Why do witchcraft accusations persist in modern India, and how do gender and caste inequalities fuel this cycle of violence despite legal protections?
Join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack for a powerful conversation with Bharvi Shahi, a final-year law student at the School of Legal Studies, REVA University, currently pursuing her LL.M. at Christ University, Bengaluru, and Razina Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Law at the School of Law, Presidency University, Bengaluru about from their research work in Northeast India’s tribal communities and international human rights law.
they explore the complex intersection of belief, tradition, and human rights violations in Northeast India’s tribal communities related to witchcraft accusations.
What You’ll Learn:
Understand the critical difference between cultural beliefs and harmful practices under international human rights law. Explore how accusations emerge within community structures when illness or misfortune strikes and medical care is inaccessible. Learn why India’s state-level witchcraft laws face massive implementation challenges, and discover the reality of witch-hunt victim communities living in isolation. Our guests reveal how patriarchal structures weaponize supernatural accusations to control and exclude women.
Razina Ahmed shares firsthand research challenges, including the startling moment an NGO declined to help her visit a village of survivors, revealing how deeply stigma affects even those working in advocacy. Bharvi Shahi examines how freedom of belief becomes weaponized against the most vulnerable: widows, elderly women, and those with disabilities. This episode reveals how community fear, social isolation, and supernatural accusations create complexities that legal protections alone cannot resolve.
Keywords: witch hunts India, tribal communities Northeast India, witchcraft accusations, gender-based violence, human rights violations India, superstition and law, vulnerable women, Assam tribal communities, Implementing Human rights, belief vs harmful practices
In this compelling episode, we welcome back returning guest Dr. Govind Kelkar. Building on her previous insights about women’s experiences in India, Dr. Kelkar shares her recent groundbreaking research across eight northeastern Indian states, examining the complex interplay between traditional beliefs and modern pressures.
Dr. Kelkar’s fieldwork reveals how patriarchal systems have intensified within these communities, fueling the devaluation of women and perpetuating the dangerous practice of witch branding. Her research uncovers unexpected connections between economic development initiatives, efforts at cultural preservation, and gender-based violence.
Listeners will gain deep insights into how evolved capitalist economic structures have transformed traditional gender dynamics in these regions, creating new vulnerabilities for women. We discuss the formidable challenges facing activists working to create safer spaces, and explore how feminist movements can effectively address witchcraft accusations while honoring indigenous rights and cultural autonomy.
This episode offers a straightforward look at the intersection of gender, power, and belief systems, essential listening for anyone seeking to understand the persistence of witch hunts in our modern world.
Welcome back to our Podcasthon series, “Ending Witch Hunts.”
In this fourth installment, Josh and Sarah explore the pervasive issue of witch hunts across Asia. As Sarah notes, “The witch hunting story continues to unfold in ways many people don’t realize.” We examine how witch hunts and witch branding remain significant problems throughout parts of Asia, with a particular focus on India.
Throughout the episode, we highlight the work of many local advocates who are fighting these dangerous practices through education, survivor support, and influencing the development of appropriate legal protections and governmental interventions.
Podcasthon is a global movement to spread awareness about charities. Join us each day March 15-21 as we participate in Podcasthon 2025, where more than 1,500 podcasters unite to amplify causes close to their hearts. We’re proud to participate with our nonprofit End Witch Hunts, which works to educate about persecution of alleged witches worldwide.
Welcome to Witch Hunt, the investigative podcast exploring modern-day witch hunting in India. In this eye-opening episode, we investigate a critical human rights crisis: the systematic persecution of women through witchcraft accusations. The statistics are haunting: over 2,000 documented witch-hunting murders between 2000-2012—with countless more cases hidden in rural communities. To analyze this intersection of women’s rights, criminal justice, and cultural practices, we’re joined by leading experts: Rashika Bajaj, a human rights advocate at Jharkhand High Court, and Jaya Verma, an assistant professor specializing in gender law at Jindal Global University. Human rights researcher Dr. Amit Anand provides essential insights on how traditional beliefs and economic inequality fuel these violent practices. Together, we’ll examine urgent policy reforms, legal protection measures, and grassroots solutions needed to combat witch-hunting violence. This powerful episode serves as both an exposé and a call to action—through awareness and advocacy, we can challenge harmful practices and protect vulnerable women. Join our investigation into one of India’s most pressing yet under-reported human rights issues. You’re listening to Witch Hunt.
Rashika Bajaj: [00:00:00] 2,097 people were murdered from 2000 to 2012 in the name of witch-hunting. Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast demystifying modern-day witchcraft accusation-related violence. I'm Josh Hutchinson. Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today, we're examining a critical human rights crisis that continues to devastate lives across modern India, the persecution of women through witchcraft accusations. Josh Hutchinson: The numbers are shocking. Between 2000 and 2012 alone, over 2,000 people in India were murdered after being accused of witchcraft. And those are just the reported cases. The true toll of this violence remains hidden. Sarah Jack: To help us understandthis complex issue, we're joined by two distinguished legal experts, Rashika Bajaj, Sarah Jack: a legal advocate at Jharkhand High Court, and Jaya Verma, Sarah Jack: an assistant professor of law at Jindal Global University. Josh Hutchinson: Together, we'll explore the deadly intersection of gender-based violence, [00:01:00] poverty, and traditional beliefs that fuels these accusations. Our guests will help us understand why this practice persists and what solutions they propose to protect vulnerable populations. Sarah Jack: We'll also hear from returning guest, Dr. Amit Anand, who provides crucial context for understanding witch hunting within the broader framework of gender-based violence in India. We'll discuss the urgent need for central legislation, the challenges of implementing effective solutions in rural communities, and the vital role of education and awareness programs in creating lasting change. Josh Hutchinson: This is more than just a discussion. It's a call to action. Through understanding, we can work together to end this cycle of violence and persecution. Sarah Jack: Hello, welcome to Witch Hunt podcast. We are so honored to have you joining us today. Please each introduce yourself and tell us about your professional accomplishments and your interest in human rights. Rashika Bajaj: Myself, Rashika Bajaj, I completed my LLB from Presidency [00:02:00] University, Bangalore and LLM in criminal law from Reva University, Bangalore. Recently, I am practicing as an advocate in Jharkhand High Court. With regard to my interest in human rights, I was introduced this subject in LLM and seeing it around. It's very relatable to real-life circumstances of our life. And then I was introduced by Amit sir about the witchcraft thing, which gave me more interest. Slowly and gradually, I'm learning more about it. Thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity also. Jaya Verma: Hello. Hello, everyone. First of all, thank you so much for this opportunity. It's a great pleasure to be a part of this discussion. I am Jaya Verma. I have done my bachelors in law from Chanakya National Law University, Patna, India. And I also have my master's degree in law from O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, [00:03:00] India. Jaya Verma: Although my specialization lies in corporate and financial laws, I was introduced and rather I became more interested in the topic of witchcraft accusations, allegations, witch hunting, and all about that while my time as an assistant professor of law in Reva University, Bangalore, India, andit was the discussions with Dr. Amit Anand and Ms. Akanksha Madaan that made me find more interest in the topic. Also my connection with human rights was that when I was working inReva University, I was also a coordinator of Center for Human Rights Law and Policy. So that's where it all started. Josh Hutchinson: Why does witch hunting persist in modern India? And how do gender and caste inequalities fuel this cycle of violence despite legal protections? Rashika Bajaj: In India, there are various laws which protect the women, but still witch hunting is not very discussed in the present era. People still fear [00:04:00] dominant women in India, and, when it comes to witch hunting, women are specifically regarded as witches over here, because it's perceived over here, the notion is, particularly over there, is that women are the ones who does black magic and everything. Rashika Bajaj: Apart from the states having various legislations over here, still I believe that witch hunting is being practiced around every rural area of India. Me belonging from Jharkhand specifically, in my locality itself, I can witness this in and around, just outside my house, it's a very common thing for me to witness on regular basis. Rashika Bajaj: Understanding, first of all, what is witch hunting is basically in common terms, which I feel is the practice of magic with the evil purposes. The best example is that in our area, if I take the example focusing on Jharkhand, which I witnessed on a frequent basis, there are a [00:05:00] lot of crossroads over here, and it's believed that on Saturdays, people come and keep a few substances like rice, or some, lambs lit in the boughs of mud and everything. People generally fear to cross from that area believing it to be a black magic. The people think and there is a evil purpose behind it. Maybe the person doing has not done with the evil intent, but then people are still afraid to act. And when it regards to the gender-based violence, coming to that, in this, it's basically because of the superstition and patriarchy continues still in India, where women are still regarded to as a witches over here. Sarah Jack: Just to add to her point, yes, India has seen and, in the past also, and in the present, is, it has seen a lot ofincidents of witchcraft andsome states have majorly seen these incidents more than the other, have been [00:06:00] Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan, Assam, Chhattisgarh, all of these. And the incidents have been rising, although remain more and more unreported, is the problem that is there in India. So as Jackasked, despite having some legal norms and some legal structural framework regarding witchcraft allegation, why we could not,why India is not able to put a restraint on this,this practice of witchcraft and this practice of witch hunting, the problem here lies in the fact that the laws are more and more restricted to the regional areas rather than being, India being in focus, as in, there is no central legislation yet, although there are a lot oftherequirement and demand for the witchcraft legislation to be at the central level. We still have not reached to that level. Although there has been a bill in the 2022, till, we, the bill has not yet become the law. That is the reason. Rashika Bajaj: Would like to add [00:07:00] into it,as Ma'am said, there is a lack of proper awareness also, and people are still not ready to talk about it. Many people witness this in and around, but they ignore it, the fact, and then state laws are inadequately enforced over it. That's also a major issue that we are focusing on the demand of central legislation as a proper base for it. Sarah Jack: With reference to accusations of witchcraft, what are your perspectives on the fight against gender-based violence? Jaya Verma: Gender-based violence, it is definitely one of the major forms of human rights violation throughout the world. And the focal point of gender-based violence, they are majorly women. Of course, all the genders are definitely subjected to it, but the ratio of women being affected by gender-based violence throughout the world has been rather high. Jaya Verma: So for women, the gender-based violence has not just, because it has not just caused physical, mental, or, physical or mental harm, but also a reputational [00:08:00] harm. We have seen that women are more subjected to moral standards, to moral policing, and that is one of the reasons as to why gender-based violence would be said to be more, women could be more prone to the GBV. Jaya Verma: Also, witchcraft accusations and witch hunting is one such form of gender-based violence, which is pervasive. This is worldwide, and to some extent, it entraps all kinds of genders. It entraps all kinds of genders with the hypothesis that the witchcraft accusation acts as a punishment for those who do not cooperate with social norms. However, seeing this, it cannot be denied that women are the ones who are more prone to it, because the incidents have been evidence throughout the world. Rashika Bajaj: Adding to these points, I would like to say that the gender-based violence is a global issue, still prevailing around, but in, as I have mentioned before, that witch hunting is more among the rural communities. As for the Indian National Crime Record Bureau, [00:09:00] 2,097 people, 2,097 people were murdered from 2000 to 2012 in the name of witch-hunting. Rashika Bajaj: The major ratio was among, of the women, among these. And, the main reason was because they wanted to throw the women out of the villages to take the control over the lands. And if women denied the sexual needs of the men, that was also the main reason people used to go for the witchcrafts and everything over there, related to those evil practices. Josh Hutchinson: And what strategies are needed to fight against gender-based violence, especially with reference to accusations of witchcraft? Rashika Bajaj: One thing that we have decided on the theme is about the demand for the central legislation. If we go into a rough draft of it, it's very,important to define the term witchcraft as to what all falls into it because it covers a wider ambit. There are different ways people do it. Rashika Bajaj: If we see in the Hindus, [00:10:00] Hinduism, people, generally there is a kind of, even practices can be done for the, people use witch magics to at least cure something also. And for some, it's like they, you try to harm others also. But then the main perception over here is that people take it in a negative perspective only. Rashika Bajaj: So for that, a well-defined definition is important. Some punitive measures would be beneficial for the states and the country itself, such as strict punishment for individuals. And apart from this, victim protection and rehabilitation can also help more on these points. And not forgetting about the awareness programs. As I said, we need to change the notion of the people in and around. Education is the base for everything, what I believe is. Seeing mostly witch hunters practice in the rural areas and women who are widowed, divorced, basically try to practice this [00:11:00] thinking that some evil things has happened to them, and to cure them, people go to the witch doctors in and around to find a solution for themselves. And in general terms also, if we see in and around when we, in just a small example, I would like to cite it. When a child falls ill, the mother takes him to the temple to take out the evil eye, or what we call as the drishti. Rashika Bajaj: So the first aspect of if we want to change the one notion is about what will be is the awareness program will help us a lot. In doing so, educating people, as rural people are not much educated. Apart from that, the laws would work. Jaya Verma: So about the strategies, adding to Rashika's points, I think that the problem here in India is that yes, India has grown. India, the infrastructure of India, the development in India has been rapid throughout a few decades, past few decades. But the problem here is that even though India has made a name of [00:12:00] itself in the map, in the world map, but still 70 percent of the population in India that resides in rural areas, in rural India. There, witchcraftaccusation and witch hunting has been more rather than the urban areas. Jaya Verma: So what we see here in India is that the rural India is rather,it is comprised of mostly a patriarchal structure of society. So apart from all the other reasons, what we see is that the reason why witchcraft and witchcraft accusation and hunting remains pervasive in the rural India is that because there's a lack of infrastructure and they want to maintain that kind of society that already exists. They do not want want their social structure order disturbed at all, and the woman, if at all, they want to change or move out from the traditional roles that they are supposed to follow, like looking after the household or just remaining inside the homes, not studying, not getting educated, not even proper [00:13:00] healthcare. Jaya Verma: So, if they try to step out of that traditional role, what happens is that they are forced, pulled back by these means of sanction. So in rural India, witchcraft works as a sanction, as a very evil sanction, against those women who want to get out of the structure of patriarchy that, you know,that encapsulates the entire rural India. Jaya Verma: So, what we need to understand here is that, yes, the laws are definitely, even if they're there, they're not implemented. The strategies that can be followed here is that, first of all, of course, as Rashika pointed out, we need a central legislation. From the legal point of view, we need to have stronger laws. Jaya Verma: Apart from that, there are, we have to know that witchcraft accusations they're not just something which has religious or superstitious roots. Sarah Jack: Another strategy that we could adopt here is, the, the trauma that, it causes, the trauma that witch hunting and witchcraft accusation causes to the people, to the [00:14:00] victim of saidsocial evil and the strategies that could implement that could ensure that the mental,the problems that are caused, the mental distress that is caused to them is fixed somehow through therapy and a wide awareness regarding everything that is happening in the country, which is rare because the reporting of the incidents is rare. The printing of said incidents in the print media or in the electronic media is very rare. So that is all is needed as a strategy apart from the laws that is of course required. Rashika Bajaj: I would like to substantiate those with few datas I have with myself. From the, over the period spanning from 2010 to 2021, 1,500 individuals in India fell victim to acts of violence including burning and lynching following only the allegations of witchcrafts. This was the report by the National Crime Bureau records. Rashika Bajaj: Apart from this, between 2001 to 2016, the state of Jharkhand witnessed lynching [00:15:00] of 523 women by their local communities who had been labelled as witches. And not only Jharkhand have suffered these, but apart from that, other states such as Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, West Bengal also. Josh Hutchinson: And only 69 percent of the cases are only reported of witch hunting are only reported in India, which resulted into police intervention. And apart from this, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and other states are also very common, and it's increasing day by day, and it's not increasing apart from the further generations being educated on this point. Josh Hutchinson: You had mentioned that there is central legislation, a bill has been proposed. What is the status of that? What can you tell us about that legislation that's been proposed? what's the process? What needs to happen for that bill to pass? Jaya Verma: Yeah. So the bill was introduced in [00:16:00] 2020 in one of the houses of the parliament, the Rajya Sabha, the upper house. And what requires to be done here is then since it has been introduced, it needs to clear the three hearings of the bill in the parliament. Both houses need to come together and they need todiscuss over the bill, they need to discuss everything regarding it, and then once it passes through both the houses, it requires the assent of the president. Jaya Verma: So for now, the bill has been introduced, although it has not crossed all the three hearings till date. So it is still pending. It is still requires all the steps to fulfill before it becomes an act. However, there is no development in the process still. So it is pending for now. Sarah Jack: And during those hearings, is it, is it just government officials who discuss and examine it? Or are there, is there a voice from the public at those hearings? Jaya Verma: In our [00:17:00] political structure, what happens is that it is a representative democracy, India. So the people are elected, they go to the parliament, the people elect their leaders, and they become members of parliament. Some become members of parliament, the elected people, directly from the people, they become members of Lok Sabha, which is the lower house, and the upper house, that is the Rajya Sabha there, it is not direct representation, there is, from the states, the state legislative assemblies, they are supposed to send members into the Rajya Sabha. Jaya Verma: So both kinds of representation is there in the parliament. Even though the bills that are introduced are not directly, there's no,the people are not directly asked for their opinion. However, since we are a representative democracy, it is assumed that the voices of the people will be put forth by the people who are already there in the parliament. So they are the leaders and they will be the ones who are, who introduce the [00:18:00] bill. They pass the bill. So that is how it works. Sarah Jack: Thank you so much. Josh Hutchinson: And you both had mentioned previously that legal frameworks do need to be strengthened and laws need to be improved upon to better protect women from witch-hunting and related violence. What specifically in the law needs to happen for women to be better protected? Jaya Verma: So, currently, the penal provisions around the law, as in the witch-hunting, the witchcraft allegations, accusations, everything, all the incidents that are being reported, even though they are very less in number, they get reported and they do not get punished in the, in a particular, in a special, under a special law. Jaya Verma: There is a very general law, the general law of the Indian Penal Code, which is the general law of the land regarding criminal laws. It lays down the nature of offenses and the [00:19:00] punishment against those offenses. So, witchcraft accusation or witch-hunting specifically does not find a mention in any of the laws that are centrally applied in, currently in India. Jaya Verma: So what we, what the central legislation demands here is that there should be a special law dealing with witchcraft, and witchcraft accusation laws are there at the state level, as in, on the units which are there in India, right? There's a, it's a unit,it's a quasi-federal structure. So there is a, in the country, there are several units which are called as states. So those states have laws. Some of those states have laws. The places which seemore incidents of witchcraft allegations, they have their state laws. But lack of central legislation is not, is,the punishment is not very clear. The punishment is very fragmented in different states. And also the ones which are already [00:20:00] there, that is not enough to cause a restraint on this particular practice. Sarah Jack: If the gender-based violence laws were strong enough, would that flow over and add some protection for alleged witches? Also, so it's, I'm trying to understand is, are the current gender-based violence laws, they themselves, the punishments, aren't strong enough to stop it from happening? Even though, even violence that may not be connected to a witchcraft accusation. Rashika Bajaj: I personally believe that the, whatever the laws India is having based on gender-based violence, it does not cover the point of the witchcraft in itself. Witchcraft is totally a separate aspect of gender-based violence, because it's, as taking the example of domestic violence, if we compare with it, it's committed in a different way and a witchcraft is [00:21:00] committed in a totally different way. There are both different ways of committing it. Though these states have the their general laws, but as I mentioned earlier, the ways of committing witchcraft is very different. Therefore, the specific definitions of the word witchcraft is mandatory. And if we talk about the other legislation type, be it the sexual protection of women, sexual harassment of women at the workplace or domestic violence act, they have their own perspective. And each laws have their own objectives. So I believe a separate legislation would work more over here. Jaya Verma: Yeah, that is actually correct. That we, in India we see that, despite there being a central legislation regarding crimes in general, the Indian Penal Code and the procedural law that surrounds it, that is the criminal procedure code, we also see that there are criminal laws that arefocused specifically on a particular subject, and they are, they surround the gender-based violence that Rashika correctly pointed out about [00:22:00] thedomestic violence. There is an act, special act for that. Then there is an act against dowry prohibition, which restrains and which punishes people who demand dowrywhile the wedding is happening or the marriage is happening, any,the people who are involved in it, they get punished, especially, so special laws around that.The laws restraining child marriage is also there in India. Jaya Verma: So all of these are special laws and even though the laws around all of these offenses are there in the Indian Penal Code, that is, it's all there in the Indian Penal Code and, but still special laws have been framed, because the general laws were not enough. So that is what we also think that witchcraft,witch-hunting and witchcraft should also be, there, there should be special laws around that. Sarah Jack: And how long these, historically, how long have laws to protect women been introduced? [00:23:00] Are we talking decades, just a few decades, or is it still very young in laws that are protecting women's rights? Jaya Verma: The laws that have been protecting women in India, it's not just been decades, it has been around a few hundred years. Around the year 1800s, this has been happening. A very known pioneer of women's rights protection, he was Raja Ram Mohan Roy, also a freedom fighter while we were under the subjugation or imperialism of British. So during that time, only he started with the idea that women's rights should be,there should be laws around women's, gender-based violence and the women should be protected. So the laws regarding widow remarriage. In India, that was not there. So that was introduced in the, during 1800s. And also child marriage restraint was also, it had also started. Jaya Verma: Also to [00:24:00] point out that during imperialism, witchcraft and witch-hunting, these issues were also dealt with by the British. And there was restraint put on the people, on the native people here, by the British. They were not supposed topractice this in,India, during, from that time. And from there on, it has been a continued process. Lots of laws, many laws have been introduced. In fact, most of our laws in India, they are, they are more helpful towards bringing a change regarding gender-based violence. And I'm talking in general. Most of the laws. However, of course, improvement is required. Rashika Bajaj: Adding on to Ma'am's point,as the question was asked, I have read a few,Hindu vedas all have also gone through into those also. There were also few rules which protected women, though they were not properly codified, but still from time immemorial, India is trying to protect the rights of the woman and they have been given the position of [00:25:00] goddess, and the respect for women is always at the supreme level over here. Jaya Verma: And in addition to legislation itself, there needs to be several other things that happen to help bring an end to this. One thing you mentioned was awareness and education. What type of education is needed in these communities? Rashika Bajaj: Rural people are basically less educated over here. Imparting education over there is literally difficult. So, our community-level awareness program, as I mentioned, by NGOs, by social workers and local leaders, giving them a basic knowledge about the ideas. Apart from this, we can go into police and judicial reforms, where by improving the sensitivity and understanding of law enforcement agency regarding witchcraft-related violence is also vital, which I believe. And the sensitization programs [00:26:00] for police officers, legal professionals, and other judicial members, which can help more effective enforcement. Rashika Bajaj: One is that judiciary needs to also work more. When it comes to educational level, it's not only rural people also, but it, as a lawyer, there is a learning every day. So when it comes to understanding, it covers a wider aspect for me as it's a very vast topic. So I believe all the judicial, at the judiciary level, be it the rural people and including us also, me witnessing witchcraft in and around very often, still being so educated, I neglect it. So there must be some other more awareness programs. People should not hesitate to talk about that thing, which I believe is the crucial thing. And that can only be done with the help of the awareness programs by NGOs at the ground level, basically. Jaya Verma: Also, adding to Rashika's point, some [00:27:00] education is also required at the grassroots level, because, as mentioned before, also that 70 percent of people in India reside in rural areas. So, the education, educational infrastructure has not reached at all. And the literacy standard in India is still at a very low. So we need to raise that. We need to ensure that it has, it becomes a little higher, because for a person to be literate in India, they don't even require to be, youthey don't even require to be past fifth grade or something like that. All they need is till date that they require to be able to write their own name in any language that is there in our country. So the standard itself has to be raised. Apart from that, of course, the infrastructure has to be ensured that it reaches to all the areas in India, which is still scanty. Moreover, even after it reaches, we need to ensure that a gender-based[00:28:00] study or a gender-based awareness happens, which is also rare in India. It still has not happened till now. Only the schools which are, or the, all the institutions which are there in the urban areas, they have that kind of education. And a very big problem that still persists here in India is that it is tabooed. The education regarding gender-based, the gender-based education is tabooed and we are still stuck in professional education as to just to get jobs. The people who are all still here in urban places. So we need to have a more holistic approach towards education. Josh Hutchinson: You had also mentioned the need to support the survivors of witchcraft accusations. What kind of supports are people needing once they've been through this horrific type of event? Rashika Bajaj: There have been few incidents reported as I have mentioned earlier, the data which I gave of [00:29:00] the National Crime Record Bureau and about the Jharkhand lynching cases. There are few victims who are not actually liable for that thing but then because just of an as an apprehension they are being treated as, as witches or witchcraft. Rashika Bajaj: They're like, there are many community witch practices like in Assam also I have heard aboutblack magic thing and witchcraft in India where the common tricks are used is fortune telling through shells and future projections are also done through the piece of broken glasses. So people who so ever even in like I would like to substantiate just a minute I have a data on that just one second I'll just substantiate it. Rashika Bajaj: So there was a study conducted by the Odisha State Commission for Women and ActionAid, where it was held that because of the social economic structure, gender inequality and insufficient healthcare, women, basically, from the Dalit community weremajorly [00:30:00] focused at the witches over there and treated, they were treated as, mainly focused, focus was that the apprehension was that they used to do evil practices. Rashika Bajaj: Even if a harm is caused to themselves, they, because they had suffered a lot, it was believed that in future they are doing these evil practices to protect them and take revenge from people over there. Even the intention of the people are not, though also still, there are, like, if so, because that's why I mentioned about the victim protection programs about that. Rashika Bajaj: And I have added one more point before also stating that people not always do it by bad intentions, but since it's a notion in their mind, we need to change it that which will help in protecting the victim. Jaya Verma: Yeah, it's correct. Only having a deterrent approach of punishment cannot work here in India, because most of the times they don't even realize whether they're doing something wrong or not. They are in the notion that, since society is accepting it, since everyone is okay with the [00:31:00] fact that this is, this particular thing is happening here, they are right in their own minds. They believe that they are correct. So that needs to be changed and it'll take quite some time to change that, to change this belief. Jaya Verma: And, I think that,talking about the victim rehabilitation, after this incident of witchcraft accusation happens after, after the victims, they face torture, they face otherissues like they face humiliation, public humiliation. It becomes very difficult for them to go back to that place where they used to live. The ostracizing and the people who are facing the issue right there, they cannot go back to living and they cannot also leave everything and move ahead. So there has to be some institution that couldmake a rehabilitation happen for those victims. Jaya Verma: And also when trials happen in India, in a sense of, there's a thing called in camera proceedings, so where the names of the victims is not revealed and their identities are not [00:32:00] revealed, which is more dangerous to them when it comes to society. Since this particular kind of social level carries everything, societal reputation is a very big player here. So, these things also need to be accommodated in the victim rehabilitation program, I believe. Josh Hutchinson: You had talked earlier about,with regard to education, the lack of infrastructure in rural areas, but also, more generally, a lack of infrastructure in rural areas. In addition to schools, what else is needed in these areas? I know you talked about health care being important for women to have good access to get health care. Jaya Verma: Education and health care definitely being primary infrastructure needs in rural areas. We also need steps to ensure unemployment,unemployment reduces because of the unemployment increasing, poverty increases and as a [00:33:00] result,one of the,one of the professors of sociology at Michigan State University,Soma Choudhuri, she also points out that witchcraft allegations and witch hunting is also a form of stress relief. So, the people there, they are not very,they find their stress gets relieved once they accuse somebody or blame somebody of the problems that are happening to them. Moreover, as poverty increases, they want, there is a superstition, there are beliefs which show that it is, it must be somebody, some person who is causing the evils, because once they do not find an explanation to anything that is happening around them, they start blaming the people, and they start hunting, they start, they start blaming them, punishing them. So, the infrastructure regarding that is also required. Poverty reduction of course. Rashika Bajaj: Adding to Ma'am's superstitious point,what I have heard from the people in the rural areas when I had a word with them. [00:34:00] Generally, if there is a crop failure or if a woman cannot conceive, basically it's basically in rural areas, be believe that somebody has done something in even to them, the notion of witchcraft comes into their mind. So, in that case, they take them to the witch doctors or what we call you know, Harris Walby or a pandit over here, they take, do some, they with their different means basically cause harm to woman itself as, at times, physical harm, mental harm, which is very stressful for the woman. It's very illogical to hear that beating a woman sometimes can remove the evil spirits inside from inside it, it's, all these are still prevailing in India, and that's basically a violation of human rights of women itself around, which still needs to be worked on over here. Sarah Jack: What's it going to take to fund these programs? Rashika Bajaj: With regard to funding of these programs, it's not only [00:35:00] the government who is responsible, but yeah, at one perspective, it's very important for the government to take measures and from the one thing which we have is we can create a specific fund for those women who have been suffered from witchcraft, which can be helpful for them. Rashika Bajaj: Because once a family takes to, takes a woman to that, that level where she's being tortured by a malvi, and though at times these leads to rape and everything inside, which women are not able to speak because they belong from the rural background, even in the urban, even the women from the urban background, urban background are still not very open to discuss about the issues of rape and all. Government first should provide a specific scheme over there from the state fund itself so that the victims who are there can be given immediate healthcare facilities. And apart from that, as an individual, what I believe is wherever we can have donate or fund create a fund, attend, NGOs. With the help of the [00:36:00] NGO or any other specific body over here. So it will be very helpful for them. And moreover, as I'm pointing out every time, education is the base for everything which I believe. Sarah Jack: Yeah. That education is really key to give the women their voice. Rashika Bajaj: Exactly. That's awareness. Jaya Verma: Regarding the funding, they, they could, since witchcraft accusation and witch hunting, the results of it, the incidence of it is something that is, that is in the nature of an offense, even though it does not find mention in Indian Penal Code, the central criminal legislature in India. But still, if at all a special law is going to be made, it might, there's a possibility that it might be more criminal in nature rather than civil, a civil suit, right? So, if it is criminal, then the funding and all the responsibilities regarding