A Nation Possessed

[Guest guest]

A Nation Possessed

 

Antara Dev Sen

http://www.littlemag.com

05 April, 2008

Sify News, India

 

Witches refuse to go away. They stay squarely in our midst,

staring at us through dead eyes, bursting into our homes

with their mutilated bodies and split skulls, seeking justice.

 

Last week, it was Phool Kumari, 40, of Chhattisgarh. She

was dragged out of her home at night, beaten ruthlessly with

rods, branded with hot irons and then burned alive. All

because some woman had apparently gone into a trance and

declared that Phool Kumari was a witch.

 

Also last week, in Orissa, Kosa Madhi, 70, was hacked to

death, apparently for casting the evil eye on a child. His

killers included his own grandson. Family member are often

party to the killing of a person branded a 'witch'. Because a

witch-hunt is as much about property disputes and settling

scores as it is about blind superstition.

 

But of all the witches attacked last week, Lalpari, 45, of

Bihar was the most visible. She materialised in our living

rooms as a woman tied to a tree, being thrashed by villagers,

abused and humiliated, her hair being shorn savagely in a

ritual insult. Television screens and newspapers told us of

the sorry fate of this woman branded a witch in the outskirts

of Patna, because she had failed to cure a mentally ill

woman. But Lalpari was fortunate. She survived.

 

This week, another such 'fortunate' woman stepped into our

homes. Kalawati, a " middle-aged " Dalit widow, was

stripped and beaten up, garlanded with shoes and paraded

naked through her village near Dhanbad in Jharkhand. They

also tried to force her to eat human excrement. She was

accused of casting a spell on a woman and killing her by

black magic, and of causing an outbreak of chickenpox in

her village.

 

Significantly, Kalawati was accosted by about 200 villagers

at the entrance to the Kali temple where she worshipped

regularly. She was a widow, and from a backward caste.

How dare she defile the sacred grounds? " A widow has no

right to enter a temple, " said the villagers. A quickly

rustled-up kangaroo court decided to punish the woman who

had dared to transgress. She was branded a 'witch,' charged

with causing disease and death and taught a lesson.

 

But the woman lived to tell her tale - to the police. Not

surprisingly, there have been no arrests. Instead, the

villagers gheraoed the officer-in-charge investigating her

complaint, marched triumphantly to the police station and

demonstrated against Kalawati's FIR.

 

After sixty years of independence, we still kill innocents in

the name of black magic. The more vulnerable you are, the

likelier your chances of being victimised. Women and the

lower castes are the worst affected. Very often single

women - usually widows like Kalawati - and elderly men

like Kosa Madhi are targeted by villagers and family

members eyeing their land. Once labelled a witch, the

victim becomes the Other, an inhuman devil that needs to be

humiliated, tortured and destroyed. And villagers get swept

into mob fury lashing out against all that is causing trouble

- bad fate, ill health, failed crops, droughts, disease - as

they engage in this primeval sport of hunting the demon and

purging society of evil. Punishing or killing the witch is

regarded as a heroic act, so there is no question of

repentance.

 

Not surprisingly, the witch-hunters and killers go

unpunished. In fact, very few cases are even reported. Of

these, less than 2 percent of the accused are convicted in

court, says a study by the Free Legal Aid Committee. Every

year, around the country, thousands of vulnerable people are

labelled a witch and murdered most brutally. Terrified of

social ostracism and hostility from villagers, the family

members of these 'witches' very often disown them. Once

the 'witch' is killed, the matter is buried.

 

Unfortunately, when a victim or family member does muster

the guts to trudge all the way to the police station, brave the

insensitive interrogation of the cops and report the attack,

the local police brush them aside, further endangering the

life of anyone who dares to blow the whistle. Hardly

surprising, since most victims are women. And in India we

don't generally take violence against women very seriously.

 

We have known for decades that women become scapegoats

in the power play of patriarchal society and are often

branded as witches and killed to grab their land and

property, or disgraced to settle family scores. Widows are

especially vulnerable. As are women who don't give in to

the demands of powerful men, especially women who spurn

their sexual advances, women who are seen as threats to the

power equation.

 

And to a lesser extent, elderly men are vulnerable too. The

less privileged you are, the less power you have, the more

your chances of being branded a witch. Sometimes entire

families are killed, supposedly to purge the village of evil.

Sometimes, villagers don't even have to soil their hands

with murder. The tortured and humiliated victims, driven

out of their home, weary of being ostracised, of being forced

to eat burning coal or human shit, of facing violence and

hostility every moment of their lives, quite often kill

themselves.

 

Witch-hunts and murders in the name of black magic

flourishes in states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand,

Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Assam,

Tripura and West Bengal. All it takes is for someone to be

named - either by the village ojha or medicine man, or by

anyone in a trance who 'hears the voice of god.' Once

named, the 'witch' is as good as dead. Even if she is not

murdered, her life as a villager is practically over.

 

And introducing special laws banning witch-hunts has not

helped. These laws are in place in states with large tribal

populations like Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Although such legal effort may have encouraged the police

to take witch-hunts more seriously, it has not really led to

any decrease in actual attacks.

 

Which is not surprising. We cannot change mindsets with

laws. We need to give people viable alternatives. If the

village ojha - who can get anyone killed on a whim or for a

bribe - is all-powerful, it is because there is no other medical

or health care system that villagers, especially in remote

areas, can turn to.

 

And the available health centres in interior India fail to

perform. Lack of doctors and medicine, horrifying

corruption that kills patients through infection, outdated

drugs and rotten injections, and the overall negligence of the

state and healthcare officials make patients turn to the

supernatural. God has always been the greatest personal

physician for most of us, and for some of us the ojha and his

magic medicines come a close second.

 

We must replace the need for black magic and sorcery by

giving our citizens in the remote areas access to genuine

health care and other basic necessities that we urban Indians

take for granted. We need to value our citizens even in the

remote and tribal areas, and protect their life and health, like

any civilised country is expected to. We also need to work

on changing deep-seated superstitions through education.

Black magic and the dominance of the mumbling ojha may

well continue in spite of doctors and secular medicine, but at

least villagers will have a choice. And thousands of innocent

lives may be saved.

 

For witch-hunts are really not about superstition. They are

about our own inadequacies - as a state that fails to protect

its citizens' health and well-being, as a society that fails to

protect its vulnerable members, as a culture that fails to

recognise selfish manipulation in the name of sorcery and

black magic, as people who refuse to face reality. And most

of all, witch-hunts are about the powerless and vulnerable

being victimised, and their tormentors and killers going free.

 

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