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| Ritual of baby tossing from the roof, Karnataka, India /www.google.co.in |
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| Ritual of baby tossing from the roof, Karnataka, India PIKSPOST |
People living in India that is steeped in multiculturalism, follow innumerable customs and traditions relevant to the religions and these impart certain moral values that guide them through various difficult phases of our lives. A small fraction of people follow some bizarre and repulsive customs in the name of religion that draw the attention of the media and cause loathing among the majority of the population.
Among the weird superstitious rituals or century-old traditions,
etc., held in the name of religion, the deadliest and socially unacceptable one is tossing of babies, as if they were dolls, from a temple roof 30 feet above the ground into a group of men standing below, holding a big cloth to catch them. This annual event is conducted near Mudhol town in Bagalkot at the Marutheshwara temple in Karnataka, with fanfare in the belief it will bring good health and luck to the baby and the family. This queer custom that may cause shudders among the humane onlookers is called Okali. This ritual is also annually held in the state Maharashtra.
Most of the babies involved in the ritual are between 3-months to 2-years old. The disgusting thing is most of the parents accept this ceremony and consider that will make their babies stronger and it will get rid of the fear in them. After the fall the baby is passed around to the parents. Even though the babies are still very young to understand what is going on, they will experience hard time recovering from the shock.
It is just horrible to see toddlers crying hard and looking frightened before tossing in the air at such a dizzy height. This ritual, believed to be centuries old, prevails among certain sections of Hindus as well as Muslims.
Many associations tag it as "horrible" and want the government to ban such bizarre rituals, endangering young kids' lives. Yet other factors that can not be over looked are what kind of psychological scar this event will create in the young mind and what will happen if a small human creeps in. It means death for the kid and this will be amounted to murder. While falling on the safety net brandished by the people below in form of a big blanket, people fail to understand the trauma experienced by the babies during the fall.
Not withstanding the ban in 2011, the dangerous ritual came back with reckless abandon at Digambeshwara temple in Nagrala village, Karnataka in 2012 to the dismay of some members of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Ref:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126845/Baby-tossing-
www.ndtv.com/south/young-children-thrown-from-top-of-temple-in-karnataka-ritual-474917