that would lie on the government, on the state here, [00:37:00] more,and,and, the funding has to be done by the government, several, yes, as Rashika said, schemes has to be set up by the government, rehabilitation centers has to be funded by the government itself. Jaya Verma: However, if, if we could find in the law that it could be in the form of a civil suit or it could be a mixture of criminal and civil, then maintenance to the victims of thewitch hunting or such incidents can be made to be given by the people who are actually responsible for these. Jaya Verma: And laws regarding maintenance, they work, the laws regarding,making them pay, it works, in our country. Maintenance works in our country, so that could also be, asked for while the trial proceeds towards the decision, yeah. Josh Hutchinson: Is there a welfare system in India, a social safety net to catch people when misfortune befalls and they lose their money? Is there government support [00:38:00] for people in need? Rashika Bajaj: We seem to have procedural laws such as CRPC. There are schemes which government have made, government have made for the victims of crimes. If something happens to a member of the family, if they loses a person, then government fund them. In many perspective, government do try to work on these things. The responsibility, states take their own responsibility. Jaya Verma: Yeah, however, there is not a central structure still.It is also something that, is lacking financial, support or financial stability or security as such, if we have to say that. That is something that is still not, very formalin India. Although, yes, of course, as she pointed out that the disasters that happen,in our country or any accident that happens that,in those cases, compensation is made by the government to the victims. But more so after, if a person loses everything, then there are insurance companies only that are for the rescue, most of the [00:39:00] times. Josh Hutchinson: And if a person Jaya Verma: is not, if a person is not, insured, then definitely, they land in trouble. It is a big problem. Josh Hutchinson: Okay. That's what I was actually going to ask is, are most people insured against things like crop failure and just losing their livelihood? Jaya Verma: That is another issue here. Why? Because, India, the work, the labor here, the work here is, separated into organized labor and unorganized, organized sector and unorganized sector, and crop failure and things like,agriculture and most of the rural population, whatever they work, the work that they do, they, that falls under the unorganized sector. And the unorganized sector is, it is a little, it's not, in, most of the people are not insured because there's no formal structure of employment in the unorganized sector.So that is something that is not there yet. Josh Hutchinson: I ask [00:40:00] because we've heard from some other conversations we've had that a social safety net or insurance to help against things like crop failure would help to potentially reduce accusations because. If people have some recourse and they can get their money back or still go on living their life the way they're used to, then they have less reason to accuse somebody. Josh Hutchinson: Do you have any closing remarks? Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you wanted to be able to get across? Sarah Jack: As far as I believe that we have tried to cover most of it like in our own knowledge and whatever we have read through it in our own interest and with regard to witchcraft accusations definitely national strategy is essential to combat that if, which would be my very, essentials, essential and [00:41:00] effective mechanism is necessary. Basically what I want to focus over is that. Sarah Jack: So, it's not just national law, but national strategies as well. Josh Hutchinson: Jaya, did you have anything to add to that or anything else you wanted to say? Jaya Verma: Yeah, definitely, we, about the laws and the strategy, and, they are all required. I also believe that a perspective towards the study of witchcraft accusation that has beengoing through the history of any place, going through the incidents that have been happening, going to the religion and spirituality has been the first step. Jaya Verma: But if we also move our focus towards sociological and anthropological understanding of why witchcraft accusations happen throughout the world. It is a truth that it happens throughout the world. And it has happened through centuries, through all ages, all the places. And definitely, it must be somewhere connected to how the humans are [00:42:00] reacting to the circumstances, how can something be so pervasive, so worldwide, and not have something in common? So if we find the commonness, if we find that we could maybe work at an international level, since we, it'll all be binding togetherthrough the anthropological or social factors, because history is different for every place and circumstances are different for every place. We know that the reasons for witchcraft in England or in India, in China, they have been similar, but of course, very different as well. So if we could find that would be good. why would a human want to torment or kill or degrade someone so much, do you? Some factors could be de dehumanization or social control orsomething that is making themsome social reputation that they want to have, some predominant nature that they want to impose on somebody else. And of course, one important, very important thing that has made [00:43:00] a lot of human right violations throughout centuries, which is power.how can we focus on that? How can we think over that, is something that, which I wanted to add under the study of this subject. Amit Anand: Uh,Just like only one thing,maybe we didn't get a chance to talk about today, but obviously this was something that the other episodes have for sure touched on.In terms of, In terms of understanding what is witchcraft and what is gender-based violence,this is what I have observed that at least in India, or at least in societies that are very much, very much patriarchal in their thinking, they tend to confuse these two things. So perhaps they don't have a very clear understanding. So it's all about perception. Either they don't understand what is witchcraft and why it happens, or they do not have a complete understanding of what is gender-based violence. And even if they do [00:44:00] have an understanding of what is gender-based violence, they somehow refuse to include witchcraft within that understanding. Amit Anand: Now, and this is something, at least in India,most academics or social activists have pointed out that first of all, there is no proper understanding of what is gender-based violence.This was,today both Rashika and Jaya did point out that we have central legislations. We, we also have special legislations. Now, the need for this bifurcation into some extent, one could argue, is because there is no common understanding of what it means. And what do people generally understand in terms of gender-based volumes? If there was, we wouldn't be needing more and more of these things. But again, somebody could also argue that we need special legislations because these are offenses not of a general nature, but of a special character. But then again, the law can only perhaps do so much, and that's why there are more of these bills that are pending. There are [00:45:00] more of these legal loopholes that we need to fill up. So that's one part of it. In terms of the understanding of witchcraft as a whole, I guess this is not, this is something that is very much changing, not just here in India, but everywhere around the world. It could, obviously we are using the term witchcraft and witchcraft accusation, but different places might refer it differently, and although it might fit a very single, it might somehow, obviously there is no definition as such of what is witchcraft accusation anywhere in the world, but practices that might appear to be similar in some ways are clumped together to then fit this kind ofterminology. They are different, nonetheless, and we call it here something else, and somewhere else it might be referred to as some other terminology. Essentially, perhaps in some ways, we are still talking about women being labeled as something because of a [00:46:00] belief or because of superstition or because of just because of the belief in evil or things like that. Amit Anand: All of this, in some ways, complicates it even more. And you have something as complicated as witchcraft on one side and then you have an international understanding of what is gender-based violence on the global level. And then you come domestically here in India wherein we are still struggling with both of these ideas. Amit Anand: And then you try to protect victims, survivors. Obviously there are laws and there are mechanisms in place, but then at the end of the day, they really can't in, in some ways everyone's struggling to understand what this is, and that shows not only in the laws that we have or, the laws that we are still trying to implement, but it also shows in terms of those very basic needs that perhaps the government or other bodies could provide to the victims and to the survivors in terms of awareness programs. Amit Anand: So if we are seeing [00:47:00] awareness program, we really, in some ways, struggle to define the parameters of what that awareness program would look like for communities that haven't had the opportunity to be in the mainstream. We are talking about education, gender-based education. Then what does that actually look like for someone in a metropolitan city and then for someone who is witnessing witchcraft day in and day out in their tribal community? Amit Anand: So all of this, it's more about how we are understanding it and then how we understand it in the first place, and then how we are in some ways able to make others understand, especially the ones who are suffering and also the ones who are in some ways doing it. So to the oppressor and to the oppressed, what does witchcraft accusation actually look like, or how do they understand these things? Amit Anand: So the perception of witchcraft and gender-based violence, and how does law fit into all of this, [00:48:00] is something that the more we talk about this, the more episodes we do, the more we talk about people. I guess the answer to this question will come in those conversations. It really can't be just one conversation, because when you get people from diverse backgrounds to talk about these three things, at the very end, we will have a common understanding of, okay, this is, we have a blueprint as such to then in some ways move forward, but again, very large ideas and very vague also to a large extent, but very much needed in order to have a common understanding and provide solutions that actually work on the ground. So yeah, that's the only thing I wanted to say. Sarah Jack: Thank you, Jaya, Rashika, and Amit. Now, Mary Bingham presents Minute with Mary. Mary Bingham: Every time a woman is accused of being a witch in many countries, her right to [00:49:00] life is taken away. Even if her physical self survives the often violent ordeal, she will have lost the right to be a vital and contributing member of her family and her community. Community leaders can provide immediate shelter for any woman accused that will create space that her perpetrator cannot penetrate. Then her perpetrator should be prosecuted. Mary Bingham: But this happens in baby steps. These baby steps are becoming leaps as so many organizations with thousands of volunteers work tirelessly to tell these victim stories, offer services to educate the survivors, and healing through their many different talents, strengthen already recorded data and create new data so that new laws can be implemented. Mary Bingham: Please contact us at End Witch Hunts to find out how you can help to make a difference. Thank you. [00:50:00] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary. Josh Hutchinson: And Sarah has this week's edition of End Witch Hunts News. Sarah Jack: I want to talk with you about something else important. Every day, we see viral posts of animals with albinism, those pure white penguins, deer, real alligators, and even Kim Kardashian's white alligator Halloween costume. When one of the world's most influential celebrities chooses to embody these rare genetic traits as a costume, It amplifies our cultural obsession with these differences. These posts rack up millions of views, with some believing these genetic traits represent something supernatural or extraordinary. While simply viewing albinism as magical might seem harmless, it's part of a larger pattern where we place higher value on these genetic differences, not for their natural diversity, but for their perceived uniqueness. This pattern of elevating and sensationalizing genetic differences has [00:51:00] serious consequences. For persons with albinism, this isn't just about social media posts or celebrity costumes, it's about how society values or devalues their humanity. These same beliefs about magical properties lead to violenceand trafficking. Treating persons with albinism as mere curiosities overshadows their urgent health needs, leading to critical gaps in healthcare access and life saving interventions. When healthcare systems fail to evolve with the real needs of vulnerable populations, real medical necessities get lost in the shadows. Sarah Jack: But there's another critical threat, climate change. People and animals with albinism face increased health risks from UV exposure. Many states lack access to basic protective resources like sunscreen and protective clothing because society is not more focused on these urgent health needs. Sarah Jack: Think about it. Viral social media posts, celebrity influence, climate change, and human rights are [00:52:00] deeply intertwined. Each time we share content that treats genetic differences as supernatural or extraordinary, we are reinforcing a worldview that ultimately compromises human dignity and safety. So next time you see one of these posts, pause for sharing. Consider supporting organizations that provide resources to persons with albinism. Learn about how climate change affects vulnerable populations. Share factual information instead of sensationalizing differences, because genetic diversity isn't here for our entertainment or mystification, it's a natural part of our world that deserves understanding, respect, and protection. Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah. Sarah Jack: You're welcome. Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Witch Hunt. Sarah Jack: We'll see you next week. Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast raising awareness of the violent reality of modern witchcraft accusations. Rather than being a relic of the past, witchcraft accusations remain a devastating issue in many parts of the world, leading to violence, ostracization, economic deprivation, mental health crises, and even death.
In recognition of this global crisis, August 10th has been designated World Day Against Witch Hunts. This year’s theme, “Exposing the Witchfinders,” focuses on those who incite violence by suggesting witchcraft as the cause of problems or identifying individuals as witches.
Today’s episode examines the role of witchfinders—individuals exploiting faith and belief for personal gain. We’ll explore who they are, their operations, motivations, and the profound impact they have on their victims. Including key insights in the voices of global advocates who have been guests on our podcast, we invite you to join us as we uncover the stark reality behind witchcraft accusations and advocate for a world free from such violence.
In this episode, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack explore the complex relationships between religion, politics, and harmful practices in India. Joined by experts Arjun Philip George and Giresh Kumar J, they discuss:
1. The persistence of caste-based discrimination across religious lines in India
2. The role of religious texts and traditions in perpetuating gender inequality
3. Challenges in reforming deeply ingrained cultural and religious practices
4. The impact of political leaders and parties on reinforcing or challenging harmful practices
5. The tension between constitutional values and religious beliefs in Indian society
6. The struggle for women’s rights in religious contexts, including the Sabarimala temple controversy
7. The use of religion in politics and its effects on India’s democratic fabric
8. The difficulty of separating harmful practices from mainstream religious beliefs
9. The need for progressive education and individual choice in religious matters
Key topics:
– Caste system
– Gender discrimination
– Secularism in India
– Religious reform
– Constitutional rights vs. religious practices
– Political use of religion
Guests:
– Arjun Philip George: Legal scholar with expertise in violence against women on social media platforms
– Giresh Kumar J: Professor of international human rights and social justice
– Samantha Spence: Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Social Justice
This episode provides a thought-provoking look at how witch hunt mentalities persist in modern forms, particularly through the lens of religious and cultural practices in India.
Sashiprava Bindhani, a human rights advocate and legal expert from Odisha, India, has dedicated her life to raising awareness of witch-hunting and advocating for the protection of vulnerable individuals.
This impactful oral history conversation explores her life of advocating for individuals accused of witchcraft, examining the social ostracism, physical assaults, and the role of policy and legal intervention in protecting the vulnerable and stopping these practices. She shares her professional journey, personal experiences, and significant contributions to human rights. She discusses her work in law, public interest litigation, and efforts in implementing laws against witch branding.
In this episode, hosts Josh and Sarah explore the complexities of witchcraft legislation relating to witch branding and witch hunting in India. They are joined by Riya A. Singh, a third year law student specializing in human rights, and Dr. Amit Anand, an Assistant Professor of Law at Reva University. They discuss the differences in legal frameworks and implementation across Indian states, underscoring the urgent need for central legislation. The discussion highlights how the shortcomings of current laws are impacting the lives of vulnerable community members. They address the importance of tailoring education, systemic changes, and community programs to fit the unique needs of each region. Join us for an insightful conversation on the urgent need for legal reforms and societal action to combat witch-hunting in India.
This comprehensive discussion brings together experts Dr. Akanksha Madaan and Dr. Amit Anand, focusing on witch hunts, the intersection of spirituality and gender roles in societies, particularly within Hinduism, and comparisons with African contexts. Dr. Madaan, an Assistant Professor of Law with extensive study in Victimology, and Dr. Anand, also an Assistant Professor who has researched violence against women in India, including aspects of witchcraft and honor-based abuse, discuss the historical and sociocultural facets of witch-hunting. They examine how witch hunts have been influenced by various factors, including patriarchal structures, lack of education, and misconceptions about religious and spiritual practices. The conversation extends beyond India, touching on similar practices in Africa and drawing parallels to historical European witch trials, highlighting the universal scapegoating of women in such accusations. The discussion underscores the complexity of tackling witch hunts, calling for multidimensional approaches involving law, education, and community engagement to address this grave human rights issue.
