Opinion A witch-hunt that speaks of governance deficit
In 2023, there was a 100 per cent rise in witch-hunting cases in Jharkhand from 2022
Under Adivasi customary laws, women don’t have inheritance rights. Norwegian linguist P O Bodding, in his book Studies in Santhal Medicine and Connected Folklore, wrote, “There is no genuine Santhal who doesn’t believe in witches.” While one may criticise his colonial gaze for such sweeping generalisations, given the recent spate of witch-hunting across Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh — the latest being in Jharkhand where a 65-year-old woman was beheaded after being branded a witch — his reading is difficult to discard.
According to NCRB reports, in 2023, there was a 100 per cent rise in witch-hunting cases in Jharkhand from the previous year. The strict provisions of the Prevention of Witch Practices Act in Jharkhand, 2001 have led to little progress — six states have similar pieces of legislation. Across cases, two factors consistently show up: Lack of healthcare facilities and absence of Adivasi women’s land rights.
In the Adivasi landscape of Chota Nagpur, if witch/dayan represents evil or black magic, ojhas symbolise the white magic that, according to Shashank Sinha, is “socially and psychologically beneficent”. This ojha-dayan binary becomes clearer when one tries to understand the perceptual construction of diseases among Adivasis. Among Kols, British official Thomas Wilkinson noted, the spread of disease had three reasons: Angry bonga (generic name of Adivasi god), the spirit of someone who died, and witchcraft. The first two could be pacified by animal sacrifices, but the last could only be cured through “elimination”. This perception was echoed by other colonial officers. E G Man wrote that witches were believed to have the “power of killing people… and of causing fevers, murrain in cattle and other kinds of evil”. They were held responsible for cholera, smallpox, stomach ache or any physical complaints that ojhas couldn’t cure.
The need to hold mostly aged single women, or those who breach the barrier of patriarchy, responsible for any crisis, is tied to the failure of ojhas and the inaccessibility of health facilities. In 2021, a study by the Odisha State Commission for Women and NGO Action Aid Association found “27 per cent of witch branding was attributed to health issues among children, whereas 43.5 per cent of the cases were linked to health issues in the case of adult villagers”.
Another major reason behind witch-hunting has been land-grabbing. Under Adivasi customary laws, women don’t have inheritance rights. So, if any Adivasi woman loses her father or husband and doesn’t have a son, she is left at the mercy of a male relative, who would eventually become the property’s owner. In such instances, women are often branded witches and forced out of the property. However, the Centre’s proposed Uniform Civil Code, which claims to uphold women’s rights, exempts Adivasis from its mandate.
So, the colonial understanding of witch-hunting lingers on, both due to the failure of governments to develop modern health infrastructure and due to the colonial belief that customary rights should be privileged even if they go against universal human rights. We must take a nuanced approach. Or else, Bodding would again be proved right.
The writer is senior assistant editor, The Indian Express
abhik.bhattacharya@expressindia.com
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