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."