This episode features a comprehensive discussion on superstitions and their impact on child rights in India, specifically focusing on the harmful ritual of Pillai Thookkam. The guests, Naveen Suresh, a PhD researcher on anti-superstition law in India, and Dr. Samantha Spence, an expert in human rights law, dive into the legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of superstitions and their enforcement. Naveen shares unsettling details about Pillai Thookkam, a ritual involving putting babies at risk without safety measures, to highlight the severe neglect of child rights under the guise of tradition. Both guests discuss the complexities of applying existing laws against such practices, emphasizing the importance of scientific temper, education, and mental health awareness. The episode concludes with insights into how media and education can play pivotal roles in combating superstitions and fostering a rational and empathetic societal outlook towards child welfare.
In this episode of Witch Hunt, we dive into an enlightening conversation with Neelesh Singh, a champion for social inclusion and gender equality with India’s National Rural Livelihood Mission. Neelesh emphasizes the urgent imperative to confront and mitigate gender-based violence at every stage of life, highlighting the importance of comprehensive strategies that protect and empower individuals from infancy through to old age.From combating infanticide to empowering widow survivors of witchcraft allegations, Neelesh’s work spans a broad spectrum of initiatives aimed at fostering resilience, healing, and collective empowerment among women in rural India. Learn about therapeutic approaches including art therapy for expression and healing, the formation of women’s collectives to combat domestic violence, and the development of strategies for prevention, risk mitigation, and redressal of gender-based violence. Neelesh also discusses the importance of survivor networks in influencing policy and media, underscoring the critical role of the state in acknowledging and combating these practices. Join us for a profound discussion on the journey towards gender equity and the end of witch hunts for alleged witches in India.
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast bringing you news about today's witch hunts. I'm Josh Hutchinson. Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. I descend from multiple women accused of witchcraft in colonial New England. Josh Hutchinson: I also descend from several women who were accused before and during the Salem witch trials. Sarah Jack: Just as these women did many years ago, women today continue to proclaim their innocence. Josh Hutchinson: One person working to end these modern-day witch hunts is Neelesh Singh, who works for the National Rural Livelihood Mission in India, focusing on gender and social inclusion. His work involves various aspects of rural development, social audit, and addressing gender issues, with a [00:01:00] specific focus on preventing witch hunting. Sarah Jack: Neelesh highlights that gender-based violence impacts women and girls of all ages, from before birth to old age, with a range of violence for different age groups. Josh Hutchinson: Indeed, girls can be victims of infanticide, and older women, especially widows, are vulnerable to witchcraft allegations and the associated violence. Sarah Jack: Beyond witch hunting, Neelesh and his team are developing comprehensive strategies to address various forms of gender-based violence, including prevention, risk mitigation, and redressal mechanisms. Josh Hutchinson: An art therapy initiative was used to help women express their experiences through painting. As they grew in confidence, they began to transition from using old newspapers to using fresh drawing papers and a wider range of colors, symbolizing their journey of healing and empowerment. Sarah Jack: Organizing women into collectives and educating them about gender issues is crucial, [00:02:00] and it's essential to create platforms within women's collectives where members can discuss private matters like domestic violence, challenging the stigma and fear associated with speaking out. Josh Hutchinson: Neelesh emphasized the importance of building networks of witch hunt survivors, enabling them to influence policy and media coverage. He highlighted the need for the state to recognize its responsibility in addressing and preventing such practices. Sarah Jack: And he shares some touching stories with us today. We are pleased to welcome Neelesh Singh, expert social inclusion and gender integrator with India's National Mission Management Unit. He has spent decades working in India's social development sector. Sarah Jack: My name is Neelesh, and I'm working for agovernment scheme and centrally-sponsored scheme called National Rural Livelihood Mission. And I am in their gender and social inclusion vertical.This is a national level of scheme, and it is being implemented [00:03:00] in every states and union territories of India. Neelesh Singh: AndI passed my post graduation from,institute called Xavier Institute of Social Services in 2000. I did my specialization in rural development.I initiated with tribal empowerment and slowly into the natural resource management and then to the social audit and totend to gender aspects. Neelesh Singh: And it was like in 2016 that I got this opportunity to work on gender issues. So before that I didn't have much experience of working on gender issues, but, and, I was like, fortunate enough to initiate my work on gender issues with an issue which was burning there called witch-hunting. Neelesh Singh: Yes. And I, for me also, it was like first of time when I was hearing such kind of. That's how I started working intensively for the prevention of witch hunting. And I had my team and we had some strategy to [00:04:00] do that. And then government supported us. Because I was the part of that time with the state government, I was working under the same scheme and then the national government, they also supported us and lots of other NGOs also joined us, and we could do it in a scale, and then a special project was designed around it. Neelesh Singh: Continue to work on this and now we have designed to further, because different states has got different kind of gender issues. So we are now working on the entire gender-based violence, for the aspects of prevention and for the risk mitigation and forredressal mechanism and so everything we are trying to now work it and we are still growing. Neelesh Singh: Does gender-based violence affect all ages of women? Neelesh Singh: Yes. You know, there is a saying here 'from the womb to tomb.' It affects from when you are yet to born and it goes on until the tomb. We have got like [00:05:00] range of violence for different kind of age group, which runs across it. So yeah. For every age group. Sarah Jack: You mentioned thatthe gender violence is a little different in every state or it presents itself in its own way. That must be a great challenge to have so many different entry points to address the issue. Neelesh Singh: At the national level, we have got very different roles to play. The things comes from the bottom from the community itself. So every community, they prioritize their issues as per their need and as per they are affected by it and all. Neelesh Singh: Many of the places, the issues are likethe state where I belong to. They have got witch hunting asone of the priority issue and then human trafficking is there. Domestic violence is almost there in almost every state is reporting [00:06:00] against domestic violence. Neelesh Singh: Thenthe issues like child marriage. I can see wherever the incidence of poverty is high, you will find the incidence also of child marriages and such things are also high. Andthen we have got issues like dowry that here actually in India, we have this practice for the marriage. Neelesh Singh: The bride's side, they have to give some money for getting married to the bridegroom. We call it the dowry system. It is like quite high, quite prevalent in several parts of the country and it's just very high. There's a cost for every bridegroom. So suppose if a girl is there and she wants to marry a doctor. What happens, there's two sides of it. One is that this girl has always, right from her birth, she has been brought up very differently. Here in India,we brought up our girl very different from the way we bring up our boys.While, they are, the boys would have [00:07:00] different aspiration and we will all support them. Like he wants to become doctor or engineer or whatever he wants to become. Every family member would try to support him, the father, mother, everybody would try to support this person. Girls child are largely, they are brought up like for being a very good wife. So they are like nurtured for being wife of somebody, and she can have dream of her bridegroom. She cannot dream about her own careers. Her career will be like a housewife. Housewife only, but she can dream about her bride groom. Okay? So I would want to marry a doctor. I would want to marry engineer. She cannot dream of becoming a doctor, becoming engineer. I don't like that. And higher aspirations are, the greater would be the price of the dowry that you have to pay. While in order to grow a boy child, the father would save the money and invest the money in his education. Here, father would save the money so that he can pay for the dowry. So he would try to [00:08:00] invest least on the education of the girl, so girl will be nurtured and will be taught, will be trained, as a good wife. So for doing the household chores and all these activities, while boys will be encouraged to go to a school and go to school and have good education. Neelesh Singh: So this incidence of sometime it is though the parents and the child might have the dream of marrying a doctor, but their poverty, their economic status, that may not allow her and her parents to realize that dream. In the process, what happens that, and this is also based on the greed of the family, because this never ends, no? Neelesh Singh: Suppose you say that 50 lakh is the amount that you need to pay for marrying this person. And then, even if you have paid 50 lakh, it doesn't stop you that asking this money again to her father. I know that you have paid 50 lakhs but I would need 10 more lakhs because now I have [00:09:00] to give education to the child, now she is giving birth to a girl child, so we have to do something. So they keep on asking, and this often leads to exploitations and also violence and extortion and all those things. So sometimes, so it leads to dowry death also. Neelesh Singh: So you'll find lots of incidents. And all these incidents like human trafficking or domestic violence orwitch hunting ordowry or child marriage, all these things requires different kinds of strategies. It depends in which part of the country are you living and what kind of resources you have access to, and what kind of society do you, depending on what kind of culture do you have, what kind of accessibility you have. So all, depending upon all those things, you need to knit your strategy around it. Neelesh Singh: One thing that we have in common under NRLM is that we form women-based groups. We call self help groups here. So here, NRLM is like one of, this is one of the program, National Rural Livelihood Mission. [00:10:00] In short, I'm calling it NRLM. This program islargest network of women collectives. Neelesh Singh: Now, in the entire country, we have got more than 10 crew of now women who became part of our self help groups now. We try to keep this in our base that we need to build our strategy on these women collectives. So we promote women collectives to plan women collectives to take action against it, and we try to sensitize these women collectives against this, because, being, even though they, this is women collective, that doesn't mean that everybody will be very sensitive to the women issues. Neelesh Singh: Sometime because they are from the same society, it takes some time and it takes time to understand what kind of system is existing there.How are they driver of the patriarchy and all those things. And by understanding all those things, by assessing the kind of gender sensitivity that they have, we need to, we have to plan their sensitization, their awareness, and their capacity building and all those things. Neelesh Singh: And that's [00:11:00] how strategy is built upon. So there are several strategy. While we might have human trafficking there in most of the states, but our strategy might be very different in different part of the state, depending upon the different characteristics and resources that we have. Josh Hutchinson: In your messages with us before the interview, you talked about the importance of collective action by women's collectives. What kind of action do you mean by that? Neelesh Singh: Now let me give you the example ofincidents of witch-hunting and witch-branding. The foremost incident that I came across, there wasa member of our own women collective. She was, branded as witch by different people and eventually what happens, her own collective, her own self help groups, the people who have come together to help each other, they also started calling her witch. [00:12:00] And eventually what happened, her husband'sbig brother, elder brother, and his wife, both of them, they once decided to kill that lady, and they came with axe in her hand and then they try to attack her and she somehow she escaped from that house, but that didn't stop them to chase her and pull her down and all those things. But somehow she could save her life, but she couldn't save her house and her grains and all those things. Everything was put on fire.
Neelesh Singh: I raised this question to the collective that. While she was being branded, while she was being chased down by somebody, while somebody attempted to kill her, why is that, she was a member of your own group? Why didn't any of you came forward to help her? So they also said that because she's a witch, so killing a witch is, it's like saving everybody else. Otherwise she would have killed all of us. So it's like a good [00:13:00] thing.So that made us think again thatunless, until everyone is sensitized towards it, there's nothing we can do again becausepolice also couldn't take much action because nobody was ready to give any witness. No evidence was there. Neelesh Singh: And then villagers shared several incidents in whichseveral of the lady who have been killed in the name of witch, no one had came forward to say against that crime or that well and nobody even knew that this is a crime. Everyone think that this is a good thing and they have done it for the collective goodness of everybody else.What was important is that at that time, at the peak of this hour, nobody was there in support of her. Even if some people wanted to support her, they were also, would have been killed eventually, because it is very hard to go against the entire crowd. You won't have that much of voice and that much of courage also. They would kill that woman in front of everyone. Neelesh Singh: And I don't believe [00:14:00] that everyone would believe that this lady is a witch. I know there would be at least some supporter. Somebody would believe, her friend or maybe her daughter or her son, even her husband or maybe her parents, somebody would at least, would believe that this is not her. She has not killed that child. The child died because of fever and she was not around and she wouldn't have caused any fever to that child. Why are you saying that you have casted bad eyes? She, I don't think that she would have casted any bad eyes on that child and all those things. Neelesh Singh: You cannot intervene at the time and people have started taking out their weapon, want to kill that person. At that time, it's very difficult to intervene. You're going to start intervening right from the beginning. You can start recognizing who are the person who believe in rationality, who are the person who believe that this violence is against only women. It is not against any man also, because all the cases that we have, I think more [00:15:00] 95% were women only, and all those 5% male people who have been killed in the name of witch they were also, they were only supporter tothat lady. So this is a weapon which man folks are using against their women to take control of the women and all. We had to build up this and we wanted that this discussion should to start happening in our group. Because our self help groups was not limited only for helping each other during the economic crisis. These are also the things where they can discuss all those things in their groups. When we were going through their minute books and in the meeting minutes books, we realized that they never discussed any kind of violence within their self help groups, like nobody would discuss about any domestic violence, even though they wanted to discuss these things, but never believed on any of their member. They thought that if we will tell them about that my husband has beaten me yesterday [00:16:00] night, this incidents will reach out to her husband and again, and then she will get more bashing after that when she go back home. And while everybody in that group was suffering from domestic violence at some point of time or other, but nobody was ready to help each other. Nobody had any belief in each other, so just a note. What we wanted to do is we wanted to make this platform as a platform which has got a greater credibility in which members can discuss about these things, as well. This is a very private thing to talk about, but we wanted them to be that close where they can discuss about the kind of violence that is going through or the kind of stigma, the kind of embarrassing moment that they are living every day. Somebody might be sleeping very hungry, but she needs to tell that. Neelesh Singh: In India, I'm not sure about other part of the country, but in India, what happens that, if a lady gets beaten up by [00:17:00] the husband, she won't tell to anyone, she thinks that, that it is the honor of the family. So she, he has to take care of the honor of the family. So she will, if the husband's beats her in open, she will rush to the home, and she will close all the door, all the window. And then she will request her husband to keep his voice down, and then you can beat me, but keep your voice down. Nobody should listen to this. And then next day,she will try to remove all the strains from her face and everything, and then she'll go back to the work like that.I don't know why this burden is there on her. She's the victim, she's the survivor. We wanted them to believe that she is not the only savior of the honor and she. And there's some responsibility of males are also there in it, and she, it's okay if she shares her story, and it's okay that everyone tries collectively to stop each other's husband from doing it and seeking some legalservices if it requires so. There are like, [00:18:00] police are there,legal services are there, all these are meant for women also, and it's okay if they go and seek out this help. These poor,the only strength that they have, they don't have money, they don't have much resources with them, but the thing that they have is their collectiveness, their numbers, they're such a high number. And we are organizing them, making them organize is, I think, we are hoping that this will give strength to them against such a horrendous crime. Sarah Jack: So I'm hearing you say that just bringing them together is just the start. They also have to be educated and encouraged to make positive responses together as a collective. Neelesh Singh: We learn from different parts of the country because at the national level, we don't have any other geography to work on, but different states they work on, they have their own geography. So we learn [00:19:00] from different states. Neelesh Singh: So we have got a state called Kerala here, and they also, they are like much mature state in the sense, they have got very old women collectives, so they, now it is more than 20 years or 30 years, I'm not sure. But it is that long that women have been organized, and they are now working on the gender issues. One of the strategy that they have is they map the crimes in the villages. So every village. Women collectively, along with the district administration, along with the government officials, they map crime, what kind of crime happens in which corner of the village,this is where domestic violence happened, this is where, so likewise, they, they map the crime, and then they also map, then they also do safety audit, with different kinds of women folks and of different age group. What happens is that maybe a pregnant woman and a lactating mother or an elderly women and a person with disability. All those women, they will walk [00:20:00] in the night and also in the day in different parts of that village, and will tell that what kind of incidents happens here and who among all of us they are feel safe here, or feel unsafe here, and what kind of incidents does happen. Neelesh Singh: They can say that this road is not safe for pregnant women to walk on, or this road is not safe for, or this building is not safe fora person with disability to go into or take any services, or here people are not friendly about it. So, Likewise, they will map all the problems, and then they'll also come up with a solution. I think there is a CCTV, if you can put here, then it will serve some problem. If you can close down that liquor shop, I think that will also close down some issue. If you can just put some lights here, because there's so much of dark, and if you can put some light. So like this, they will also propose the solution. And that prevents so much of violence to happen. This comes into the village plan, village annual action plan of that village, which you can[00:21:00] follow up, which district admission can follow up with on a regular basis that this was the plan and this was what approved and how much of it has been really implemented and where is the gap? Sarah Jack: You'd mentioned you also wanted to talk about the healing and empowerment of witch hunt survivors. Neelesh Singh: During the initial period, what happened is thatwe had identified,we used to develop a theater team of rural women. We used to train them on theaters. So there was a person who was a professional theater person. So we hired his services for passing this skills on or training the women on theater.And then there, we also took the services of some of the organizations who were working on the legal issues for documenting the cases. So we made a group of10 people in each team. So there were several teams. So every team had 10 women who were trained on [00:22:00] theater and who were trained also on documenting the cases. Neelesh Singh: And we would put that team in a village for two days or so. So they used to stay there also in the night. So two days and two nights, they need to stay there, and they would play this theater there. and then eventually what would happen is that somebody in the village would relate her story with the story which they were showing in the theater. And because they were staying in the same village, so the women who were already been branded as witch. She would relate her story with the story which they were showing in the theater, and they would, and she could, she can also access them because they were staying in the same village. Neelesh Singh: So that's how they would identify the cases. They would identify the women who have been branded as witch.So becausethe experience has taught us that,first they will brand somebody as which, and after that only, maybe after some period of, after some years, after some months, or maybe after, some decades, they will kill them.