By – Gopi Shankar : It was with shock and horror that I read in the newspapers this morning that 242 goats and four buffaloes have been lined to be sacrificed at the Kamakhya temple near Guwahati, to thank the Goddess for your Government winning the trust vote in Parliament recently. The sacrifice is being conducted by a misguided MP from the Samajwadi Party.I am Congress supporter and was thrilled when your Government won the trust vote. In fact, I even distributed sweets to my colleagues at office as I considered it just not as a victory for the UPA, but for the future of our country. In fact, I so was thrilled that I said to my nine-month old daughter that she will live in a better India, even though she could not understand me! An India that will know no power cuts and whose developmental surge will not be a hostage to energy shortages. But if this animal sacrifice were to go ahead, I think I was celebrating too soon. For even if the country had enough electricity, it would still wallow in the darkness of ignorance and superstition.
I hope you and your colleagues in the SP appreciate that these creatures know nothing of the nuclear deal or the trust vote or any of the political games that we humans play. I request you to intervene immediately and stop this slaughter. And if this appeal comes to you too late to stop this mindless slaughter, can you at least issue a strong statement condemning this barbarism so that nobody does this in the future? So that these poor animals wouldn’t have died in vain.
And if the sacrifice has already happened, then please use your offices to stop future animal sacrifices at this temple. I remember this temple having been in the news some years back when the former King of Nepal, King Gyanendra sacrificed a buffalo at this temple. Such practices are a blot on the fair name of our country. The barbaric practice of animal sacrifices has to be banished from this temple forever.
Apart from the sheer inhumanity of this act, this act of animal sacrifice is also violative of the Fundamental Duties of all Indian citizens enshrined in the Indian Constitution under Section 51 A (h) which calls on all Indian citizens to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.
Can you please intervene in this matter immediately and stop this barbarity that is being perpetrated in your name before it’s too late?