The recent judgment of Tripura high court to ban animal sacrifice in all temples of the hilly state should not be seen as an isolated event.
It would be a grave mistake if we do not see through the well coordinated campaign in which Hindus are consistently being painted as some sort of demons. Native Hindu festivals, traditions and rituals have been under constant attack over the years. The intensity of attacks keeps on increasing with every passing day.
Exactly five years before this judgment of Tripura high court, in 2014, Himachal Pradesh high court too delivered a similar order. The court ordered to stop animal sacrifice in all temples of state with immediate effect. Animal sacrifice had been part of Kullu Dasehra celebrations for over five hundreds years. One judgement ended this tradition instantly.
In same year, the Supreme Court passed an order to ban Jallikatu sport in Tamilnadu ending hundreds of years old traditional Pongal sport. In the same order, court banned Kambala in Karnataka and Bailgada Sharyat in Maharashtra.
All three are traditional sporting events, involving bulls & buffaloes, held during annual festive celebrations. Huge protests were held against this verdict everywhere demanding stay on the order. However, Karnataka high court in 2016 reiterated the ban on Kambala and refused to allow any relief to the farmers. Later, Bombay high court also did not allow Bailgada races in the state of Maharashtra.
All these petitions were filed by animal rights groups. Protecting animals from human cruelty was the common theme connecting all five cases. Using this common theme cases were filed in the courts to ban these native traditions. Subsequently, courts ordered to ban the traditions, effectively killing the very essence of the festivals.
The question we must ask then is, does judiciary really want to protect animal rights?
As we will see in the later part of this piece, the answer perhaps is a big NO.
The judiciary has fallen into the trap of unholy alliance of fake animal rights activists and anti Hindu brigade. This unholy alliance’s agenda is not to protect animals, but to destroy every native Hindu tradition bit by bit.
Hindus are probably only religious people where every form of nature is worshiped. The Earth, the Sun, the Moon, mountains, rivers, plants, animals- everything has a unique place in the dharmic way to life of Hindus. In that context, animal sacrifice for religious rituals is not a common practice. Therefore, Hindu rituals’ contribution to animal killings in India is negligible.
So, which is the major cause of animal killings in India and world?
It’s the MEAT industry.
Majority of animals are slaughtered in India (and globally too) to satisfy taste buds of meat eating population. More than 150 millions of animals are slaughtered everyday to cater to meat eating population of just one country- India. This is when Indians eat much less meat than the global average. We can only imagine how many more millions are slaughtered globally every day.
On the Muslim festival of Bakrid, millions and millions of animals are slaughtered in full public view in most barbaric manner possible- halal- in a single day.
Any animal loving person who really cares for animals should ideally campaign against meat industry first before targeting Hindu festivals. Any animal rights activist who does not advocate ‘meat ban’ is a hypocrite of the highest order. Lecturing Hindus on animal rights while enjoying mutton biryani, has become the most fashionable thing to do in recent years. It is like those activists who drive big diesel guzzling cars while going to ‘save our environment’ kind of seminars.
When Hindus demand complete ban on cow slaughter, they are branded as saffron goons. Counter campaign in the name of ‘right to food’ is run by these activists. Nobody then asks what happened to animal rights campaign run by same activists? Many Gau Rakshak have lost their lives while trying to save cows from cow smugglers in last many years. No one stands up for them. In contrast, these same activists organize ‘beef festivals’ after killing cows in full public view.
And then there are some Hindu festivals in which animals have no role at all. Still those festivals are targeted by the activist gang demanding ban of festivals.
Kite flying on Makar Sankranti is one such example. Activist gang is running campaign to ban it alleging that kite flying results in birds getting injured/ killed. Can anything be more illogical than this? Offering milk to Naagdevta on Naagpanchami also has been attacked in recent years.
Many temples in south India own elephants and they are part of annual celebrations. They lead the festive procession and are revered by millions of devotees. This too is under constant attack of activists alleging ill treatment of elephants by temple authorities.
And it’s not that only animal rights gangs are after Hindu festivals. Participation of children in Dahi Handi was banned by the courts on petition filed by child rights activists despite no direct evidence of child rights violation in Dahi Handi celebrations. Similarly, burning of crackers on Diwali in Delhi NCR was banned by the Supreme Court of India. This was done to control the air pollution levels in Delhi even though there was no evidence that cracker burning is the prime cause of air pollution in the capital city. In fact, studies suggest that cracker burning is not even in the top ten causes of pollution.
With these examples, anyone can clearly see that protection of animal rights or for that matter any other cause, is just a cover for real motive behind such campaigns and petitions– and that is destruction of Hindu festivals.
The question is why they are after every Hindu tradition- festival?
The answer lies in one simple reason.
We allowed our education and legal systems to continue the way British used to run it. We did not make any substantial changes to eliminate colonial hangover and inferiority complex from Indian psyche. We are still looking at our own traditions, practices and customs through the eyes of western thinkers. Western colonial prism makes us hate our own traditions in the name of morality.
This fake morality is leading us to a situation where our vibrant, multi faceted and diverse culture will be robbed of every single tradition.
That day is not far, if we do not realize NOW.
