As recent as few weeks back, I read about an inhumane
incident where, in a village, a group of people burnt alive a middle-aged man
on the grounds that he was practicing sorcery that caused sickness to a lot of
people in the village. Can in 21st century in modern India any
person have a mentality where instead of finding the medical cause behind the
sickness, one may hold a man responsible? Does it sound rational? Though I have
been lucky to not having witnessed any such incident, but knowing the fact that
such incidents too exist in modern India was shocking and triggered several
questions in my mind. Questions like, what are the factors that have kept alive
this age-old practice, even after 63 years of independence why such inhumane
practices exist, what has government done to prevent it, why has India despite
being claimed to be ‘modern’ has superstition as an integral part of Indian
society and many more.
Is it not ridiculous? Living in the 21st century
where on one hand we talk about claims like ‘India Shining’, ‘India-Emerging as
a Super Power’ etc, and on the other hand we practice witchcraft with roots
deep within our religious and cultural values. When we hear such incidents, we
do nothing but just criticize the event. Let me ask you, is that sufficient?
Will mere criticism, solve the deep- rooted problem of witchcraft? Witchcraft
is an age-old phenomenon not only in India but world-wide. An important point
to notice here is that despite the fact that it was omnipresent, it has weaken
and many places have lost its grounds post ‘Enlightenment’. What have held it
back in India needs attention. Every year hundreds cases related to witch craft
happen, but they all vanish as very few come in the notice of police and also
media.
Let us focus firstly on the history of witchcraft in India.
This will help us in understanding how true Hardiman is in asserting that
“…the notion of witchcraft in India is socially embedded and
universally believed in as a matter of common sense.”
Evolution
of witchcraft
The evolution of witchcraft as a medicinal tool is very much
in alignment with the famous law of three stages by Auguste Comte (1798-1857).
According to Comte, the historical development of human mind and knowledge is
progressive and passes through three different stages i.e. Theological -à Metaphysicalà Scientific. According
to this law, individual thinkers in all the branches of knowledge necessarily
begin by accounting for phenomena theologically, by explaining the mundane occurrences
as willed by unfathomable gods. According to Comte, this is the necessary
starting point for all the knowledge because without some theoretical guide,
one could not begin to make systematic observations and it is these theological
theories, which arise spontaneously in the primitive man.
The early human had little knowledge of science, but were
aware of the natural blessings and havocs of one kind or another. For example,
fish and fruits were blessings whereas disease was considered curse. Naturally
they believed that illness is a curse of an evil spirit, which can be termed as
‘devil’. The treatment naturally was to satiate the evil spirit. This was the
origin of witchcraft. So, the witchcraft was considered to be the first stage
of medical science. It lasted for the longest time and still exists. [1]
The word ‘witch’ is derived from the old English word ‘wicca’
meaning a female magician or sorceress. Witch and witchcraft are generally
applied to both the sexes and their magical activities. Among many societies’
accidents, sickness, death and other untoward events have been thought to be
caused by witches that had magical powers, which they used for evil purposes.
Witchcraft is the supernatural action of witches. Witches are
commonly said to use their power to attack the fertility of humans, their
domestic animals, or crops, to fly through nights, to engage in cannibalism and
incestuous acts, to assume animal form or have animal companions, and to be
often quite unconscious of their night time activities during day light.
Witchcraft can be seen as belief in supernatural power that
is inborn in some people that enable them to work evil. Witches can harm simply
by thinking evil thought or by evil sight. Witches are viewed negatively. They
are universally considered as anti-social to human society. The witches are
seen as weird person who embodies all feared and negative aspects of a culture.
Witchcraft is rooted in traditional customary ideas whereby societies’
categorize and order universe around them. As such they not only are
intertwined with every aspect of societies, thought and language but also
provide coherent and systematic means to influence the world in which man
lives.
The belief in witchcraft is widely prevalent in the tribal
belts.
Witchcraft
in India
Culturally Indian society has been patriarchal in nature.
Local women, who fulfilled the role of healer and counselor, were feared when
they become too powerful for the male leadership to control. As women gained
power in their community, excuses were found to ‘bring them down to their
place’.
