Witch-Hunts in the 21st Century: A Serious Challenge to the Empowerment of Rural Tribal Women in India
Witch-Hunts in the 21st Century: A Serious Challenge to the Empowerment of Rural Tribal Women in India
by
Abstract
Beliefs in witchcraft result in witch-hunts. Today, in many rural parts of India, if a woman is confirmed as a witch by the local Ojha, she receives all sorts of tortures: beating, burn injuries, insertion of different objects in the intimate parts, she is forced to walk naked through the village, eat human excrements or raped, her hair, nose or ears are cut and teeth are removed, her land and properties are destroyed or confiscated, she is forced to leave the village or killed. These acts of violence are occurring at an alarming rate in the villages of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Haryana, Orissa, Assam, and other rural regions. We are facing, thus, a serious threat to the empowerment of women in Indian society. The main objectives of this study are to identify the factors behind witch-hunts, the nature of witchcraft practices, and to provide some suggestions for eradicating such behaviours.
Keywords
witchcraft witch-hunt violence empowerment women society tribal Dalit
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non–Commercial No Derivatives License which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of the Publisher must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
