Witch Hunting in
Sonbhadra: Reality and Intervention
Shruti
Nagvanshi[i]
and Shirin Shabana Khan[ii]
It is impossible for
Jagesari Devi (32), a tribal woman of Sonebhadra district, to forget the
fateful day when she became a victim of witch hunting and her tongue was
chopped off. She was branded a 'dayan' (witch) by a local 'ojha' (sorcerer).
Though her wounds have healed, the scars remain forever. The unforgettable nightmare
has rendered the Holi festival colourless for her.
"Am I really a
dayan," wonders Jagesari, and following this inhuman act of others, today
she can neither speak properly nor can eat or drink with ease.
Witch hunting is still prevalent and brutally practiced
in the twenty-first century in the rural part of India. Almost every other day,
a woman is branded a witch or victimised for witch-hunting in the hinterlands
of Uttar Pradesh, where Government and NGOs deliberately keep mum on that
issue. PVCHR came to know through local dailies and activists that witch
hunting are committed in the remotest corner of the State as it is practiced in
Mayourpur block of Dudhi tehsil in Sonebhadra district of Uttar Pradesh.
To probe into the fact that women branded ‘witch’, then
a squad of the psycho therapist reached Mayourpur and provided the
psychological support through testimonial therapy to the victimized women. They badly need to regain their dignity and
honour through a form of social recognition in which their private truth is
openly recognised and becomes public truth, and their suffering is acknowledged
and becomes part of social memory. A general silence often surrounds political
repression, as if it only exists in the minds of the survivor, but the
narratives of the survivors will preserve history.
Mayourpur, a place which is quite economically
backward, where people have almost no access to the basic necessities of life
be it education and health care. In this kind of situation, people tend to be
steeped into obscurantism and superstition. And anything bad that might befall
these villagers like bad crop, diseases, sudden and unexplained death of
someone in the family, or drying of well tend to be considered the work of some
evil ‘witch’. Thus begins a witch hunt to locate the person responsible. When
daughter of Jagesari’s brother-in-law Sahdev died due to illness on August 1,
2010, she went to Sahdev’s house to condole the death, she saw that an ojha
present there. He started branding Jagesari as a dayan (witch) and made her
responsible for the death. The villagers gathered for the burial stood as mute
spectators and her tongue was slashed as punishment.
Manbasia (45) is another
woman who has been subjected to inhuman ordeal in Ghaghari Tola Sahgora
village, under Babhani police station, in Myorpur block of Sonebhadra district.
After the demise of a boy in the village, she was not only attacked with sharp
weapons but also paraded naked in public on July 17, 2010. "I was not a
dayan, then why was I paraded naked?" she questioned. Her husband Jodhilal
said he had to mortgage his land for his wife's treatment.
The frequency of such assaults and the dismal conviction
rate, despite the existence of the Prevention of Witch Practices Act,
has terrified victims into a silent acceptance of the cruelty. Some of the most common concerns in relation
to witch hunting are that in very few cases have the authorities actually
responded to the complaints, and witch hunting is severely under reported,
poorly investigated and prosecuted with negligible rates of conviction. The
police often do not register FIRs.
The easiest way to grab
a woman’s property in rural hinterland is to brand her
a witch. Unbelievable but horrifically true in 21st
century India, women in the interiors of states are beaten,
paraded naked, disgraced, ostracised and then robbed of their land by
anti-social elements and sometimes even greedy relatives. Witch hunting is a
tool to oppress the critical thinking and wider participation of women in
decision making process in the patriarchal society. In our Bhojpuri language
they are called as Kan – Dayan (initial form of witch hunting).
However, the conviction
rate for witch hunting crimes is dismal. The perpetrators, in most
cases, are male relatives and their motive is to usurp
the property of single women. The modus operandi is to disgrace and
ostracise the victim. "
The fact is that it is
not superstition that is at the root of many of these accusations of witchcraft
but socio-economic factors: land-grabbing, property disputes, personal rivalry
and resistance to sexual advances. In many cases, a woman who inherits land
from her deceased husband is asked to disown the land by her husband's family
or other men. If she resists, they approach the Ojhas and bribe
them to brand her a witch. This strategy of branding a woman a witch is also
used against women who spurn the sexual advances of the powerful men in the
community.
PVCHR organized honoured
these women on 10th March, 2011 on the death anniversary of Savitri
Bai Phule[iii] known
as Bharti Mahila Mukti Diwas. The honour ceremony was organized in the Varanasi
city and it was riskier in the village. The objective of the ceremony was to
get them to resettle back into village.
PVCHR immediately intervened and sent the
testimonies to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), New Delhi and
Director General of Police (DGP) Lucknow to draw its attention towards this
social evil and get victims of witch hunting some justice, Mr. Deepak Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Sonbhadra
in a vide letter no. एस /शि
- 26 ए/11 dated 9th May 2011 directed to be vigilant in preparing a
list of actors, who brand women as witch, especially the Ojha, Sokha and the
others involved in this type of activity. It requested to hold regular meetings
with an effort to create awareness against the practice of witch hunting.
On 25th September, 2011 PVCHR wrote open
letter to Prime Minster of India[iv] and demand
for a national legislation and special empowerment programme for the women in
the witch hunting- prone area and awareness campaign to promote education and
health.
[i] Managing Trustee,
PVCHR
[ii] Program
Manager, PVCHR