“Superstition is only an excuse. Often a woman is branded a
witch so that one can throw her out of the village and grab her land, or to
settle scores, family rivalry, or because powerful man wants to punish her for
spurning their sexual advances. Sometimes it is used to punish women who
question the social norms”, said Pooja Sighal Purwar, an official to the
Jharkhand Social Welfare Department.[2]
Witchcraft in India is still an inseparable part of the rural
culture. Severe violence against women who are accused of being witches is
occurring at an alarming rate in the village regions of Chhattisgarh, Madhya
Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. Witchcraft has transformed from
superstition to savagery.
According to Shib Shankar Chatterjee, -“Witch-hunt or witch-slaughter
is now one of the most brutal deeds ever committed by rational people since the
dawn of civilization.”[3]
Several reasons play dominant role behind this inhuman
torture and killing. Poverty, illiteracy, superstition, lack of medical aids, and
fear for all the reasons are some of the reasons that act directly or
indirectly to give birth to such a belief in witchery. The most heartrending
cause is the voracious attitude of the relatives to gulp his or her property.
Jyotsna Chatterjee, an activist of New Delhi based women’s
Non Governmental Organization (NGO), joint women’s program claimed, “The
patriarchal society is reluctant to give women their property rights and the
widows are regularly killed after being called witches.”
These incidents take place in those villages, where scheduled
caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward class (OBC), most other
backward class (MOBC) and such other people live, which lack infrastructure
facilities like good medical system, sanitation system, road-communication
system, electrification system, education system, drinking water system, etc.
“This is a dangerous trend. Shortage of doctors, nurses and
the primary health centre or public health centre (PHC) in remote or rural
areas compelled the ojha or baiga and also the quack, who on failure to cure
serious diseases, put the blame on witchcraft and number of witch,”- explained
Ms. Pomila Rani Brahma, a prominent women Bodo leader and Member of Legislative
Assembly (MLA) of Kokrajhar (East) constituency under Kokrajhar district of
north-east Indian state, Assam.
By accusing anyone as witch, people actually try to find out
a scapegoat to put blame for perplexing the situation in life. It is also a
means to relax tension and anxiety. Hence, one of the main functions of
witchcraft is to provide explanations for people’s suffering.
Around 1500 B.C., the practice of witchcraft finds mention in
the Veda. Many rural women in India are branded witches and executed psychology
and physically. Earlier this practice was among the tribes and dalit
communities, but the frightening fact is that it has been widened to several
other caste, creed, color, community and religion. Witchcraft in the eastern states – Bihar and
Jharkhand, has social, religious and political patronage.
I would like to mention here, about an event that was
organized by a politician in Patna, Bihar. It is an excellent example to show
that how politics is playing a vital role in nurturing the roots of the
superstitious thoughts in the mind of common people.
On September 22, 2003 at a function in Patna, Sanjay Paswan,
Union Minister of state for human resource development, felicitated 51 witch
doctors, shamans and sorcerers. The Bihar unit of International Association of
People’s Lawyers had asked the police to stop the function on the grounds that
it amounted to a gross violation of Bihar’s Prevention of Witch Practices Act,
1999. Social activists and researchers have accused Paswan of encouraging
superstition for the purpose of gaining votes in election.[4]
To relieve anxiety on this count, Paswan issued a statement:
“I strongly believe that whatever they (witch doctors) practice is pure
science.” Does this statement of his not put you in a quandary. For science is
a terrible thing, without a shred of proof.
Let us analyze this incident, where a politician, a minister
who is a representative of people, is titillating than challenging the ruling
regime of silent exploitation. He dares not to perturb the age-old social
prejudice, but is trying to use this as a tool to earn himself publicity for
the votes.
In 1938, Rabindra Nath Tagore wrote: “We who often glorify
our tendency to ignore reason, installing in its place blind faith, valuing it
as spiritual, are even paying for its cost with obscuration of our mind and
destiny…this irrational force of
credulity in our people…might have had a quick result [of building] a
superstructure, while sapping the foundation. ”
I would like to bring your attention to one interesting
incident that happened in Gujarat. Ahwa is a place in Gujarat where lives a
tribe called ‘Dangs’. There various cases of witchcraft were reported and the
victims were generally old, lonely or depressed women.
