice begins
with the priest pressing the neck of a
dove against a machete. Then
he cuts off the animal's head.
[Music]
The priests themselves do not adhere to
the traditional ritual in which five
animals
are sacrificed. Instead, far more
animals are slaughtered. A rat, pigeons,
roosters, goats, a sheep, a pig,
and finally five buffaloes.
Although the temple committee
assures a quick death, this is
rarely the
case. According to reports, the
temple committee issued licenses to approximately 300 followers
to perform sacrifices.
[Music]
None of these bad guys has any
experience in slaughtering
[Music] animals
. Aerial footage from Animal
Equality shows that approximately 2000
animals are kept in the buffalo enclosure
[music]
. Each of these buffaloes
is hacked to death with machetes
. In a desperate attempt
to save themselves, many of them huddle
in corners and against
walls. Some animals that still
have some strength try to
escape. But the bad guys chase
after them and injure their legs
and torso to immobilize them
. Despite the presence of the police,
the impatient crowd manages
to secure a spot at the fence to
watch the spectacle.
[Applause]
Similar to the spectators in Roman
arenas of antiquity, the
onlookers seem hypnotized by the
hours-long
bloodbath. This has
nothing to do with sacred tradition.
While the slaughter of the buffaloes
takes place in an enclosure, goats are sacrificed in the
surrounding fields by thousands of
followers
[music]
. Before they are killed,
holy water is poured on the animals
. The priest interprets the animals' natural reflex
to shake
as a supernatural message
that the animal is voluntarily
offering itself as a sacrifice.
[Music]
Because of this trick, the animal can
be executed without hesitation to the cheerful applause of the spectators. After the beheading, the
priest begins to tremble as if he
[music] were
possessed. The priests claim that between
10,000 and 20,000 buffaloes were slaughtered in 2009
. Although it is impossible to count the small
animals such as birds and goats
, they estimate that
over 100,000 of them
were sacrificed in the same year. These figures are
most likely exaggerated to overstate the
importance of the festival
. We told the
priests that some temples had switched to the
symbolic sacrifice of vegetables
.
अगर जारी रख है लेकिन जानवर अगर मारना है
तो उन्ने क्या किया
एक कद्दू को काट दिया कर दिया तो चलो बली हो गया
और उसके बाद जो इधर मेला लगता
[Music]
लगभest zum Vorschein das Fest ist für die
Leder und Fleischindustrien ein Gewinnliche Sache.
The priests sell
shares in exchange for meat and leather to
agencies and
entrepreneurs. In 2014, the
shareholder withdrew when it became clear that
the target of 10,000 buffaloes could not be even remotely
achieved.
The myth states that
after the sacrifices, the goddess Gadimai would fulfill the wish for
a male heir
. In their blind trust,
the followers cannot recognize the deception behind it
. The followers, predominantly from
the impoverished Dalit community, can
barely afford the costs
. They take out loans to
buy a few doves or a goat
so that the goddess Gadimai will grant them a
son
[music]
. Most pigeons are
thrown onto the roof of the temple like garbage, to be
slaughtered later for their meat
. Some boys recapture the pigeons
and sell them again to
the
followers. In the evening, followers of the
Dalit community enter the area and pile up as
many animal carcasses as they
can collect. Armed with blunt knives,
they decapitate the carcasses, remove the
entrails, and cut out the meat for
themselves.
Many fans prepare their meals
directly in the fields. The meat of
the sacrificed animals is used and
cooked. Others dry the entrails
in the sun to eat them in the coming
weeks
. Faith blinds us to what
is clearly visible to the eyes.
Supporters ignore the
health risks associated with consuming
stale meat
. Instead, they believe that
this prasat cannot consume the food of the gods
[music]
. Towards the end of the two-day festival,
the entire landscape looks like a
bloody battlefield. There
are no
hygiene measures in place.
The unbearable stench of
carcasses emanates from the area. The surrounding fields are filled with
human excrement and the
unused remains of
slaughtered animals
. Stomachs, rotting entrails,
and severed heads. All of this is
then pushed by a tractor into an open
pit where it rots.
Children who witness the massacre will be
in shock. Many are crying
and trembling with
fear. In a psychiatric clinic
in Nepal, Achita Pandai, a
medical student and
animal rights activist, met an eleven-year-old boy suffering from
severe depression.
The parents told her that the boy had
not spoken a word since witnessing
the horrific slaughter at
Gadimaiest. What kind of impression does
such a cold-blooded massacre of
animals leave on the minds of
children? What associations are
formed between acts of brutal violence
and religion? How will this experience
of violence
affect society? What role models does
she create?
The Gadimai Festival has grown into a fair
that
extends to the neighboring village and attracts masses
of people from nearby
India.
Although the sale of alcohol at the
festival was officially banned, it can be
bought on the open street for 20 or 30 rupees per bottle. The
Gadimai Festival now attracts over a million
visitors. Perhaps for some of
the female devotees who hope for male
offspring from the goddess, there is still
a sacred element to this festival.
But for most visitors, it is a
social event and a place to indulge their whims
. The massacre of animals is
the main attraction for a mass that has
become insensitive to bloodshed
. The carnage can also be followed on large screens
in the village life
. Animal Equality has been campaigning
against
animal sacrifice at the Gadimai festival since the beginning of 2014
.
[Music]
In April, due to our efforts, the Indian government issued
a
regulation restricting the transport of animals
across the Nepalese border for the
period before and during the festival
. In October, we held
international protests in front of the
Indian embassies in Spain,
Germany and Italy to demand the
enforcement of the regulation.
[Music]
We had previously met with
the police authority and the border police in BH to
obtain permission to assist them with
border controls
. The border between Biha
and Nepal stretches for over 625
km. 90% of all visitors to the Gadimai Festival
come from India.
The quarantine station on the border of
Nepal was found completely deserted
. We discovered that the
animals were not inspected during the festival
. This was a
violation of the national
animal health law. Thanks to the
Indian government, Animal Equality and
other organizations and activists,
approximately 2000 animals were rescued at the
border. During the Gadimai
Festival in 2014, the number of animals sacrificed decreased
by
70%. The total number of animals sacrificed
was approximately 30,000. The two-day
buffalo slaughter was shortened to half a
day. Instead of the planned 10,000
buffaloes, 2,000 of them were killed.
That's 80% less.
[Music]
والله
[Music]