Evil in the System

Located at the foothills of the Satpura ranges,Rewanagar is an archetypal tribal village. Mud and bamboo houses with thatched roofs dominate the landscape,with a few odd cement houses in between. The entry to the village is marked by shrines to nature gods,with coloured flags and vermillion-smeared stones marking the sacred spots. Its a self-sustained universe,working to its own laws and customs. Here,accusations of being a witch are taken seriously and the women so branded are forced to lead their lives in exile,if persecution doesnt get to them first.

Pawara,however,decided to fight for her rights. She approached the village panchayat to seek justice. The elders convened the panchayat seven times in the last month. During the hearings,my neighbour kept levying charges against me and,in private,his threats continue unabated. The panchayat asked us to resolve the matter amicably,but till the last meeting,no resolution was in sight. At last,we were told to approach the police and lodge a complaint. Fearing for my life,I did so. The police also got both the parties to sit down together and asked us to resolve the issue, she says.

The mediation might have stopped the neighbour from carrying out his threats of violence,but life for Pawara and her family members has been on a downward spiral since. Being neighbours mean the jibes continue. Worse,Pawaras neighbour has stopped her family from using the common path that leads to their fields. Instead,her husband and seven children have to take a circuitous route. Even the extended family has felt the reverberations of the accusation. News such as this travels fast. Everyone is asking questions. If someone is accused of being a witch,others tend to socially boycott the relations as well, she says.

An Uneasy calm prevails in the muddy lanes of Gangapur village in Akkalkua taluka of Nandurbar. Located 15 km from Rewanagar,Gangapur is situated 3 km from the tehsil town of Akkalkua. Its proximity to the town has introduced it to some amenities of modernisation dish antennas perch on thatched rooftops and motorcycles ply along unpaved roads. However,when it comes to the belief in sorcery and black magic,the villagers seem just as regressive. Here too,Indirabai Valvi,a 40-year-old Bhil woman,has been accused of practising witchcraft,only this time the accusations come from within the family. When her sister-in-law died of a sudden illness in June this year,her brother contacted a local bhagat. The bhagat told him Valvi was behind his wifes death. Her brother has,since then,incarcerated her in the house,threatening her with death if she dares to step out. Her daughter Sanibais wedding was nearly called off when someone sent an anonymous letter to the grooms family accusing her of being a witch. Though the marriage took place,many villagers stayed away. We have asked our children not to go to their home, says one villager,refusing to give his name. Such social boycott in a close-knit village community is enough to break down a persons resilience.

Sharing its borders with the states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat,Nandurbar is the farthest district of Maharashtra. Amidst the rumbling hills and valleys of the Satpura ranges,this primarily agrarian district has the largest population of tribals in the state. Verdant greenery,interspersed with mud-and-bamboo houses,mark the region,dominated by Pawara,Bhil and Bhilala tribes. With their own dialects and animist religions,these tribal populations have managed to cling to age-old customs and values. Even now,the entrance to the Taloda taluka is guarded by totemic symbols and shrines to departed souls. Instead of temples,these shrines to spirits and departed elders become the prime objects of devotion.

Blaming and branding a woman as a witch is an old custom in these regions. In the face of sudden deaths,failure of crops or natural calamities,the tribals prefer to consult a traditional godman bhagat who tries to pin the reason as well as find out if the curse of a witch was behind the tragedy. The bhagat never gives out the name of the woman directly; instead,he gives vague directions to the possible house of a witch. According to tribal customs,the only way to deal with a witch is to stone her to death and severe her body in four pieces and bury it in four directions,to prevent her reincarnation, says Jayantilal Sali,a local activist in the area,who works for the rehabilitation of people affected by the Narmada project. Prathibha Shinde,secretary of Lok Sangharsh Morcha,a tribal rights organisation,says that in the last 10 years,13 women were murdered after being branded as witches. Thanks to interventions of grass-root organisations,such murders have stopped,but women are still branded witches, she says.

Accusations of being a witch is not only confined to women from lower economic backgrounds. In 2003,Sitabai Vasawe,the sister of former zila parishad member CK Padvi,was accused of being a witch when a relative died suddenly. The village panchayat and the police refused to hear her pleas and asked her to resolve the matter with the other party. Faced with threats of violence,my sister remained locked in her house for three months. Although I was then the president of the social welfare committee of the zila parishad,I could not do anything for her. She died after contracting a fever and not getting medical treatment on time, says Padvi,who is now the president of Dakinpratha Nirmulan Samiti of Nandurbar,an offshoot of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti founded by activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar,who was murdered recently in Mumbai. It is one of the few organisations working at various levels to eradicate the problem.

The practice is deep-rooted and the activists admit that they face an uphill task. On paper,the police is supposed to act on complaints and help resolve these issues,but as the state minister for sports and youth affairs and local MLA Padmakar Valvi admits,their role leaves much to be desired. In order to prove that the process of branding women as witches has been eradicated from the district,the police often refuses to lodge complaints. Instead,they ask them to approach the panchayat to resolve the matter. Only through proper education will this get eradicated, he says.

Of late,activists point out,women are being branded as witches over ownership issues. Many of the accused are single or widowed women with significant landholdings. Its also easy to levy accusations against someone with whom one has difference of opinions. The panchayat,they say,holds the key since it enjoys immense importance in the lives of the villagers. Results of sustained activism can be felt in many of the villages where the panchayat refuses to brand a woman as a witch. Also,at least in one case,our activists have managed to overturn the judgement of the village panchayat. They made the gram shabha apologise to the woman and pay her a hefty compensation, says Shinde.

Such cases,though,are rare. For the women who have been branded witches,the reality is one of fear and apprehension,with even their near and dear ones turning hostile over time. As Pawara says,Justice seems to be an alien concept to me. Everyone asks me to sit before my accuser and resolve the matter. But what of the pain and anguish that I have had to undergo and who knows will be forced to undergo in the future too?