The district health authorities did a survey in that area and
found that 45-48 percentage of the district’s population were effected with the
malnutrition. It had resulted into mental illnesses caused by the deficiency of
iodine and iron. In case of depression, the families of the afflicted would
quickly approach a witchcraft practitioner. To showcase his powers and
knowledge, the witchcraft practitioner would declare any in-secured woman as a
witch. Thus, in order to get rid from the evil spirit, the villagers would
support and perform the heinous job of punishing the witch in public.[5]
There are hundreds of such incidents happening every year, in
those villages, where the innocent and illiterate villagers blindly believe
what the witch doctor says. The curiosity to know what is the reason behind is
generally dead in these villagers.
What is the
role of modernity in so called ‘Modern India’?
So far I have focused on the history of witchcraft in India,
its perception in modern India and tried to understand few fundamental reasons
active for the survival of the practice of witchcraft even today. One may
clearly understand by now that one of the most important reasons for this
practice to exist in the Indian society is the lack of any radical change. By
radical change I mean a revolution that would challenge our spirit-based
cosmology and epistemology of our Indological texts. The sarcasm is that
despite having deep-rooted irrational superstitions, we consider that India is
modernized.
Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and author of
the best seller, ‘The World is Flat’ , agrees that India, with its talented yet
low-cost brains power is on its way to becoming the ‘innovation hub’ of the
global economy.
India has definitely welcomed the Enlightenment, but only at a
superficial level. Indian society never accepted it the way it was in the
western societies. That is one of the reason that radical changes happened in
the west and revolutionary progress in science could help and kill the age-old
superstitions based witchcraft practices in those countries.
‘What is Enlightenment?’ – I would like to answer it in the
words of Immanuel Kant one among the most enlightened person. Kant says “Enlightenment is man’s release
from his self-incurred immaturity [which is] his inability to make use of his
understanding without direction from another…Sapere aude! - have courage to use
your own reason!” That is the motto of the Enlightenment.[6]
Unless Kant’s call of ‘Sapere aude!’ is understood by India
in its true spirit, modernity in India will remain incomplete. To achieve
modernity, India has to challenge the cultural aspects of the supernatural and
mystical world-view derived from the idealistic strands of Hinduism, on the
scientific methodology. Post independence, India has produced a massive
workforce of scientists, doctors and engineers; no doubt, several among them
are world class.
Science in India dares not to question the age-old social
prejudice. India’s science is very accommodating and tries to keep separately
the experiments in laboratories from the spiritual explanations of the society.
While science can thrive in otherwise
irrational societies, but Indian society is paying a huge price for this gap.
Considering education as the ultimate weapon against the
superstitions that reside in even our everyday practice is also not true. I can
quote umpteen examples from our day today practices that are just based on
superstitions. These are very much believed in and practiced by even educated
people. Such actions give shelter to deep-rooted superstitions and encourage
its existence in the society. A simple example would be that of putting kala tika
(Kajal) to protect oneself from evil sights, and to name the people who
practice it, I do not have to go very far off. They are my very near and dear
ones. Are not they educated?. The answer is yes they are very much educated.
One may argue here, what is the harm in putting a kala tika, but I would say
that by believing in the slightest acts of superstitions and following it,
raises doubts against our entire education system and its capability to bring
in rationality in our approach and thus finally eradicating superstition from
its root. The fight against superstition is not one man’s responsibility; it
lies on the shoulders of each and every person in the society, whether educated
or uneducated. The educated one has to be an aspiration for the uneducated to
follow. Then only the awareness against superstition, will spread to the every
nook and corner of the society. We will achieve modernity in true sense by our
cohesive efforts only.
Legal Laws against witchcraft in India
Unfortunately, we find absolutely nothing in our constitution
to prevent such superstition. The fact that as late as 1999, 52 years after
independence, an act was passed to outlaw the practice of witchcraft in Bihar
is eloquent enough. But still, the remarkable fact is that Bihar was the first
state in India to have a law for the prevention of witch (dayan) practices. This
was followed by Jharkhand’s Anti-witchcraft Act in 2001 along with Chattisgarh
and Rajasthan who introduced similar acts in the year 2005 and 2006 respectively.
Recently on March 21, 2010, the Indian Supreme Court in New
Delhi refused to hear a petition called “The Witchcraft Act” that asked for
local regional cases involved with witchcraft allegations, to be allowed to
enter the highest courtrooms within their regions.[7]
Witchcraft cases, if at all they can make it to court are currently kept only
in the lower court system without option for any higher court appeal. Even
today India’s judiciary system is handicapped in handling cases involving
superstition and witchcraft.
