NP: Arun Gupto: Innocence, sacrifice & brutality

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*FACT & FICTION -** Innocence, sacrifice & brutality*

ARUN GUPTO

 

 

'*Man is thus in the crises of existence because man constantly tampers with

the designs of nature. We are suffering mostly because we brutalize the

nature around us. Gadhimai festival is one dark example of our tampering

with her.'*

 

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details & news_id=11683

 

 

 

Menaka Gandhi recently wrote about the sacrifice at Gadhimai performance and

gave a lot of valid arguments. She, however, began with a fallacious

proposition that Hinduism has nothing to do with sacrifice. Animal sacrifice

has been one of the essential features of various Hindu rituals. And, yet,

for millions of Hindus, such sacrifice has nothing to do with faith and

worship. Sacrifice was pervasive in almost all the ancient religions of the

world. Killings to gratify deities and to seek blessings are pervasive even

in contemporary rituals.

 

 

 

I may sound a pessimist realist but we all know that sacrifice is not going

to be abandoned by human beings. Killing for survival and for pleasure is

part of our cultural norms. It is an essential grammar of who we are. It

determines what human beings are.

 

 

 

Sacrificial system is solely born out of human interest, desire and purpose.

We justify that the weaker is negotiable on the god’s altar. We are not only

clever but brutally cunning while designing the politics of faith. Such

faiths are human constructs. There are people who opinionate to preserve

traditions. Sacrifice is one of the significant religious traditions at

multiple places in South Asia. My problem is how we preserve traditions when

such killings do not justify us as cultural beings. There are multiple

reasons for this irrationality of killing animals. I will return to the

point of preservation after a while.

 

 

 

Gadhimai performance looks terrifying. It is dark and ugly. It reveals our

barbaric nature of imagining that we kill animals and then the gods are

pleased. It is against animal rights. It brings environmental crises. It

shapes confused identities in children and adult. It looks obnoxious. It

hurts the sentiments of millions of people. It is an irresponsible act.

 

 

 

There are two more conceptual problems with such killings. One is that we

have traveled far and beyond to fool ourselves that the supernatural needs

blood of the animals for pleasure and satisfaction. If they really need, why

do they only need animal flesh and blood, why not human blood? Animal

sacrifice presupposes that humans are dear to them and hence they do not

need our flesh and blood. Hence, such sacrificial system is solely born out

of human interest, desire and purpose. We justify that the weaker is

negotiable on the god’s altar. We are not only clever but brutally cunning

while designing the politics of faith. Such faiths are human constructs.

 

 

 

The other problem is that the innocence of sacrifice has grossly disappeared

in modern man. Human beings in the remote past may have conceived the nature

as powerful determining elements which manifested themselves in forms of

fire, water, deluge, storm, greenery, food and so on. They may have thought

that to please such supernatural elements, the best way is to offer those

things which are dear to them in their daily lives. Sacrifice was a sacred

innocent act then. There was some essence of purity in their surviving

modes. We do not possess such innocence. We mostly are cunning in our faith.

 

 

 

Some years ago during the Dashami festival, religious enthusiasts killed

goats under the nose of national aircraft carrier in Kathmandu. Many of us

wrote against such aestheticide and animal right violation. The third

problem is that if one thinks of practicing such rituals in private, we have

no laws and systems to forbid them. Public performance of hurting other’s

sentiment and killing innocent animals manifest the darker side of culture.

 

 

 

Let me return to the issue of preservation. We are adamant to preserve

traditions. We must preserve them at any cost. But there are sophisticated

modes of preservation. We can preserve them in the domains of art and

literature (we do that), in memory, in history, in museums and in our

powerful narratives. Practicing and preserving those which defy our efforts

to being cultural must be replaced into such locations of preservation.

 

 

 

I should not sound a moralist but I certainly can be harsh on all those

modes of culture which lead us to being bizarre human beings. The best

cultural behavior is to be close to nature. Our cultures are embedded in the

multiple spectacles of nature around us. The animal world is the best nature

has given us. Nature sustains and regulates herself, not the human beings

only. Our anthropomorphic (human centric) arrogance and ignorance falsely

lead us to think that we are the superior ones. While regulating and

sustaining her, if nature intuits that the humans are the greatest enemies

for her preservation, we will be the first to be sacrificed.

 

 

 

*Man is thus in the crises of existence because man constantly tampers with

the designs of nature. We are suffering mostly because we brutalize the

nature around us. Gadhimai festival is one dark example of our tampering

with her.*

 

 

 

I respect Menaka Gandhi’s sentiments. We know how she works for the most

marginalized mute animals and nature around us. The farce is that the

government of Nepal is too occupied with our security and hence they would

never ever think about these weak animals who taste so good with rice and

roti. We still should raise our voice against such inhuman acts. If even one

person waits and thinks before the killing, her ideas have worked.

 

 

 

pallabi

 

 

--

Lucia de Vries

Freelance Journalist

Nepal - Netherlands