As the rest of India celebrated the festival of lights,unscrupulous witch doctors known as “tantriks” sneaked into the country's darkcorners to kill some of its rarest and most majestic birds of prey.
It’s India’s secret shame ” unknown even to most devoutHindus. But the religion’s most important holiday, Diwali, marks a supposedlyauspicious time for the sacrifices of threatened and even critically endangeredowls ” a rite that some believe can win favour from the goddess of wealth,Lakshmi.
“You take the leading newspapers, there will be 50, 20, 30ads from tantriks advertising remedies of almost all kinds,” said Abrar Ahmed,an expert on the trafficking of birds.
“When people can be milked out, these tantriks willprescribe something which is difficult to get ” they’ll say an owl of 5 kgs ora certain weight or certain size. There is where they make money.... They arethe ones creating a demand.”
India is home to 32 species of owls, 13 of which Ahmeddiscovered being sold as part of the illegal trade in wild birds. Most, if notall, are included on International Union for Conservation of Nature's “RedList” of threatened species, while at least one, the forest owlet, iscritically endangered, according to “Imperilled Custodians of the Night,” areport Abrar wrote for Traffic in 2010.
The most common species sold is the spotted owlet, which hasadapted to living in cities and is therefore in little danger of dying out. Butthreatened species like the brown fish owl can also be found for sale, and thethreatened rock eagle owl is the “most preferred” by witch doctors ” a bad omenfor its future survival.
According to Ahmed, trafficked owls and their body parts areprimarily used for supposed black magic ” which still claims several lives forhuman sacrifice each year, if newspaper reports from the hinterland are to bebelieved. There is a regular, organized trade in live owls. In tribal areas,where the majority of people believe that owls can ward off evil spirits,feathers and talons are placed in amulets, and owls can be found piled up forsale at local fairs. And in cities and towns, even the country’s wealthiestindustrialists and politicians visit tantriks ” in the hope of having a son,curing illness or infertility, or amassing a magic-assisted fortune.
For most Hindus, Diwali is a joyous festival. Familiesfestoon their homes with electric lights and burn small candles or oil lamps,called diyas, to commemorate the victory of the god Ram over the demon Ravanaand Ram’s return home with his stolen wife, Sita ” a foundation myth told inthe Ramayana, one of Hinduism's most important epics. Friends get together togamble. The markets overflow with “Diwali hampers” filled with chocolates,nuts, and traditional Indian sweets ” gifts to be exchanged, Christmas-style.
But even if the Diwali lights are meant to represent thevictory of good over evil, as well as a welcoming beacon for Lakshmi, thegoddess of wealth, the five day festival is the most deadly time of all for theowls.
The reason: The amavasya, or new moon night, of Diwali isclaimed to be the most auspicious time for owl sacrifices, Ahmed found afternearly two years of research he conducted for Traffic ” a joint body thatmonitors the illegal wildlife trade for the World Wildlife Fund andInternational Union for Conservation of Nature.
“The practice happens throughout the year, but the kalratri[the eve of Diwali] is considered auspicious,” said Ahmed. “That makes thetantrik very rich in terms of hoodwinking people to pay their price. If theydon't have a deadline, if they don't have a reason for the practice to happenat a particular moment of the year, people will be casual in their attitude.”
Indians who are free of superstition remain ignorant of theillegal trade. But the trafficking of thousands of species of wild birds ”including owls intended for these sacrifices ” happens just out of sight, evenin the bird market of Old Delhi. Though the traders are smart enough not todisplay their owls alongside the hundreds of parakeets and wild song birds forsale, all it takes is a few whispered queries and a seller will offer not onlyto procure the owl but perhaps even to perform the sacrifice. A one-stop shop,poaching and black magic for as little as $150, according to a recentinvestigation by the Sunday Guardian's Abhimanyu Singh.
“People will say, we will deliver the owl on Thursdaymorning ” whenever you need it for that matter ” because it's a bird that hasto be fed on a crow or a parrot,” said Ahmed. “It was made to be delivered onour doorstep.”
There are at least 50 hubs for the selling of wild birds,including owls, across India, according to Traffic. And 21 of them are majortrafficking centers, with an estimated turnover of 20,000 to 50,000 wild birdsper year.
Worse, the Diwali sacrifices are only the most visible partof the owl trade ” at least for urban India.
Traveling through the tribal regions of states like MadhyaPradesh and Chhattisgarh ” where indigenous peoples from the Damora, Bhil,Munda and countless other groups still live in the forest much as they have forthousands of years ” Ahmed found piles of owl carcasses at local fairs. Hewitnessed local shamans performing rites with live owls. And he learned fromtribal bird trappers how owls are captured and reared to catch other birds ”which will “mob” the captured owl when the trapper mimics the desired species'distress call.
So, too, the superstitions surrounding owls go much beyondDiwali sacrifices.
In a survey of bookstores selling religious texts, Ahmedfound prescriptions for telling the future using a live owl, hypnotizing anenemy by feeding him an owl's feather or blood, making yourself invisible usingan owl's heart and other body parts, cursing an enemy's family with an owl'sskull, and countless others.
But perhaps the darkest revelation of all was not the depthand prevalence of these superstitions among India's poor and illiterate, buttheir prominence even among the educated urban elite.
“Last week, a big horned owl was stolen from Chatbir Zoo [inChandigarh, Punjab],” said Ahmed. “Do you see the correlation of the time? Evenin a very big zoo ” and this has happened in two other zoos also ” the owl isnot safe.”
