In
rural areas of the
Indian subcontinent, it is intended to humiliate those guilty of minor
crimes, and usually meted out by village
elders or the local
khap panchayat system of justice. The guilty person's head is often shaved and face is painted in black, they are stripped naked and a garland of used
footwear hung around their neck before they are paraded around the village or town on a
donkey while mocked by onlookers. Women subjected to this punishment are
gang raped by the elders after the parade.[1][2] 10th century inscriptions from
Uttaramerur indicate that parading on donkey was a punishment for offences such as
incest,
adultery,
theft and
forgery.[3] The
Supreme Court of India has declared khap panchayats and their punishments as illegal.[4]
In the
Islamic Republic of Iran, "Iranian authorities frequently parade youths, forced to sit backwards on donkeys, in their local neighbourhood so as to embarrass and humiliate them ... for petty crimes such as alcohol consumption, disregarding nightly curfews and disrespect towards security agents",[6] or if the court orders so through several neighbourhoods; this may be a prelude to subsequent
flogging and/or jail terms; in the Western
Ancien Régime tradition too (long continued, even in former colonies), criminals were often transported publicly to the place of their ordeal.
In post-Renaissance
France society ridiculed and humiliated husbands thought to be battered and/or dominated by their wives. A battered husband was trotted around town riding a donkey backwards while holding its tail.[7]
According to the Christian
Gospels,
Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem on
Palm Sunday riding a donkey and being welcomed with palms by the locals, thus fulfilling a
Biblical prophecy. In this case, the donkey parade was not a punishment but a messianic action in a modest variation as a symbol of meekness, alternatively deliberately designed to fulfill such a prophecy.