Witch by branding

Published in the Pioneer Edit Page on April 19, 2003

Strange are the ways of the media. Recently, while film actor Vivek Oberoi's freak accident hogged headlines for weeks on end, issues demanding immediate attention were ignored or relegated to the anonymity of the inside pages. One such news was an attack on and humiliation of a tribal woman, branded a 'witch'. A resident of Guna, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh's home district, Ratnabai was accused of casting an 'evil spell' that allegedly led to the death of a one-year-old. She was forced to consume pig's excreta as punishment.
The woman was declared a witch after the village priest, to whom the ailing child was taken for treatment, failed to cure her. He informed the harried parents that the spell of a witch was the reason for the child's illness. Ratnabai was identified as the witch and subjected to severe punishment, which included eating pig's excreta, as the child died the following day. Such is her condition that the poor woman refuses to go back to her village and has taken refuge in her parent's house in a neighbouring village.
But why was Ratnabai singled out? Is it because of a property dispute or the result of a tussle between her family and the village priest? There being no follow-ups to the story, such questions remain unanswered. What became evident though is the fact that the evil of 'witch-hunting' is very much a reality in the country.
In the interiors of States like Bihar and West Bengal, 'witches'-or 'dains' as they are called -and their children are still hunted and killed. One of the least talked-about acts of violence, the murder of individuals and entire families accused of witchcraft is common in other States too, such as MP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. From 1991 to 2000, over 522 cases of witch-hunting have been registered in Bihar alone.
Sociologists say it is not superstition that is at the root of many of these accusations of witchcraft, but socio-economic factors like land-grabbing, property disputes and personal rivalry. The strategy of branding a woman a witch is also used against women who spurn the sexual advances of the powerful men in the community. In many cases, a woman who inherits land from her deceased husband is asked to disown it by her husband's family or other men. If she resists, they approach ojhas (traditional village doctors) and bribe them to brand her a witch.
Lack of healthcare facilities and legal support in villages add to the problem. Bihar is one State that did pass an anti-witchhunting act 1999. But on the whole, this evil remains a frightful social reality. It is difficult though to make reliable estimates, since cases of witch killing are not registered under a separate category.
In many Adivasi communities, women have greater rights to land. Often, in her attempt to exercise these, a woman may find herself declared a witch and thus robbed of her property rights. It is not always the woman's family that is involved. When the woman is unprotected, a widow or a single woman, there is no dearth of people with an eye on her land, who are ready to use the services of the ojhas.
Atrocities of such a nature are just one of many malfunctions that characterise a developing society as ours. It is crucial that the media re-evaluate its priorities and push vital developmental issues to the top of their list, vis-a-vis fluff and mere entertainment. By relegating such issues and causes to the sidelines as fillers in the inside pages, the fourth estate is guilty of insensitivity and of abdicating its social responsibilities.