The Witches Of India - Dayan-Pratha

Witch-hunting. The idea sounds like the faraway land of Britain and the Americas of the 17th century. The last witch-burning occurred in 1722. Then came the era of corsets and "hysteria," where women complaining and gasping from discomfort were considered crazy. Between then and now lies the hushed period of frontal lobotomies done on chirpy women to "culture" them down. It is, however, the story of western civilization. The east never moved past the age of witch hunt.

The first reported incidents originate in the 15th Century Assam, where the town of Morigaon allegedly became famous as the capital of black magic. The menace soon spread over Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Rajasthan. The general pattern of the events begins with an undesirable incident, such a death due to illness, an accident, a failed crop, or a pandemic. The sufferers then approach an "Ojha" or a witch doctor who tells them who in the village is plotting their miseries. An overwhelming majority of those accused with witchcraft are either single women who are a burden on others, a relative who might claim her share of the property from her male relatives, or someone whom the sufferer doesn't favour. A small percentage of the accused are couples.

To cement their claim, the accusers often try to bring out the religious practices of the accused. They might even make a phoney illustration at the back of the house. When the village is convinced, the residents bring the accused out and torture them. The lengths these torturers go to is unspeakable. There are cases of women being stripped naked, shaved, and paraded throughout the village. They get stoned, sometimes raped, and then banished from the hamlet. They are also made to eat human excreta and drink urine or spit. More often than not, they get thrashed to death.

The statistics are scary. In 2018 alone, Jharkhand recorded 26 cases under the Anti-witchcraft Act, the highest in any state in that year. The number, in fact, is the lowest number ever registered in Jharkhand. Five hundred twenty-three women have already lost their lives in the state between 2001 and 2015. Two thousand cases have been recorded all across India. The actual number of women killed might be much higher. The problem persists in the majority of Indian states. Eastern states see the murder of Tribals by their kin and the western states witness murders of Dalits by the higher castes.

Backwardness and illiteracy do not seem to be the only forces carrying the legacy of witch-hunting. Big cities like Delhi and Mumbai have their fair share of accusations of witchcraft. Killings may be less, but they do hold the broken hearts of several women who were banished by their in-laws under the pretext of witchcraft. There is no central law in India against witch-hunting. Only Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Odisha, Assam, and Rajasthan have a state law that does not apply to women of other states. Rajasthan introduced the anti-witch-hunt bill in 2015 and Assam did in 2018.

Furthermore, state laws had done little to intimidate tribals from deciding the fate of other women's lives. For many years, they only awarded a few years of prison with Rs 1000 bond. The incidents decreased only after the cases started getting relegated to fast-track courts that were swift to award life-imprisonment to lynchers. Governments also began sending teams of social workers to villages to explain laws and schemes to the illiterate.

There is no proved correlation, but the Internet revolution may have played a role in the awakening of the victims. Proper medical facilities, healthcare for patients of mental health, quick settlement of disputes, and a fundamental change in the upbringing of future generations so that they don't consider women as lesser beings.

On February 28, 2019, Odisha unveiled world's first witch-hunt victim's memorial in the tribal district of Keonjhar. The monument depicts a saree clad woman trying to protect herself, with a fire burning behind her. The names of past victims surround the sculpture. Some of the women we lost finally have an identity.