The ineffectiveness of courtroom justice concerning cases of
women who have been severely injured, damaged or killed by allegations of
witchcraft does more than issues of superstition. It involves International
Human Rights Law.
“The state of Jharkhand is deviating from the International
law obligations requiring India to address and prevent the problem of
witch-hunting, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of women.” –
Cornell Law School International Human Rights Clinic, petition to the High
Court of Judicature, Ranchi, Jharkhand state, India – Jan’2010.
Four states in India have approved protective anti-witchcraft
laws, but they are still ineffective. It does not address all the aspects of
witchcraft. The attitude of the police
towards these cases is either very disappointing or negligent. According to
villagers, police simply encourage the parties involved to settle matters
privately, without any formal legal action. “In the absence of strict relevant
laws, the police often book the culprits for rioting or domestic violence,”
said in-charge Superintendent of Police R M Desai.
The most important aspect that goes without any proper
addressing by the law is the protection of these women, who are accused of
being witches. They often do not get any legal or police assistance. Shame,
isolation and poverty feed the wheel of no protection, no rights and no dignity
for women who are usually on the bottom layer of Indian society and already
without any proper legal recourse. Legislation in Chhattisgarh is now making
the charges of witchcraft a non-bailable offense, but along with comes an
unbalanced and unfair treatment of the women who are suffering the most. It
includes a protective prison term for the alleged “witch” of up to five years.
This flawed attempt is adding more harm than good to women accused of
witchcraft. It is assumed that by putting the victim in prison, she is safe
from her attackers.
All such attempts only show how ineffective the law in Modern
India is even in 21st century, 63 years after independence. It looks
we were better off, when colonized. In the context of Indian history, when one
looks at the events of 1857 s/he will only be aware of the so called first
fight for independence against British. Perhaps, little less is known about the
first mass witch-hunts among the tribal communities of Sighbhum and Santhal
Paraganas of the Chhotanagpur in 1857. In the colonized India, the practice of
witchcraft was strictly banned by the British for its obvious barbarity.
In his study on the Bhils of western India, Hardiman asserts
that colonial administrators failed to acknowledge the degree to which the
notion of witchcraft was socially embedded and universally believed in it as a
matter of common sense. Ricketts in his report on the district of Singhbhum
noted that the Mankis and Mundas were reluctant to report cases related to
witch-hunting, because to the community it was no crime. According to Hardiman,
“The practice was driven underground rather than suppressed…local-holders of
power took action against witches because they were convinced that they had a
duty to preserve their society from malign supernatural force.” Skaria points
out that “the general sympathy for witch-killers led to attempts by ordinary
Bhils, their chiefs, and even the local Rajput powerholders, to conceal
killings from the British.”[8]
This incident of 1857 signifies that the thinking of Indian
society even today is the same as it was almost 150 years back. It also points
out that mere implementation of laws will not help in eradicating the
witchcraft practice, but it requires much more to be done. What is that much
more? It requires us to see within our own history and search for the root
cause of it than just looking at it superficially.
Conclusion
Superficial modernity will lead India no-where. Unless India
accepts ‘Enlightenment’ in its own terms, Indian society can never witness a
radical change as experienced by western societies and which is responsible for
the development of these societies. If India does not react now, superstition
will deteriorate us from with in. India may have the layers of modernity on its
body but the soul with in will be missing. Even today, in 21st
century for India, Kant’s motto “Sapere aude!” remains as alien as it was in
his own time. This alienation needs to be removed.
[1] “From Witchcraft to Allopathy”, Daya R Varma,
EPW August 19,2006
[2] “From Superstition to Savagery”, The
Washington Post, Rama Lakshmi, 8 August 2005
[3] “Dark spell of witch hunting”, Shib Shankar
Chatterjee, http://newsblaze.com/story/20091108150914shan.nb/topstory.html
[4] “Recognition to Witchcraft”, Ranjit Sau,
EPW, December 27, 2003
[5] “Witchcraft rules areas of darkness in the
Dangs”, Anupam Chakravartty, Indian Express, June 15, 2011
[6] “How modern are we”, Meera Nanda, EPW,
February 11, 2006
[7] “India: Protective laws fall short for women
charged with witchcraft”, Shuriah Niazi, Women News Network, March 21, 2010
[8] “Witch-hunts, adivasis, and the uprising in
Chhotanagpur”, Shashank Sinha, EPW, May 12, 2007
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