Killing Animals For Superstition - It Needs To Be Stopped!

A superstition is any irrational belief or practice that arises from ignorance or fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck. Thousands of animals are killed every year . Maneka Sanjay Gandhi says that we must do something about it very soon.

A superstition is any belief or practice that is irrational, arising from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck. It is not based on reason or knowledge, and the superstitious person has no care for the impact of his monstrous belief on others.

Superstitions are also convenient and within social boundaries (not the law). Not one says that if you starve your wife and cut off her nose, you will get a promotion. Or anything of that sort related to your family. But when it comes to animals, the imagination runs riot. Many superstitions take the lives of animals.

One of the earliest ones I had to deal with many years ago was the beating and killing of foxes in Karnataka in the belief that the harvest would be good. We stopped this—and now people have forgotten that thousands of these poor animals were caught in traps, whipped and, burnt by lynch mobs. The harvests continue as before. All ritual animal sacrifice is based on superstition: the pigeon slaughter at Kamakhya temple, the goats killed daily in the Devi mandir in Kolkata (we have a court order that says they cannot be killed openly, so now it is done behind doors) believed to cure one of the negative emotions, such as fear, anger, and jealousy. Buffaloes are killed by the Gurkhas during Dashera and lambs are thrown from mountains in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh—none of this makes any sense and nor do they bring luck. The most dreadful large-scale sacrifice is in Kalahandi once a year—and it remains the poorest place in India, in spite of amazing natural resources including precious stones.