People's Democracy

Brinda Karat

SUBHADRA BASUMATAREY, a forty-five year-old woman who was declared a witch by a female kabiraj (witch doctor), four months ago, still cannot return to her village in the Goalpara district of Assam. Subhadra, a member of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association, had challenged the obscurantist practices of local kabirajs (also known as ojhas ) for which she had incurred their wrath. Further, she had demanded a share in her late father’s property, challenging her step-brother’s claim to the whole property. The step-brother and the kabirajs in the area developed a common interest in eliminating her, so she was declared a witch, and accused of casting a spell on three children in the village who had fallen sick.

One night a group of men, accompanied by the female kaviraj, abducted Subhadra, took her to a lonely spot and asked her to sign a confession that she was a witch. Subhadra, courageous woman that she is, refused to sign. They then proceeded to break her right arm saying that this was the punishment for not signing. When she still refused they broke her ribs and she was left for dead Her husband found her and carried her on his back to the main road, several kilometres away, and then to the district hospital where he got her admitted. Later, he was given shelter by her colleagues in the women’s organisation.

When the assailants heard that Subhadra had been saved, they threatened to kill the women who had helped her, saying that anyone who helped a witch deserved the same punishment. At that time, I happened to be in Gauhati for a convention against globalisation and its impact on women, when some of the women who had come to attend the convention spoke about the attack. We rushed to the area. It is difficult to describe the kind of tension that the women were living under. Prajapati and the other women who had saved Subhadra had received notices, supposedly from the local terrorist group, warning them against sheltering Subhadra. Yet, not only were they looking after the injured Subhadra, but had along with many adivasi comrades of the Kisan Sabha, held meetings in the neighbouring villages condemning the incident.

When we arrived, there were over a hundred women from the Bodo community holding a meeting in the block office to condemn the attack. The police had refused to register a case under Sec.307, attempt to murder, but assured a women’s delegation later that they would do so. The kaviraj has not yet been arrested.

But at least Subhadra could be saved. Laxmi Deb Burman could not. She was a communist supporter and also an active worker of the AIDWA in Tripura. A tea-garden worker, she was very popular in her village. In September this year a colleague of Laxmi’s, living in the same village, who had been running high fever for several days, died. Laxmi had in fact been taking her to the local hospital for treatment, but she succumbed to her illness. The following night a group of men known to be involved with the NLFT, a terrorist group in Tripura, came to Laxmi’s house which was in an isolated place, dragged her out, hacked her to death and put up notices in the village that she had to be killed because she was a "witch." They did not want to say that she was killed for being a communist supporter -- so they said she was killed for being a witch. Here also the murder led to widespread protests.

A few months earlier, Lata Sahu a dalit woman in Raipur, Madhya Pradesh, who had contested the polls against the wishes of landowning castes, was condemned as a witch, stripped and beaten. Recently in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, five adivasi women were branded as witches and burned to death.

INCIDENTS

INCREASING

Such cases occur with alarming frequency in many regions though it is difficult to make reliable estimates since cases of witch killing are not registered under a separate category. However available figures as well as collations of press reports do indicate an increase :

- five such cases reported in Bihar within the month of September this year,

- 167 such murders reported in the last two years in Andhra Pradesh,

over 50 in the last year in Assam, to cite a few examples.

Witch naming, hounding and punishing can include stripping and parading the victim, tonsuring, blackening the face, slashing the victim with knives or any other sharp instrument, beating, burning, burying alive. Those declared 'witches' are usually women, although according to one estimate in Bihar in thirty per cent of the cases, men were the victims. There may be similar figures for other states also.

What could be the reasons for the continuation if not increase in the medieval practice of witch-hunting? Conventional middle-class thinking attributes the continuation of witch hunting to the "backwardness and ignorance of adivasi or dalit communities" in which most of these cases occur. But, historically, there is nothing "tribal" about witch hunting. The introduction of witch-hunting in adivasi communities was itself linked to the colonial "civilising" project. Recently, the former DG of the ASI, was quoted in an article in Frontline, as having said that the larger view of shamanism, (the world of good and evil spirits) held in adivasi communities was identified by the Europeans with their own understanding of black magic and witchcraft. Earlier women were regarded as healers, and granted powers -- a far cry from witch-hunting.

If the concept of witches and the practice of witch-hunting was introduced by the "educated and civilising power", today its continuance can also be traced to powers and structures located, in the main, outside the communities in which they occur. Looking at it another way, it is no coincidence that the so-called tradition of witch-hunting remains, while other traditions of today's marginalised communities, which are far more advanced in their democratic content than those practised by the upper caste , 'educated' people, are being destroyed. Some examples are:

the more democratic codes governing marriage and divorce, and child custody,

the attitude towards widows and single women, and children born out of wedlock, etc.

The cultures of dominant classes and castes tolerate only those cultures of others which coincide with their own views.