[00:23:00] Neelesh Singh: So they cannot kill anybody before they brand her as witch. So first they need to brand her witch. Then they needs to convince everybody that she's witch and then only this killing will happen or public lynching will happen. So our strategy was to identify such women who have been branded as witch and then to call up a public hearing in which we used to calljudiciary, police, and different government officials and panchayat people. All those publicfigures, we used to call them because it was ultimately, it was their responsibility for the security and safety of every citizen of India. Neelesh Singh: So we'll call each of them and then we'll hand over this list to them,that, we are not making this list public, but we are handing over to you publicly,handing over this list to you personally so that you take care of the safety and security of this person. This person has been branded as witch, and we don't want this person to be get killed also. Soif that person is getting killed, then you should be [00:24:00] held accountable for that. So that's how they ensure the protection of that lady. Neelesh Singh: So we used to identify such.This theater group, they used to go village after village. They used to cover every village, and they used to identify. In the first round, we identified 65 of them. When we covered in one go, we covered 40 villages of one block before we called for public hearing. So 65 lady were identified as witch, who have been branded as witch and they were living a very pathetic life in their own village. And this was the first time we were interacting with such women. And we called off all these women to a place herein a city. And it was aluxurious hotel, and we kept this workshop for three days there. And we had called our several partner who were champion in working on the gender-based violence. And we also had several trainers along with us. Neelesh Singh: And when we were there in that hotel, and anything that we would ask them, we will ask, what is [00:25:00] their name? They would take so much of time to speak out their name. And their tears were not stopping, and they were just crying. And I think by the lunch, they said that this is the first time that after such a long period of, somebody was saying 10 years or 20 years, that somebody was interacting with them and that they are getting such a good food and so many people are giving respect to them. They're talking to her, all those things. And this was,we got moved by their gestures, by their tears and everything. That's where we got to know that just saving their life is not enough. They also need to live their life and they need to live their life very normally. You know, we need to normalize all those things, and they need to come out from that fear. And they, everybody, the kind of incidents that the ladies were sharing,one of them, Neelesh Singh: so [00:26:00] one of the lady, she said that her house is situated,at the end of the village, somewhere in the corner of the village. It was made oftwigs and straw and all those things, bushes and all those things. It was made of, it was like just one kick and the entire house will collapse. That kind of hut, it was a hut. Andshe was saying that every day, every night and in every night, somebody would come and will pass urine on the wall of the house. Some of the urine will also enter the house from there because it is anyway made of some thatches and some twigs and all those things, so the winds can pass on from that. So urine will also pass from that while, and it doesn't matter where she's sleeping or cooking or whatever she might be doing, but this person will pass urine and will say, 'look, my child is sick, and I know that you have casted bad eye, your bad [00:27:00] eyes.By morning, if my child is not okay, then I am going to kill you.' And this will happen to her almost every night. Somebody in the entire village would fall in. Somebody will lost something or maybe somebody will suffer from some pain, and she would become the cause for that. Everybody would believe that she's the cause for that. Neelesh Singh: And living a life like that for such a long period was like. I cannot even imagine such a horrendous life to be. what we thought is,and if you cannot, you need to bring her out from the kind of suffering that she is undergoing and the kind of state of mind that she's living in, and we are talking about so many people here. They might be very elderly, or they might be very at the end of their life, but still they deserve a good life to lead and whatever life is left for them. So that time, we thought that some counseling would be okay for them. [00:28:00] So we did organize for some counseling and butafter that we thought that there has to be some way in which we can continuously engage with them. So one thing which occurred to all of us was,let us give them training on theater and make them as part of our theater group. And they can go to different villages and aware people against witch-hunting and because they can share their own story and that will be real story and they can influence people like they can understand the pain they're going through. Neelesh Singh: And we have seen that just giving them like our, the trainer who used to give training on theater, when he saw the entire participants, all of them were like above the age of seventies. That was a challenge for him. He has never taught such elderly people on theater, but that was just like six training, six day residential training. Neelesh Singh: But that slowly he understood the [00:29:00] power that they had, and the six days when they were staying together and they were discussing about all those things, it gave them so much of space for sharing their story and learning from them and opening up and all those things. And when they became the part of the theater group, when they learn from different people and when they able to, saw that they are so many, they also can make friends, they are people who also support them. They are people who enjoy talking to them or being with them, who can share their food with them or they can eat from the same plate in which she is eating and they can sleep, they can sleep in the same room in which she is sleeping. So it was like, it was a moment for them. It was like giving their life back and theater had this power to heal all those things and to give them the voice. Neelesh Singh: We saw this power in theater. That's where,people said that theater and music. Everybody, everything, all these things has power of healing, also. They can heal the pain which is there inside you. They [00:30:00] can give you a voice. Neelesh Singh: There's a friend called Alina and she is an art therapist. So she told me that I practice art therapy. We never heard such thing called art therapy. We wanted to know what is this art therapy. So she said, 'art also has, fine arts, this also has the power of healing andfrom the art, the kind of art that you make, I can make out the kind of suffering that you are undergoing through and the kind of pain that you are feeling and all those things. And we will, I will try to heal all those thingsfrom the art only.' Neelesh Singh: So what happened, she was at that time, she was also suffering from cancer. And while she was undergoing through Neelesh Singh: this chemotherapy. And she couldn't have come to our place from Jharkhand, but she was living in Bangalore. So we had organized an online thing for her. We had organizeda big screen, mic, and speakers. And then she said, 'at one time I can maybe [00:31:00] start with eight or nine people.' So that was okay for us, because we also had the challenge of a bigger room anyway, so we had all those, whatever she said, if she wanted some brush and paints and newspapers and some drawing papers and all those things. So we had organized for her and she was, she used to speak in English, whereas our people, they used to understand Hindi. So we had one interpreter also with us. Neelesh Singh: And so we would call all those eight survivors in front of the big screen. And then she said, 'you can keep all the paints in front of them, all every color in front of them.' And she would just ask him, 'okay, paint it, whatever you want and choose whatever color that you want, choose whatever brush that you want. This is a newspaper is there in front of you. You have blank papers also, you have drawing papers also. Paint whatever.' To our surprise, almost every one of them chose dark color. And while they had the choice of several colors to select from, [00:32:00] they, everyone chose only one or two color. Neelesh Singh: We were not expert in that, but Alina, she said, 'this is studying them. This is studying the kind of that pain that they are undergoing through. This is a dark side that they have and all of them have selected only newspaper, used paper to, to draw on. So that also tells about their confidence. They didn't have the confidence to paint any blank papers or any drawing paper or wasting, so they would not take such chance.Slowly, she would interact with them. She would tell her about her own story and then try to listen to them and would try to make them open up about all those things. Neelesh Singh: And slowly, all of them, they shifted from newspaper to actual drawing paper, and then they started using more colors and all, and then, eventually, she asked them to paint a big wall and, it wascollectively they had to paint a wall, and she said, 'the larger is the picture, the louder the voice is about,' because they are communicating through their painting. [00:33:00] That's what they are doing. Neelesh Singh: It was our collective's office, our,the women collective's office, they offered her their wall, office wall to them that you can paint your picture here. So it was like collective, it was showing a collective support towards such women. Neelesh Singh: And then, eventually the police station of that block, they offered their entire wall, the boundary wall of the entire police station to them, that you can paint your picture here, and this wall is for you. So it was like entering into the police station and painting their walls and all those things which had never, and they had never been to police station before that. Neelesh Singh: I think that, that was like working for them. That was encouraged Other part of the districts, other part of the state also to came for who came forward who wanted you know this thing so Alinashe gave us, started giving us two days in a week for two other districts. Sarah Jack: So that's how we scaled it up, and [00:34:00] all those who got healed, who said that they are now healed. Then we had on a, in a residential mode. So we had this three, four days of workshop, drawing workshop train them on a special kind of painting called Sohrai painting and Kohvar painting. There were two kinds of regional painting, which was of Jharkhand. They would start training on them. So they were trained on these two kinds of painting. And then we got this chance to take this painting to the exhibition And there they selected this painting and we, when we had called a state level workshop to share our story, to share the story of our strategies with the rest of the world. So there we had this chance to givetheir painting as gift to the honorable guest of that workshop. And they were, they feel quite proud and accepting that as a gift. I'm really hearing today how pulling people together and then [00:35:00] finding a way to give somebody their humanity and then this collective, this coming alongside and then giving humanity back is like a start. Neelesh Singh: In one of the village, I think it was, around 60 year old lady, she was called as witch by other women of that village. And also male people of that village. And all of them, they stripped this woman naked in front of the village. And then they applied some black color on her face and made her parade around the village and all those things. It was in the full daylight, and her son, was such helpless, he wanted to help his mother butcouldn't do that. And his friend stopped him from doing such thing.And [00:36:00] we had this collective in every village and there is a federation called cluster level federation, which is like a federation of 20 or 25 villages, like after that it federates into a cluster level federation. So this cluster level federation had 21 village under that federation, and in one of the village, this thing happened.This collective of 21 village, they took the decision to felicitate that lady and to show their support towards that lady and they took out rally from each of their village and they brought the clothes and money and some food grains and some flour and everything, and then theyfelicitated that lady in front of every villager and they showered her with the food or and the clothes. Neelesh Singh: They said that since your clothes was stripped by these people, so every village is offering you these clothes now to you, and this is to honor you [00:37:00] and to support you and to give this message to all the villages here that nothing will ever happen to you, and nothing will happen to any of the persons here. We all, collectives are here to support everyone. From now on, if anyone tries to call anyone as witch, then we will take action against that person. We'll take that person behind the bar with the help of police and everyone, and this was almost for the first time that people were showing support to anybody called witch. Before that, they had never seen anyone supporting witch such openly in such an open forum. And here it was like people coming from every corner of the villages and rallying against that incident. And then it was reported in media, it was reported in TV and newspapers. And so everybody was talking about such support. Neelesh Singh: So [00:38:00] that gave a strength to them, and they wanted their chief minister, the head of the state to give this statement that he won't tolerate this malpractice of witch-branding and witch-hunting. And he vows to make the state free from witch-branding and witch-hunting. They wanted the chief minister to give out this statement. So that incident of one particular village sparked the other collective of living in different parts of that state for carrying out a signature campaign against this signature was taking the signature of every officials also, and then I think more than 50,000 signature was shared with the chief minister asking him to give this statement. And then he gave this statement and also asked the department to work against witch-hunting and witch-branding practices and make this a state free from this. Share with me the strategy that you have for this. So it was very [00:39:00] encouraging for our women. Josh Hutchinson: Neelesh Singh: One more thing which I would like to share is that while all these things,working with government, it's important, because what happens while we are working with NGOs, we, somehow, we can work in some pockets, we can work in smaller geography, but it is important that it's a responsibility of the state and the state must realize it is their work, finally, to make this country free from such a horrendous practice. So giving importance to such a thing is, I think, we have to create this agency of such survivor. We need to build this network of all those survivors of witch-hunting and make their agency so that they can talk, sit with the government, and make the policy for themselves. And talk with the media, sit in the media, and tell the media that this is a very [00:40:00] important issue and they must raise about this issue. While it's okay that you cover so many other things, but this is also an important issue. So please do cover that. So I think that's important for us to build an agency of such survivors. So while we have identified so many survivors, I think it's a long way to go to form their agency. Josh Hutchinson: And now for a minute with Mary. Mary-Louise Bingham: On behalf of End Witch Hunts, I am pleased to tell our listeners that I will be working with Neelesh Singh and his team as we help the survivors of witch hunts to tell their stories through music, art, and theater. As I hold a degree in music education with a background in piano and voice studies, I will work within the team to help the survivors find their voices through song. Mary-Louise Bingham: I am honored. I may be a small part of helping them find their voice, but the survivors and the more experienced team members will teach me so [00:41:00] much more beyond my current comprehension. I also have the full support of our board members, Sarah Jack, Joshua Hutchinson, Beth Caruso, and Jen Stevenson, who will do whatever they can to help in this endeavor. After all, whenever one of us reaches out to make a difference, we do so not only as individuals, but as a board of strong advocates who will help each other to actively make a difference. Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary. Josh Hutchinson: Sarah has End Witch Hunts news. Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit 501c3 organization, Weekly News Update. Trial by ordeal is an ancient practice where the guilt or innocence of an accused person is determined through a physically or mentally challenging test. It has been a method of justice throughout history, reflecting deeply rooted beliefs in divine intervention and the supernatural. Sarah Jack: Trials by ordeal, which depend on supernatural beliefs and physical tests to [00:42:00] ascertain guilt or innocence, lack the procedural fairness and evidentiary standards we expect in modern legal systems. Despite this, even the more formal witch trials of history were not immune to these practices, incorporating superstitious beliefs and physical tests to determine guilt. This enduring fear of witchcraft, along with the intention to prove malicious acts, highlights a continuous thread in human history. When such practices emerge in today's society, they echo historical precedents, revealing an ongoing struggle to balance myth with the principles of justice. Sarah Jack: Guinea-Bissau is a country of Western Africa situated on the Atlantic coast. It is about 44.1 percent urban and 55.9 percent rural. As of 2022, male life expectancy was averaging 61.5 years and female life expectancy was 66 years. In 2022, their female population amounted to approximately 1.07 million, while the male population amounted to approximately [00:43:00] 1.04 million. Sarah Jack: The Advocacy for Alleged Witches, spearheaded by Leo Igwe, is sounding the alarm on an urgent human rights issue in this African country. There was an incident this month, February 2024, in the Culade region of Cacheu. Here, eight women were tragically killed and 20 other women hospitalized after being forced to consume a poisonous potion by a traditional priest to determine if they were guilty of witchcraft. These women were all over the age of 50. This incident is not isolated but indicative of a wider systemic problem that transcends time and local cultural practices and points to a global responsibility. The belief in witchcraft crimes and the barbaric practice of trial by ordeal reflect an ongoing societal failure to protect the vulnerable and uphold justice. Witch hunts, often targeting women, expose the gendered nature of this violence, revealing deep-seated misogyny and societal complicity in these acts. The call to [00:44:00] action by the Advocacy for Alleged Witches is not only a plea for the local government to intervene but a wake up call to the world. We are the world. Legal and administrative measures against those implicated in such abuses are necessary, but so is a broader societal shift to address the impunity that allows this violence to continue. The introduction of emergency helplines and targeted actions against perpetrators are steps in the right direction. However, these actions must be a part of a larger concerted effort to stop superstitious accusations with education, protect the rights of women and vulnerable populations, and fundamentally change how societies, how the world views and addresses harmful acts due to accusations of witchcraft. This incident is a stark reminder that the fight against gender-based violence and the persecution of alleged witches is not solely the responsibility of Guinea-Bissau or any single nation. It is a global challenge that demands a unified response from all corners of the world. Sarah Jack: Thank you for listening today. Thank you for your [00:45:00] financial gifts. Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ to donate any amount you're comfortable with. Your generosity is the backbone of the podcast content you value. Let's commit to making a difference together. Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah. Sarah Jack: You're welcome. Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt. Sarah Jack: Keep the conversation going in your sphere until you join us next week. Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Witch Hunt presents an eye-opening discussion with human rights lawyer Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni regarding her research and work in the field of law and caste-based discrimination in India. Exploring human experience realities like social untouchability, caste-based discrimination in education, the plight of manual scavengers, and the witchcraft accusation atrocities committed against multitudes of vulnerable women with inferior status.
