Abstract: This paper is an attempt to provide the relevant information regarding the origin of witch-hunting in India and the factors which make it a crime affecting mostly women. Contemporary India still faces the wrath of witch-hunting particularly in the tribal-dominated areas. It holds back the country on the path to progress. In modern times, the word ‘witch’ is associated with a positive meaning. Modern day successful women prefer to call themselves ‘witches’ as it denotes them being financially independent. There are many reasons that make witch-hunting fatal to women but the most crucial one is the desire of the society to maintain the gender-hierarchy. As long as the state does not take stringent measures against witch-hunting, the prevailing situation is not liable to change.
Key words: Witch, Witchcraft, Witch Hunting, Origin, Women, India, Patriarchy
Introduction
“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it is someone else’s witch being hunted” – Walter Kirn
In concluding remarks during his presentation in the Constituent Assembly, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar had said, ‘on January 26, 1950, we are going to enter into a new life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality, and in social and economic life, we will have inequality’ (Rodrigues, 2002). Dalit women in particular face the brunt of inequality in the form of witch-hunting in India. In the brahmanical caste based society, the death of a Dalit woman has no value. Witch-hunting had been prevalent even in early modern Europe and colonial America.
This paper deals with the contrite practice of witch hunting amongst the autochthonous people of India. To start with, it emphasizes the birth and genesis of this inhumane praxis. It also tries to enumerate the factors that make it a crime that is fatal for mostly women. In this present era, witchcraft is considered modish as it celebrates the idea of being “women”. Modern day women prefer to call themselves “witches” as it symbolizes them being independent and financially successful. Being a witch no more signifies a woman wearing a black hat and riding a broom, or else cackling with green skin. “Women today aren’t just accepting the symbol of the witch—they’re building on it to create a figure that is more inclusive and intersectional. Powerful women are all colors, shapes, and sizes—but never monstrously green” says Ariel Gore, a renowned journalist and author of We Were Witches (The Feminist Press, 2017). Even so, the women from rural India have to face the brunt of witch hunting. India being a patriarchal society has always exploited women and ergo this policy too is in no way different. Since the advent of this practice in around 1792 in the Indian peninsula, it has mostly targeted women. The present day scenario is not much different from that of the early society. There have been many recent attacks on rural women in the name of witch hunting. Till date, it is one of the most heinous crimes committed against women in India.
This work is presented in two parts. First, it will focus on the relevant information about the origin of witch hunting in India and how it became such an indispensable part of rural India and secondly on the issues that make it a crime committed against women mostly.
The Origin
Witch hunting is generally associated with the 17th century Salem witch trials that occurred between 1692 and 1693 but many hundreds of thousands of supposed witches were killed in Europe from the 13th century onwards itself. The first real and authentic cases of witch hunting began to surface in Western Europe in the early fifteenth century. People in medieval Europe too had their fears regarding witchcraft and ergo many provisions such as persecution and prosecution were undertaken against the supposed practitioners of the same. But it was only in the fifteenth century that the full fledged idea about witch hunting developed and this acted as the baseline for future witch hunts or witch purges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries across Europe.
India has always been at the forefront when it comes down to following a plethora of rituals and customs and many of them were undoubtedly evil to begin with. The exact date of origin of witch hunting in India is not known till date. However there had been no documented records of witch hunting prior to 1792 in the Indian subcontinent. The first case was called the Santhal (one of the largest tribal communities of India) witch trial which was more atrocious than that in the case of Europe. In Europe, the supposed witches were strangulated before being thrown into the fire but the Santhal “witches” were forced to eat human excreta and drink blood which is totally inhumane and meant to derogate the women. Many women were maimed and murdered under the pretext of them being witches. The brutal part is that not only the accused were tortured and murdered but even those people who were related to the accused were murdered to make sure that no one can take revenge on their behalf. In 1840-1850, the colonial government tried to provide mental health facilities to the people in order to dismantle this practice but no change was observed. The British viewed this practice as barbaric and even put a ban on witch hunting in the then states of present day Gujarat, Rajasthan and Chhotanagpur. Due to this ban, less number of cases had been reported despite this practice still being followed. This was seen as a staunch rebellion against the British rule. Some Santhals even believed that the ban allowed the witches to prosper. During 1857-58, there was an increase in witch hunting. This can be viewed as a mode of resistance to British rule as part of the larger revolt of 1857 says Sacha Drouet.