The ojhas, those believed to have supernatural powers, are often supported by vested interests who want to perpetuate and manipulate the popular belief in the supernatural powers of the ojha for their own ends. This includes economic, political and social interests.

RIGHT TO

PROPERTY

In a substantial number of reported cases, witch-hunting is resorted to, so as to rob the woman of her property. In many adivasi communities, women have greater though not equal rights to land. Efforts to exercise those rights are thwarted by the method of declaring the woman a witch and so rob her of her right to the land. And it is not always the woman’s family which is necessarily involved. Particularly where the woman is unprotected, a widow or a single woman, there is no dearth of others who have an eye on the land, would use the services of the ojhas.

For example, there are cases where such identification has been made when upper castes want to grab the land distributed to dalit or tribal families. Sometimes whole families are declared "witches’ and eliminated. In other cases, individual financial disputes can also be the reason for witch- naming. Political lobbies and vested interests working with their own narrow agendas among tribal or dalit communities, often use the ojha’s position to influence tribal communities. It is in the interests of these very 'modern’ political forces to preserve the position of the ojha. For example in Gujarat, this section in the adivasi community is being assiduously wooed by the Hindutva organisations, who see them as an easy conduit to influence adivasi communities. Ironically, it is these same ojhas who are being encouraged to introduce Hindu rituals among the adivasis. It is not surprising to find that cultures which glorify sati, find it easy to coexist with witch-hunting.

Preservation of caste structures and upper caste hegemony. also underlies the identification of dalit women as witches. In many cases where their caste supremecist positions have been challenged, upper caste communities target the woman in the dalit family as a witch. In the case of Lata Sahu who challenged the landed castes by defying their order not to stand for elections, was declared a witch because she directly challenged their political power. In this case however, the agent for the identification as a witch happened to be a member of her own caste .

On the other hand, in many areas of the north-east, the practice of witchcraft is actively encouraged by terrorist groups who use this tradition to command obedience, as also to eliminate opposition to their activities from within their own communities. Laxmi Deb Burman’s case mentioned earlier is such an example.

The current emphasis on ethnic identities by some political forces, to the exclusion of democratic values, also means coexistence with retrograde practices, such as witch-hunting, in the name of preservation of ‘tribal" or oppressed caste "identities." That is why there is not a single example of any such community-specific political group ever fighting for reform within the community.

Further when the "jadutona" of the witch doctor fails to cure the patient, a scapegoat has to be found and mostly it is the poorest and most vulnerable women who are sacrificed. The target chosen in such cases usually has little social support. Women in non-stereotypical situations, lacking protection or support, single women, women without children, widows and the disabled, are the most vulnerable. The hunt is usually accompanied by a mob, whipped into hysteria by the ojha. Such incidents also reinforce the fear and power of the ojha, which suits the vested interests.

THE OUTSIDE

POWER

There is yet another most powerful material force which helps the ojha maintain his/her power—the World Bank ! This proposition is not so far- fetched as it might seem. If the human race in its infancy had propitiated the forces of nature due to a helplessness in the face of its power, the kind of powerlessness generated due to the sweeping forces of liberalisation and globalisation unleashed by the policies of the ruling regime of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO is also a reality. Proliferating individual tragedies on a massive scale triggered, not by unavoidable accidents, but by avoidable policies are the context within which superstitions are created and strengthened in India today. Such a social environment empowers unscrupulous elements to exploit and manipulate people.

This is illustrated by the collapse of whatever existed in the name of a health system, in the face of the aggressive privatisation policy being followed by the central and most state governments. Hundreds and thousands of families have lost members, mainly children, due to the increased costs of medicines and health care. At any given time, surveys of tribal and dalit families would show that at least one member of the family is ill. In our work in the rural areas, one issue which has come up repeatedly, is the increasing indebtedness of families due to loans taken to meet recurring medical bills.

The sections worst-affected have been the adivasi-dominated areas in remote and inaccessible parts of the country. Large-scale epidemics of malaria, diarrhoea and other avoidable diseases, have taken a heavy toll. In the absence of any medical support systems, adivasi communities rely on the local ojha for magic spells to cure the sick, and thereby the power of the ojha over the community increases. Thus there is a direct inverse relation between the increasing ill-health of India’s poor and the increase in superstitions and dependence on ojhas. This is one of the major reasons why it is so difficult to break the ojha’s hold over community belief.

There is thus a coalescing of many forces and factors. It is their powerful presence, often backed by the state which drowns out the voices and efforts of those who strive, like Subhadra and her colleagues, to free their sisters and brothers from the power and influence of the ojhas. They do so at great risk to their own lives.

Women’s organisations in India long ago rejected the narrow frameworks of analysis which view developments impacting on women only within the male-female equation. The practice of witch-hunting can be fought effectively only by understanding and exposing the links between this practice and its supporting structures.