This thoughtful exchange regarding the struggle for equality in India provides a clear lens for understanding the human rights violations of the caste system, the experience of “untouchables” in India, and the urgent need for effective societal transformation and accountability to extinguish these entrenched harmful practices.
Josh Hutchinson: welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that seeks to understand witch hunts and find ways to end them. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. My ancestors Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, Mary Hale, and Winifred Benham were victims of witch trials in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Josh Hutchinson: And my ancestors, including Mary Esty, were involved in the Salem Witch Trials. My 10th great grandfather, Joseph Hutchinson, provided the land where the Salem Village Meeting House stood and later played a role in the trials, first as an accuser, but later as a defender of Rebecca Nurse.
Sarah Jack: Our family heritage started us on our quest to understand witch hunts.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for joining us on our journey.
Sarah Jack: Witch hunting dates back to ancient times.
Josh Hutchinson: And deadly witch hunts continue to occur in all corners of the globe today.
Sarah Jack: As historian Wolfgang [00:01:00] Behringer has stated, there have never been so many witch hunts as we see in today's world.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, who discusses how India's caste system interacts with supernatural belief to trigger witchcraft allegations and violence against the country's most vulnerable people, the Dalits, or Untouchables.
Sarah Jack: Be aware, there are references to violence against women, including sexual violence.
Josh Hutchinson: While the journey through such topics is tough, it leads us to greater empathy and action. By confronting these issues, we can work towards meaningful change.
Sarah Jack: We welcome Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in the UK. Her expertise includes international human rights law, Indian constitutional law, and anti-discrimination laws.
Sarah Jack: What should we know about your professional background and work?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: [00:02:00] I'm currently working as a lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in England, and I have done my PhD from Lancaster University pretty recently. My thesis was on untouchability with studies on manual scavenging and caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions in India.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I've done my, LLM from University of Reading, also in the UK, and my B.A.LL.B. Honours, and I'm a gold medalist from National Law School of India University, Bangalore, which is, like really top university in India, a law university in India. And I've been working in this area of caste and untouchability for quite a few years now, particularly because it was a focus of my PhD thesis.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And even when I was a student at National Law School of India, University of Bangalore, I did have an opportunity to, work with, some of the constitutional bodies in India, like the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, [00:03:00] which has been established to look after and protect the rights of the marginalized communities such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, or what we call as Dalits and Adivasis in common parlance.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: When I was working there, I did an internship. I worked on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989, and I did propose amendments to the Act, as to how to make the Act more stringent and enforceable, so that it protects the rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized sections of the Indian population.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I did publish a lot on this area, as well. I'm a human rights lawyer. So most of my publications are in this area. And of course, here and there are a few about international law, and humanitarian law as well. And, one of the book chapters, which I wrote in 2020, it's about international health regulations. I co-authored the book chapter with Professor Susan Rowe, who was a dean at the University of [00:04:00] Victoria in Canada. It was on, as I said, international health regulations. That was one of the first books on COVID-19 law and policy context in Asia. It was published by Oxford University Press, New York.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And that chapter has been listed by the WHO in, in their research database. And I've also presented joint oral statements before the United Nations. And several of my written statements have been, published in the United Nations website and my work has also been cited by the UN Committee on CRC Rights of the Children.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's, that's pretty much about me.
Josh Hutchinson: Congratulations on all your successes. Many more to come, I'm sure. You mentioned the Dalits and the Adivasi, can you tell us who they are?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It actually goes back centuries. So in order to understand what they are, we need to understand [00:05:00] the institution of caste, which is one of the most exclusive features of the Indian society and particularly the Hindu social order. And it's perhaps one of the longest surviving social hierarchies in the whole world, and this hierarchy reflects complexity and stratification as it situates people in a very complex hierarchical order.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So I would like to take the definition of caste, which is given by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution and the first law minister of independent India. He defines caste in India as an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy, that is marriage from within the community. So the conclusion is inevitable that endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste. This is what he says. And he says that if [00:06:00] one succeeds in showing how endogamy is maintained, one can practically prove the genesis and mechanism of caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: In ancient times, with the Hindu social order, how it was, we had four varnas called the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. You have to go through the ancient texts like the Vedas to understand where this is stemming from. One of the earliest revolutions of this, you can find it in the Vedas of the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, which is one of the ancient Hindu texts. Basically it divides the society into four categories and these four categories are never to be equal socially or with regard to their rights and privileges. They must always be based on a graded scale.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The graded inequality was the essence, very essence of it. So there must be a division of occupation according to it. And right to education was available only to the top three varnas. The Shudra, the fourth varna, and women of all varnas were denied education. So the varna system was [00:07:00] set in stone by the Brahmans, who are the priestly class, who were on top of the varna system without any cracks or loopholes. Inequality exists in every society, but the inequality preached and practiced by Brahmins, the priestly class, is an official doctrine of Brahmanism.It was opposed to the very concept of equality, and its soul lays in graded inequality.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Until untouchability came into being, the Shudras were the lowest of all. They were the lowest in terms of the Hindu social order. This was until untouchability came into being. But with the intermixture of varnas, so over time there has been, there have been very many sexual relations or intermarriages, even though it's prohibited in text, these things did happen, and these intermixtures gave rise to new castes, and castes such as Chandalas came to be known as untouchables, and they were the lowest of all. They were considered the lowest of all. Now, they were the outcastes. [00:08:00] They lived and suffered at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy for centuries. They were segregated, discriminated against, and humiliated in the name of God and religion. The untouchables were forced to live in degrading environment. They were denied a life with dignity. Their values, culture, and traditions were suppressed. Having a decent education was a distant dream to these communities. They were economically deprived, socially excluded, and politically marginalized, and they were forced to live a life of surrender to the dominant caste. The untouchable women were forced to become prostitutes for dominant caste patrons and village priests as devadasis. So sexual abuse and other forms of violence against women were often used by landlords and police to crush any type of dissent.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: This untouchability you can see throughout the dark pages of Indian history, and it's been there through every [00:09:00] king's regime. And one of the harshest times were seen in the 18th century during the Peshwa regime. The Peshwas were called the Chitpavan Brahmins, the priestly class. During that time, untouchables were not allowed to use public streets lest a Hindu was coming along so that his shadow would pollute the Hindus.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The untouchables had to identify themselves by wearing a black thread, either on their wrist or around their neck as a prevention so that Hindus do not get themselves polluted by touching them by mistake. So they had to also carry strung from their waist a broom to sweep away behind themselves the dust they trod on, lest a Hindu walking on the same dust should be polluted. So they were also required to carry an earthen pot hung around their neck wherever they went for holding their spit, lest the spit falling on the earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it. Such a system continued to exist [00:10:00] despite the change in the regime, and you can see how barbaric this is.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the untouchables later came to be called as Scheduled Castes under the Indian Constitution and Dalits in common parlance, and the tribal population came to be called as Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution and Adivasis in common parlance.
Sarah Jack: Thank you. You mentioned the Constitution and also your work on the law. What protections did the 1950 Constitution give them?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there have been a lot of protections for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution. One of the important provisions which our Constitution proposes is the Doctrine of Equality, where it treats everybody as equal before the law. This is particularly important, because the Indian society has accepted inequality and discrimination as an accepted value.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the constitution was very radical in the sense [00:11:00] where it treated everybody as equal under the law. Because the Hindu system, Hindu religious texts, gave punishments to different people based on the caste they belong to. So for the same offense, punishment differed from person to person based on the caste he belonged to. But the constitution, in that sense, equalizes, saying that everybody is equal under law.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And our constitution also provides for affirmative action, which I'm sure is present in some of the other constitutions such as the U. S. and South Africa, as well, where special provisions have been made for people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes in terms of education and employment. And now there has been a new addition, as well for economic weaker sections who are actually people belonging to none of these communities, which means they are forward castes, but they're economically poor. There have been special provisions which have been made for their protection and betterment.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And one of the [00:12:00] important provisions with regard to Indian constitution is abolition of untouchability. So what I mentioned earlier is the practice of untouchability, which has been prevalent in India for centuries. The constitution said that untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offense punishable in accordance with law.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the principles of equality and non-discrimination are woven through the very fabric of our Indian constitution and also many other international human rights conventions, as well, which basically prohibit discrimination based on birth, descent, and social origin, to which India is also a party to.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The laws have been there, even the conventions have been there, but the problem is how it is enforced. The enforcement is totally discriminatory. That's why there is prevalence of discrimination. That's why there is prevalence of untouchability in various forms, which is still manifesting [00:13:00] in indifferency. In the past,untouchability was mostly confined to physically touching people or physically restricting the movement of the untouchables. Say, untouchables were not allowed inside the village, or they had to remove their shoes while walking inside the village, things like that. But now it's not so prevalent in the urban milieu. Of course, it is still there in some parts in some rural areas in India.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But in urban India, types and forms of untouchability has changed with the changing times. So now it exists mostly in the minds of the people where people say for example, one of the areas where I've researched on was caste discrimination in higher educational institutions. So this happens in universities, in higher educational institutions, where students from these marginalized communities go to study and get access to education. Instead of welcoming these students who have [00:14:00] come from these really poor backgrounds and marginalized sections, these first generation learners, instead of welcoming them, these vested interests who are mostly dominant caste people, they build hurdles to these students accessing education and in such a way, and some of the cases are so brutal that the kind of mental torture and pressure which are put on these students are so immense that they even take drastic steps like quitting institutions and even in some cases student suicides, particularly of Dalit students committing suicides in India has been very, it has beenon a rising level in the past decades or so.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the forms of discrimination has changed over time, but yet it remains one of the most brutal forms of untouchability, which is still prevalent in independent India.
Josh Hutchinson: And how does someone get recognized as being a Dalit?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Ah, that's a very interesting [00:15:00] question, because it's not, caste is, caste is a state of mind. It's not like race, which is apparent. So there are different ways. One of the most obvious ways is surnames. So people do keep surnames of particular castes. There are surnames which denote the caste of a person. So if a person keeps that surname, it's very obvious that person belongs to a particular caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And otherwise, it's not so uncommon in India to ask a caste of a person, so if you meet somebody and they ask, okay, first you exchange pleasantries and everything, and then you become friends and, in a school or a college setup, I'm saying, you go out and have fun, and then it ultimately comes down to that point where they ask, 'okay, which caste do you belong to?' And when it comes to that, it's very hard for somebody to hide it. So at most times, people do say that, 'okay, I belong to [00:16:00] such and such caste, which is considered as a scheduled caste.' And that's the point where the attitude of the other person changes.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So caste is that complex phenomenon where the attitude of one person changes based on the caste of the other. So when, say, A says, I belong to this caste, B thinks, okay, where do I situate him? Is he above me or is he below me? So based on that, B gives respect to A. So it's always. It's, it's relatable, it's okay, how much respect should I give him? Is he above me or is he below me? So that kind of concept, and it's very difficult to hide somebody's caste, and when we fill applications and for jobs and foreducation, everything, we have to fill details as to which religion we belong to, which caste we belong to, and things like that. It's not so difficult to find out which caste a person belongs to.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And then in the villages it's very, and that's the [00:17:00] city part which I told you about. In the villages, it's very apparent because Dalit households are on the outskirts of the villages, always in the outside periphery of the villages, and everybody in villages, everybody knows which caste the other person belongs to. They know, okay, should we touch them or should we not? Should we use their water or not? Should they remove their shoes and come in their particular way or not? So everything is, it's sort of predetermined, everyone has to follow these set norms.
Sarah Jack: And how does the population compare between the castes? How many Dalits are there?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: 250 million. 250 million, that's 25 percent of the Indian population, so that's a huge, huge number of population. Yeah. 250 million, I'm sure it's, I don't know, it's, it might be even the size of some of the smaller countries, so it's a huge number of population, but it's a very, [00:18:00] very silent and marginalized population, which doesn't have much voice, because the provision of the constitution came, as you said, in 1950 and from then, the people started getting access to education. So it's the first generation or first or second generation learners are coming from the Dalit communities now.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So it's a huge disparity, and we have to fight against centuries of oppression. You can see how difficult it is. And now we are able to articulate our views and our thoughts, but it has not been like this before now, like in the 21st century.
