ABSTRACT
In December 2015, the two main temples of Bardhaman (West Bengal) banned the practice of animal sacrifice. By ordering its replacement with a symbolic sacrifice of fruits and vegetables, they put an end to hundreds of years of a practice sanctioned by religious scriptures. This chapter analyses the social dynamics at stake behind this move: the national campaign of animal welfare activists against animal sacrifice, the local mobilisation of rationalist groups, and the local action of the district magistrate. It shows how in a region where, for social, economic and religious reasons, a legal ban is still thought to be impossible, opponents to animal sacrifice have locally developed subtle ways of intervention in order to reform Hinduism from the inside.