The practice of witch hunt in India was found in the Assam (Morigaon District) famously called “the Indian capital of black magic” which is now prevalent in many other places like Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa and Maharashtra. The lion’s share of the witch-hunting cases are seen inCentral and Eastern India. Witch-hunting still proves itself as malice in contemporary Indian society. There have been many recent attacks on women in the name of witch hunting. A number of studies have addressed witch-craft related crimes or homicides as a gender related issue as a result of socio-economic condition. The studies also point to the fact that witch-craft related incidents are more common in those areas which have larger tribal populations as compared to other populations. According to the statistics compiled by National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) on crime concerning witch-hunting there have been 2391 murders or culpable homicides between 1999 and 2013 in India. The three Indian states, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha are among the worst hit, each accounting for about 400 deaths in the past 15 years, as per the NCRB study (Rostrum’s law review). The National Crime Record Bureau data for 2019 revealed that Jharkhand was ranked third in witch-hunting cases and recorded 15 murders related to the crime. Chhattisgarh with 22 murders was on top of the list (TOI).
Witch – the new modern
“The whole concept of witches was that women were speaking up for themselves and fighting for their rights. The whole concept of witchcraft came into play to hold down women and women’s empowerment” – Madchen Amick
In the late 19th century the suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage said that the persecution of witches had nothing to do with fighting evil or resisting the devil. It was simply entrenched social misogyny, the goal of which was to repress the intellect of women. A witch wasn’t wicked. She didn’t fly on a broomstick naked in the dark, or consort with demons. She was, instead, likely to be a woman “of superior knowledge”.
People may think of witches as spooky women with cauldrons and pointy hats, or like something out of Hocus Pocus or Harry Potter – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Spells aren’t about pulling rabbits out of hats or turning people into frogs [1]. The word “witch” no more holds the same meaning if we look at and consider the metropolitan cities. Modern day witches are strong, independent and brave but never dangerously evil. Witches are often called unnatural because of their ability to threaten men [2]. The modern day successful women like to use the word “witch” for themselves as it signifies that they are the ones who can influence their and others’ lives.
The Indian society in particular and the World in general can always do with a little bit of women empowerment.
FACTORS THAT MAKE WOMEN FALL PREY TO WITCHHUNTING
Men circled around the three women, their fists wrapped around thick iron pipes and wooden sticks. The women huddled on the ground at the center of their village in the western Indian state of Gujarat and whimpered as the crowd gathered. Two young men had died in the village, and the women were being called dakan, the Gujarati word for witch. They were accused of feasting on the young men’s souls.
The attack on the trio, in Gujarat in 2014, was one of thousands of witch hunts that take place in India. Men who brand women as dakan capitalize on deeply rooted superstitions and systems built on misogyny and patriarchy to lay blame on females. The accusations of sorcery are used to oust women from valuable land that men covet, in a region where flawed development plans have produced agricultural failures, say sociologists who study violence in India [3].
The major factors that make witch-hunting a deadly crime committed against women mostly are as follows –
- Witch-hunting and Hidden Agenda of Brahmanism
The caste system, superstitious beliefs and patriarchy have helped to sustain this inhumane practice of witch-hunting. The upper caste men also tend to make use of this practice in order to express their authority over the Dalit women. In India, patriarchy is conjoined with the caste system and called ‘Brahmanical patriarchy.’ Historian Uma Chakravarti, who coined the term, argues that its crucial aspect was linkage to the caste order and the differential impacts it had on women at different levels in the caste hierarchy. Caste, class, and gender stratification are the three elements in establishing the social order in India, shaping the formation of Brahmanical patriarchy (Chakravarti, 1993). This system has made the women, mostly the low caste ones the worst sufferers. It helps to terrorize women and reinforce the patriarchal mindset. It has been noticed that most witch-hunting victims hail from schedule castes, blamed for all calamities and misfortune befalling society (Mathur, 2004).