Josh Hutchinson: 250 million, I think the US has a population of 330 million. So that would be almost the entire country. So just to put that in a little perspective for [00:19:00] us over here, it's a really huge, yeah, a huge number of people to be suffering this kind of abuse and discrimination. You mentioned that there's affirmative action, there's some new opportunities, but what kind of work do the Dalit perform generally?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Historically, traditionally, as per the Hindu religious texts, the Dalits are supposed to perform the so-called menial and polluting tasks, such as cleaning dry latrines, open and closed sewers, gutters, carrying human corpses, carrying dead animals, tanning leather, things like that. Butover time, Dalits have tried to come out of these occupations, but it's not so easy.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: One of the classic examples which I always give is about manual scavengers who are almost Dalits, [00:20:00] always. Manual scavenging is a, is a most visible and surviving symbols of untouchability. So manual scavenging is Dalit women and men are manually cleaning dry latrines. So they are forced to carry out human excreta with bare hands, take them into a different location away from the scavenged toilets. So this has traditionally and historically been assigned to Dalits, this task.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There have been laws which ban manual scavenging. There is a 93 act, and there's a new act in 2013, which also banned manual scavenging. But the example which I give is, say, a manual scavenging woman, she says that she wants to give up this task. There are provisions in the Act which help people to give up this thing. So there is a one time cash assistance of 40,000 rupees. That's about it. They give 40,000 rupees and they say you have to leave this job, which is not that easy to give up a job just for 40,000 rupees. And there is a scheme of [00:21:00] loan and some scholarship for the children of the manual scavengers and things like that in the Act. And say the woman, she says that I want to leave manual scavenging and I want to open a tea stall, and she puts up a tea stall. But how many people are going to buy tea from her? It's as simple as that. She puts a tea stall. How many are going to buy tea from her? First, she's a Dalit woman. And secondly, that too, she's a manual scavenger, so she will be crumbled and crushed under the shoes of our society. It's not that easy to give up these tasks.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I'm not propagating it in any way. It has, they have to give it up. But what I'm saying is, there has to be means, in such a way that they give it up for good. It shouldn't be that they give it up for some time, and then they go back because they can't handle the pressures which come from the society. So the government has to evolve schemes in such a way that this is a banned occupation we are talking [00:22:00] about. It shouldn't be carried out at all in the first place. So stringent punishment should be given to those people who are employing these manual scavengers.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And many manual scavengers who have gone down the drains have never come out alive. Few compensations have been paid, in few cases here and there. Butit's nothing huge, and a lot of cases have happened where these people who have gone down the drains have never come out alive, and nobody has been punished. No, these are human lives we are talking about. There's no punishment at all for, and people enjoy impunity. It's really sad and very disturbing. But that's the reality that's present at the moment, unfortunately.
Josh Hutchinson: How many manual scavengers are there estimated to be?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the socioeconomic caste census of 2011 discloses that more than 180,657 households are being engaged in manual scavenging for their livelihood. And the [00:23:00] 2011 Census of India shows 794,000 cases of manual scavenging in India. And this number doesn't include septic tanks, sewers, and railway tracks, which are also cleaned by manual scavengers, which means the actual number is a lot higher than this.
Josh Hutchinson: And the Dalit, there are other abuses, including witch hunts, is that right?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's right. Yes, witch hunting is one of the very important ways in which Dalit women have been hunted down in the past so many centuries. While both Dalit men and women are subjected to various kinds of hardships and handicaps, Dalit women face a triple threat of caste, class, and gender. They are molested and raped by dominant caste men who, as I said, enjoy impunity. And witch hunting or witchcraft, because of these accusations of witchcraft, Dalit women are abused and humiliated and even murdered because of [00:24:00] this accusation. Now, witch hunting, as you know, is a very violent form of witchcraft belief. And women, Dalit women in particular, are hunted down onthe accusations of witchcraft. Now, the victims, they suffer physically, psychologically, and economically.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Now, globally, when we speak about witchcraft or witch hunting, we say the patriarchal mindset is as one of the chief reasons for witch hunting. But in India, with patriarchy, there's a combination of caste and class, with caste often emerging as a dominant reason for the practice of witchcraft and witch hunting of Dalit women, and I have heard the activists claim that the accusations of witchcraft against Dalit women are often used as a common ways to kill them.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And most of the victims of witchcraft have been old widows and single women. And common reasons for accusing a woman of witchcraft range from personal disputes [00:25:00] or enmities, even sexual desire and coveting properties. And historically, the bodies of Dalit women have always been used as a tool for suppression by the privileged caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Our Indian history has witnessed how Dalit women had to pay tax to cover their breasts, which was often not affordable to them. So such was the cruel and inhuman treatment of Dalit women, which has very, very few parallels in Indian history. And coming to witchcraft, the women accused of witchcraft are often blamed for calamities, epidemics, and other misfortunes which befall the societies. And victims suffer mental and physical brutality in very shocking forms like lynching, parading naked, social ostracization, and even being burnt alive by mobs. And activists often claim that accusations of witchcraft have been made [00:26:00] only on Dalit women, and privileged caste women have not been victims of, such practice.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And also vast majority of Dalit women in rural India, as I said earlier, they are poor and landless and they are daily wage laborers, and they lack access to basic amenities and entitlements. So they are subjected to patriarchal structures, both in the general community and within their own families. And, these women, they face multiple challenges, including lack of access to resources, lack of educational opportunities, land, essential services, and even justice. So in rural areas, a Dalit woman lives in terror and fear, because she knows that dominant caste people can target her anytime to seek revenge or just assert authority or just simply to suppress.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There is an intersection of several factors here. There is caste, there is [00:27:00] class, there is gender, and there are also other issues like superstition, which we shouldn't overlook, because superstition and witchcraft goes hand in hand. And there are other things like illiteracy and poverty as well, and so these are all like these vicious factors. you know, it makes a vicious circle around Dalit women, and they are hunted down and they have been killed and so many hundreds of unreported incidents have happened, in every state in India, and, after being declared a witch, the woman is, they are tortured, harassed, they're ostracized and physically tortured, they're banished from the village, and even in some cases, they're forced to consume human excreta, and they're also subject to gang rape as a punishment for witchcraft. There are very few punishments for all this kind of crimes, which are, they are literally crimes, isn't it? There is gang [00:28:00] rape, there is murder, andjust discriminating against Dalits. It attracts so many provisions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, but they are not seen as such. And because the whole structure is such that the perpetrators, they enjoy impunity.
Josh Hutchinson: A Dalit woman who's aging and has lost her husband is extraordinarily vulnerable then to witchcraft allegations.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: She is, she most certainly is. And, as I said, historically, it has been seen as, the bodies of Dalit women have been seen as a tool for oppression. So if, see, there is this famous quote which a Dalit woman said, who is called as a devadasi. Devadasi is a girl who's dedicated to the temple to serve the god, and she gets exploited by the priests and the other village men, and she's basically a temple prostitute.[00:29:00]
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So one of the devadasis famously said that Dalit men are not be touched, but Dalit women could be raped. So untouchability is where you do not touch Dalits, but the women could be raped. Such is the barbaric practice we are talking about, and Dalit women are very vulnerable, extremely vulnerable because it's very hard to, the kinds of struggle they have to fight is multifaceted. It's not just against caste or it's not just against class. There's so many struggles which she has to face and she's very vulnerable because A, she doesn't have education, B, she doesn't have anybody to support her. So it's somebody who has lost her husband or children, and if she has property in her hand, then it's very likely that somebody will accuse her of being a witch. Maybe somebody dies in the village and then the allegation directly goes to this Dalit woman who doesn't have a husband or a child and she's living alone, old [00:30:00] widow. The allegation is directly thrown to her saying that she is the reason why somebody has died in the village or some child is ill, things like that, and that she has casted an evil eye on the family, and she'll be banished from the village, even burnt alive and things like that.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's, it's very hard. And no matter how much we try to deny these things, these practices and these mindsets, the mindsets of the people are still rooted in these traditional beliefs. That people, even now in the cities also, people, it's easier to say that, okay, everyone's educated in the city. People do not believe in all these.These practices are confined to the villages, but people still go tie threads to the trees. They tie threads around their hands. They tie threads around their ankles as a protection from evil spirits. And who are these evil spirits we are talking about? These are the same people who are the vulnerable masses [00:31:00] whom the mainstream, the main civil, so-called civil society has targeted to be witches. These are the people, and they're the innocent, the segregated, the humiliated, the banished. These are the people against whom the so-called civil society is guarding.
Sarah Jack: Thinking about your example with the woman who would leave the scavenging and hope to sell tea, and I was thinking about the students that you mentioned. They go and there's these obstacles so much that they may not want to go on living, even with their education. So when a Dalit gets an opportunity that looks like, yes, there can be some mobility. I can get some education. I can have a choice here. What's it going to take to keep those doors open for them? Is there [00:32:00] somebody that has found a place to stand and get mobility that others can look to for hope?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, there is one and the most important success stories to use the word which you used, and that is Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution. He comes from an untouchable background. He was born as an untouchable, and he braved on against all these odds and he was discriminated, heavily, during his childhood. He suffered those kinds of discrimination, which are very difficult for us to talk about now. And he suffered all of that.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And with the help of the then kings of his state, he is from the present state of Maharashtra, so with the help of the kings who gave him scholarship, he was able to go to U. S. and U. K. a hundred [00:33:00] years ago. And he studied law, economics, political science, and a lot of other disciplines. And he came back to India, and he championed the cause of Dalits, the untouchables then, and he became a very strong voice of the untouchables in the British government, and then in the Indian government, as well. And in the 1930s, when the Roundtable Conference took place in the UK in London, he was invited as a representative of the depressed classes, and he went to London, and he spoke for the depressed classes, and he advocated strongly for affirmative action and provisions equality and non-discrimination.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So what we find in the Indian constitution, because he was the chief architect, he was the chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution, because he was there, we can see his socio-political thoughts being converted into constitutional provisions which are binding on all [00:34:00] citizens today. So the abolition of untouchability, for example. So it's a huge milestone because Indian constitution has a very egalitarian spirit. And this is a constitution which was born in a soil which is essentially undemocratic. So this spirit comes from him. And of course, I have to give credits to the rest of the members of the Indian constitution, constituent assembly, who also agreed to what Babasaheb Ambedkar was propounding, and there werehuge debates which took place in the Constituent Assembly on various provisions of the Indian Constitution, particularly on these provisions of affirmative action and just basically trying to bring the marginalized sections into mainstream.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So he is the beacon of light and beacon of hope for the untouchables, for the Dalits, and for the Adavasis, for the oppressed communities in India and across the world. His life and his message is, his life itself is a message. So [00:35:00] that, that's one of the huge success stories I would say.
Josh Hutchinson: The thing with untouchability in the practice of this inherited forms of discrimination is Babasaheb Ambedkar himself remarked that when a Hindu migrates outside India, Indian caste system and the problem of untouchability will acquire a global dimension. So it has already happened. Now the Hindus from India have migrated to various countries, and there also we find problems of untouchability. And recently in California, and in another state, they have passed anti-caste laws, which makes caste a prohibited marker, or what we call is a protected marker, against discrimination on par with race, so that if you discriminate somebody based on caste, that is an offense.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Similarly, in England also, in the UK, there has been a longstanding debate and a fight to include caste as one of the protected markers alongside race in the Equality Act of 2010. It has not happened [00:36:00] yet, but there has been a longstanding demand to do so. And there has been obviously objection for this from the vested interests and dominant castes, saying it shouldn't be incorporated. I don't see why it shouldn't be incorporated. If it's incorporated, it is for victims of this discrimination to challenge it before the court. It is a protection for the victims. So what's the problem in incorporating a provision which protects the victims of discrimination? If you don't discriminate, well and good, but it's for those people who suffer discrimination, isn't it?
Josh Hutchinson: What else can the government do?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I think the basic thing we're talking about is ensuring the most basic right to life with dignity to all, and this is a cardinal principle of the Indian Constitution, and it's a cardinal principle of all these progressive human rights conventions which we're talking about. Discrimination against anyone based on birth, [00:37:00] descent, social origin, it's prohibited. And yet, we see it in India and in some other countries as well. And I think, to root it out, firstly,there are stringent laws. I'm not saying that there aren't, but the enforcement has to be made effective. One is that. Another is to mold the minds of the children right from the beginning, right from school, incorporate it into the curriculum that everybody is equal.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: A child grows up both with the conditioning at home as well as the school. At home, the child gets the conditioning from the parents, and if, it depends again from the family backgrounds, if they are belonging to a dominant caste, they get that conditioning. If they're belonging to a lower caste, they get that conditioning.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But the school is, should be seen as an equalizer where students can be molded, into thinking that everybody is equal and putting that [00:38:00] principle of equality and non-discrimination into their heads right from the school time. And to do that, teachers first should be trained properly.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And again, with the teachers, judges, lawyers, police officers, law enforcement officers, and all people in the government should be sensitized to the realities of Indian society, because caste is a reality in Indian society. It's not something which is in abstract. It's there, it's visible every day. It's present in every walk of life. They have to be sensitized adequately so that when, say, a case comes before, an issue of a Dalit atrocity comes before an upper caste judge, he's able to understand where it is coming from. And not just acquitting people just because of lack of evidence. They have to probe into why there is a lack of evidence. You have to see where these people are coming from, how difficult it is for them to actually get hold of evidence.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And, because I'm saying this [00:39:00] particularly because the 93 act against manual scavenging, it saw zero convictions. Absolutely no convictions in that. It's an act against manual scavenging, and there have been no convictions at all, none to this daybecause there are laws, but then there is no enforcement. So most of them go because of lack of evidence and things like that. So I think judges have to be sensitized adequately to handle cases of this. It's a different magnitude, and I think people with sufficient depth will be able to understand where these cases are coming from, why these things are happening in the first place.
Sarah Jack: If convictions started occurring, would they, would it be like a mass conviction? Would it be like these individual cases?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: No, I don't think it's going to be a mass conviction because it has not happened at all, and the atrocities against Dalits, be it rapes, murders, molestations, manual [00:40:00] scavenging are things which you find on a day to day basis on the streets, but rapes, gang rapes, and these are horrific crimes, which shock the collective conscience of this society. Even in those cases, there have been no convictions in a lot of cases. Here and there you will find one or two cases.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I'll give you an example where, where a dominant caste girl was gang raped, which is wrong, any rape is wrong for that matter. She died and then, against the rape, there was a huge protest,throughout the country. There were candlelight vigils and things like that. It became a huge issue in the country. Similarly, a Dalit girl was also gang raped and she also died. Even her body was not given to her family to conduct a dignified burial. Forget about candlelight vigils and no protest, nothing. If there are protests also, it's only by Dalit organizations who are protesting. But other people, the so called civil [00:41:00] society, it doesn't disturb them because it's seen as a normal thing. That is what I'm saying, because even when it comes to crimes such as gang rape and murders, which are, it is so intense and gruesome, even when it comes to crimes such as that, people still see the caste of the victim. If it is a dominant caste girl who is a victim, then it is fine, okay, let's go protest against this. But if it's a Dalit girl who is a victim, oh, she's a Dalit, so okay, maybe we shouldn't.