- Grabbing property
Assets like land, livestock and house can easily be taken over in witch-hunting cases. Barman (2002) argues that witch-hunting in India is mostly due to property disputes within a family. He also stated that witch-hunting victims are often, if not always, widows without any child. By accusing such women of witch-hunting, men relatives of the family tend to take control over the resources quickly. In specific land related violence in rural areas, women are targeted and victimized in witch-hunting by land mafias together with the dominated caste to grab land and settle their interest behind the veil of superstition. By declaring them ‘witches, and forcing them out of the house, or getting them banished from the village, it becomes easy to acquire the victim’s relinquished property. Targeting single women with an aim of usurping property is the primary motive of witch-hunting violence (Mehra & Agrawal, 2016). In some rural tribal areas a widow’s right to property is denied if other family members can prove that she is a witch. (Kelkar & Nathan, 1991).
- Sexual advances
Oftentimes, rejecting sexual advances also makes a woman vulnerable to being branded as a witch. In most such cases, the targeted women are helpless and deprived, and fall easy prey to power when they hit back and rejects such advances (Partners for Law in Development, 2014). Rape is also common as a witch-hunting punishment, mostly done by the dominant caste in a gang [4]. Witch-hunting violence is mostly associated with caste atrocities perpetrated against Dalits; there is ample evidence that shows that victimization is used to punish social and sexual transgressions (Mehra & Agrawal, 2016).
- Socio-economic and political dominance
Witch-hunting motives are not static or limited to superstitions, or occult beliefs. The violence associated with caste atrocities is often similar to the cruelty perpetrated in witch-hunting (Mehra & Agrawal, 2016). Often, witch-hunting has been used to punish women who question social norms (Lakshmi, 2005). Women are generally branded as witches so that the society can dominate them socially, economically and politically. Sundar (2001) and Federici (2010) have highlighted the need to understand that in depth causes of Indian witch hunts are related to recent changes that rural people face, such as the social crisis caused by economic liberalism, forcing people to compete for limited resources. Dungdung (2009) in her article Hunting witch or hunting women, says ‘the greed for property and depriving women of traditional property rights is a sidelined fact. Ranjit Sau (2003) said that we have two kinds of evil spirits, one in a village in the form of witch doctors and others are in cities in the shape of politicians, which arises a dual system of superstition in India.
The convolution of this issue and its correctional dimensions can be found in the blurring of confines between protector and perpetrator. For the survivors of this atrocity, the scars run deep as the perpetrators are often if not always, members of their own family or community.
CONCLUSION
Witch-hunting is one of the most abominable manifestations of violation of human rights. This practice has been prevalent in early modern Europe and colonial America from the thirteenth century itself and presently it is more blatantly practiced in developing nations like India. It highlights the state’s inefficiency in dealing with illiteracy and mental health issues. The state will never
progress unless superstitions are removed; affording the quacks to fool everyone is dangerous for the country (Das, 2005).
The caste system which is so very conspicuous in the Indian society too provides immense impetus for this practice. Dr. Ambedkar (1979) said caste is nothing but Brahmanism incarnate. There is a need to understand that witch-hunting is very real in many parts of India and targeted at the women from Dalit communities. Silence is a potent enemy of social justice (Sen, 2005), especially in the form of law and order.
People have blind faith in religion, culture, and traditions and the associated beliefs and superstitions become a matter of faith rather than logic. In India, the number of religious places is more than educational institutions and hospitals, reflecting people’s inclination towards supernatural powers and fantasies (Tanvi Yadav, 2020). Sau (2003) quotes historian Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi: ‘Ideas (including superstition) become a force once they have gripped the masses. There is less scope for scientific experimentation or proof by other means in the context of spirituality and society.’
‘Change is often intensely resisted by the communities perpetrating the act of hostility. Thus there is a vast gap between human rights and the violence that women face at the local level as gender violence is an ambitious study that creates tensions between global law and local justice’ (Merry, 2009). Witch-hunting is still a reality for the rural lower caste women.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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[1] Pantony, Ali. (2021). What It’s Like To Be A Real Life Modern Witch. Glamour Magazine.
[2] Miller, Madeline. (2018). From Circe to Clinton: why powerful women are cast as witches. The Guardian.
[3] Yasmin, Seema. (2018).Witch Hunts Today: Abuse of Women, Superstition and Murder Collide in India. Scientific American.
[4] Yadav, Tanvi. (2020). Witch Hunting: A Form of Violence against Dalit Women in India. CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion.
Trandali Kashyap is a teenager from Guwahati, Assam studying BAP with a major in Political Science from Miranda House, Delhi University. Her interests lies in reading novels and listening to music.