Josh Hutchinson: Wow.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: That's a selective kind of, fighting for justice.
Sarah Jack: And I have a question about all of this in light of when you speak of molding the children's minds and their understanding. Now, children are being raised within cultural traditions and religious traditions and then you have all of this embedded through that. What do you do with that?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's so difficult, isn't it? That's what I'm saying. To have a parallel system of education, which is impartial, which is [00:42:00] secular, which gives that upbringing to the child, which is based on egalitarian values. There will be a conflict in the child's mind, which is very, very evident. It will be happening. And I think the child has to grow up with that conflict and then decide which one, which path to take, because if both the values are ingrained in its mind very clearly, then I think the child will be able to pick up the right one.
Josh Hutchinson: Do the Dalit children, do they have equal access to school?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: They do. Because of our constitution, they do have equal access to education. They, we have free education until the age of 14 in government schools. So government schools are always in vernacular languages, depending on which state. In, for example, in my state of Karnataka, it's Kannada. In a neighboring state of Kerala, it is Malayalam. So in North Indian states, it is Hindi. It's vernacular, but again, Indian school system is very,I'm [00:43:00] assuming it's a subject for another time. It's a very complicated system. We have the state schools, then we have private schools. In private schools, we have mediums, English medium, and Hindi medium, Kannada medium, and things like that. Then we have these Cambridge syllabus, international schools, Oxford syllabus and things like that, ICSE and CBSE, central schools and there is a vast difference in the school system. And I feel the discrimination starts right from that time. So by the time this child comes to the higher educational institution, university, the child has already had a lot of baggage, because a child coming from a vernacular school will not be able to compete with a child coming from an international syllabus school. And then the race for the university entrance exam is the same. So there is no different exam for a child coming from vernacular school or a child coming from international [00:44:00] syllabus. It's the same thing. So who do you think will get into universities, top universities?
Josh Hutchinson: These, the four metropolitan cities, and there are top schools in these metropolitan cities. Students from those schools only end up in big universities in India.
Josh Hutchinson: Has there been enforcement of any laws against witchcraft accusations?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Internationally, there is UDHR, ICCPR, ICHS, GAN, ICRD, which speak about, roughly, about witch hunting, because they basically ban practices which are degrading human dignity. In India, at the national level, we have the Constitution of India and the Indian Penal Code, the Drugs and Magic Remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act of 1954, and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 and the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993. And these all can be associated with witch-hunting [00:45:00] atrocities. Now while some states have specific local acts on preventing witch hunting and some other states are in the process of criminalizing the offense, one of the western states in India called the Maharashtra, it passed India's first anti-superstition law called the Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act of 2013. It actually saw a huge protest against this act because it was criminalizing some of the superstitions which people believed were not superstitions and things like that, but the prevention of witch hunting bill 2016 was framed, but it has still not become the law of the country, so there is nothing specifically on witchcraft which is binding on all the states.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there are some states which have criminalized witchcraft and witch hunting as offenses. But again, [00:46:00] enforcement in those states also are huge issues. I think, if I'm not wrong, one of the northeastern states of Jharkhand has criminalized witchcraft, and I think the punishment for murder of, killing of a witch is something like three months, which is ridiculous to be honest, because it's a murder, and why is it not seen as a murder under the Indian Penal Code? It should be punished on equal grounds as 302, section 302 of IPC, which should be this exact same punishment, which should be awarded for somebody who kills a woman claiming her to be a witch. But no, it's just completely, I mean, three months, it's just absolutely ridiculous.
Sarah Jack: Does the constitution or any other doctrines state what would be humane treatment of women? What would be dignified treatment and equality?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I don't think human dignity is defined under the Indian Constitution, only it says that right to life [00:47:00] with dignity is a fundamental right which is non negotiable under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is like a basic structure of the Constitution. Fundamental rights are the basic structure of the Constitution. You can't negotiate them. They are ultimate. They are fundamental. It is inviolable. People can't take it out. Government can't take it away from people. So non-negotiable rights. I don't think anywhere it is defined as what human dignity means, but it is generally taken to understand how dignity is defined normally in common values.
Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything else that you want to be sure to share with us today?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Thank you very much for having me. It was a lovely conversation, and, in terms of, witch hunting, because your podcast is primarily dealing with witch-hunting, I think it can be said that witch hunting is one of the most heinous forms of violence Dalit women are subjected to in India. And it has been [00:48:00] going on for centuries. But the media, civil society, legislature, and even judiciary have been mute spectators to this gross violation of human rights of a section of the most marginalized silent populace of the country. And unless and until stringent laws are enacted which show no mercy to the perpetrators of this harmful practice, which while it's a most basic right to life with dignity of Dalit women, unfortunately, I think this practice will continue to exist in modern industrialized India.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for learning with us. We must be aware of the oppression happening around us. We must no longer turn our backs.
Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in your choice of podcast app.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends and family all about Witch Hunt.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to [00:49:00] end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Today we talk about the complexities of witch hunting across India with advocates Dr. Samantha Spence and Dr. Amit Anand from the organization, The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. This conversation highlights how intersectional factors such as legislation, culture, religion, superstition, gender, and status tie into the manifestation of witchcraft fear and resultant violence in unique communities. What solutions can work on the ground?
We consider: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?
[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:00:13] Josh Hutchinson: I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:15] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today's guests, Dr. Samantha Spence and Dr. Amit Anand, are human rights advocates and will be speaking to us primarily about the witch hunting situation in India.
[00:00:29] Josh Hutchinson: They represent the organization, the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices.
Could you please introduce yourselves?
[00:00:41] Amit Anand: I am Dr. Amit Anand. I am currently working as a lecturer in law at the School of Legal Studies, REVA University, Bangalore, India. I Recently graduated with a PhD in law from Lancaster University, UK. The topic of my research was violence against women in India, where I was focusing on the practice of witchcraft, honor killing, and temple prostitution. I also hold an LLM in Human Rights Law from the University of Reading, UK and my research interests, they lie in the area of international human rights law, particularly on gender based violence and caste based discrimination in India.
[00:01:20] Samantha Spence: My name is Dr. Samantha Spence. I am the course director for postgraduate studies in law at Staffordshire University in the UK. I have been working on this issue for over 10 years now. My research is predominantly around harmful practices in women. And my PhD I did at Lancaster University, where I met Amit, was on witchcraft accusations and persecutions as a marginalization mechanism of women. So the predominant focus of my research is international human rights and women's rights and marginalized communities.
[00:01:59] Josh Hutchinson: And you're both part of very important organizations, international NGOs that are working to address the situation of witchcraft and sorcery accusation related violence. . .
[00:02:16] Samantha Spence: So the International Network came about from essentially there was a group of us that started this work many years ago. It was started originally by I. K., so Ikponwosa Ero, who was the previous mandate holder for albinism at the U.N. and Charlotte Baker at Lancaster and Gary Foxcroft who had WHRIN, which was the Witchcraft and Human Rights organization. Being at Lancaster, I jumped in due to similar research areas. And then the International Network is basically the group of people who worked on this issue from the start and have continued on this journey. So I'm the co director of the International Network with Miranda Forsyth, who I believe has been interviewed also. And then we have a variety of international advisory board members, of which Amit is one.
[00:03:08] Sarah Jack: What do listeners need to know about the witch hunting situation in India?
[00:03:14] Amit Anand: Okay so the witch hunting situation in India or witchcraft accusations, it's a very complex phenomenon here in India. We can't really understand it from one perspective, but mostly overall what I found in my research was that it's very gender-specific. So most of the victims are women, and these are women who are already marginalized because of their status in society. And this again depends on several factors. So status in society is not just about rich or poor, but then there are different social markers on which people are divided here in India. It could be religion, it could be caste. So there are these intersecting factors, but like I said, it's very gender-specific. And because India is mostly set to be a patriarchal society, so then there is also this male dominance and subordination of women just to safeguard male supremacy. So it's a very complex issue, and that's why it's still something that's not clearly talked about.
People have though, written about this but very, very briefly. And there is very less literature or very less dialogue from a legal perspective. Nothing much on the human rights violations front. Because the society is complex and then again, talking about gender-based violence or witchcraft accusation or witch-hunting, which is a part of that.
It makes it all the more complex, so there are these different factors that we really need to take into consideration to understand why this practice still happens in 21st century India, despite there being several legislations in place and despite the law saying that everyone's rights should be protected, there are these different factors which are very complex but we do need to consider all of them and if you want to understand why this happens.
[00:05:11] Samantha Spence: For me, I find, I agree with what Amit has said, and I think the problem is because this belief in witchcraft, it encompasses these different areas, so religion and culture and superstition, and underlying that is these concepts of fear and evil. And if you put all these together, this is problematic, because people don't want to challenge any of these.
And superstition is rife in India, and it's this misconception that specific behavior can actually influence events, but they're unrelated. Because what it does as superstition is it creates this link between an action and an outcome, but the reality is that there's no causality there. And this culmination of superstition and evil and fear is problematic, because it regulates society. People are afraid to challenge it, and it regulates through fear. So it provides this kind of discourse, let's just say, as to, it explains that why things are happening, but it doesn't actually give the answers.
But the fear itself is enough for people not to challenge it. And as Amit said, in India, there's a patriarchal society and women particularly are completely unable to challenge it and they become the victims and the intersectionality there of the caste system and all these other factors just perpetuates this kind of narrative of witchcraft, because it's prevalent, and it's foolproof. How do you counteract this discourse? You can't. Yeah it's so complex, different manifestations in different places, but for me that, there's still the underlying cause there is this fear.
[00:06:47] Josh Hutchinson: There are many different states in India, many different cultures. How do the witchcraft beliefs, how do they differ across those cultures?
[00:07:00] Amit Anand: I guess there are certain things that tie them together, but in practice is what they differ. So in terms of accusations, how that happens, to whom it happens, what happens after the accusations, that's something that differs in nature. The kind of violence that is inflicted, that could differ, but what ties them together, like Sam said, is superstitious beliefs and that's just the starting point.
And you know that places where this happens, people are not educated very poor literacy rates. So these superstitious beliefs, which are often strengthened by folklore and myths, they allow malicious intent to spread rapidly within these communities and then create a sense of fear, which is then used by a certain group of people who hold some kind of power and then want to dominate and control women. And then comes the accusation and which follows violence.
Superstitious beliefs, fear of evil eye, these are things that you will find are common. How they are understood might differ. When a woman is accused of being a witch, that might differ. How the violence is conducted, that might differ. But there are a few things which tie all of this together, but it's very difficult to pinpoint what those factors are because all these separate places, they tend to believe in things differently and how they relate with the nature or how much fear or superstition actually works in favor of then prolonging witchcraft accusation, that might differ. So it's very, what's the source of all of this? Is it religion? Is it something else? Is religion used as a tool to then perhaps see that our beliefs are right, so it's very difficult to pinpoint when it has started, how it has started but yeah it, they are different in different places, but then if you see it all in one place, you will realize that there are similarities and that's why the law can, in some sense, work on the ground, but then again, these social realities have to be taken into account.
[00:09:05] Josh Hutchinson: Then is there a need for different approaches in different places?
[00:09:12] Amit Anand: Yes, definitely. I would say that, for instance, the place that I come from, that's the state of Jharkhand, and that tops the list of witchcraft accusations in the entire country. The government collects records with respect to witchcraft accusations and mostly accusations resulting in violence and in the death of the victims, which are mostly women. So my state has a lot of killings over the last 10 years. So if you take the data says that from 2010 to 2021, there are close to 1500 people who died in my state alone. So that's a huge that's a very big data and that's very disturbing.
But in, so how my state sees it, the literacy rate isn't high in my home state, but despite all of that, we do have a state based legislation, so it's a legislation that doesn't cover the entire country but only restricted to my state, but the legislation, it's very weak in nature. In terms of punishment that it gives, it's just three months of imprisonment, even if you are accused of killing a woman who was accused of being a witch. So if you have accused her and the violence happens and she is dead, then the maximum punishment that you get is just three months of imprisonment.
So obviously, the law hasn't really looked at the social reality or what it can actually do in terms of practice but my state essentially what it's focusing on and this is, again, replicated in other parts of the country, as well, is about social awareness. So they are conducting camps, trying to educate people, and this is where in, nGOs come in picture. The state government has joined hands with local NGOs and is trying to educate people in villages. It's actually reaching out to survivors of witchcraft accusations, because they know what has happened to them. And if they come out and speak to other people, then whatever it is that they say, their story will have more impact than the government telling people not to do it.
So they have joined hands with survivors, tried to locate them, tried to bring them in the forefront, and then take these people out again in the villages and then try to explain to people that whatever it is that you believe is completely against the law and then how you believe that how it manifests in violence, then that's, again, a very huge violation of the right of the victim.
But this is a good way of doing it, but the government, again, is slow. If there are budget cuts, it's not a priority. Again there was a very big news that the government plans to do it. They actually started doing it, but then they stopped midway, because they said we don't have funds, there are other problems that we need to focus on.
Other states tried to replicate this, but they haven't really moved far ahead. It's a problem. It's a very big problem. They do acknowledge, but then there isn't that will to actually do something about it. So that's why most NGOs on the ground are even struggling to, to get all these separate state governments on board together and then force the center to pass a national law. Very many challenges in different parts of the country.
[00:12:17] Sarah Jack: Yeah. I can see what a challenge it would be. You have two facets. You have the need for the people in society to understand that the violence is not okay, and you have your victims the survivors with the message there. And then you have... your message to the leadership that, to change that mindset and to find a drive for collaboration across the states. That's a lot. That's a big mission.
[00:12:49] Samantha Spence: Yeah, I think the law doesn't work in isolation. As lawyers, we'll both say, laws, unfortunately, don't work all the time. They still don't work in the UK, for example. We still, people still murder people. This is the reality of life. But because it's so complex, it's not a priority. And what you're dealing with is these issues of the intertwining. Is it religious? Is it cultural? What's it driven by? And people don't want to challenge that. And as a government, why would you? You want to maintain the status quo and keep the people happy. And this is where the problem lies. And also that people aren't educated on the laws, and the laws then aren't, they could be there, but then they're not implemented because there's corruption. And like I say, if you deeply, if you believe something so deeply and passionately, then a law is not going to change that.
It's this kind of social awareness, like Amit says, in these campaigns, and there's some fantastic people, Dr. Dinesh Mishra, for example, he has an awareness of superstition, and he's an ophthalmologist by trade, so he's a scientific doctor, and he goes around to try and disprove some of these theories. But again, you can't, it's not something that will change overnight, and you need to empower people, but it's also very hard to empower people in a society where that's not the done thing.
Even internationally, as well, we actually held a recent event at the UN, and we asked mandate holders there and a lot of them weren't aware. We have the resolution through, but they still weren't aware. And when you discuss it, "oh yeah. That's just a cultural thing." But the reality is okay, but people are dying. People are suffering here. And this is why it's so complex. People just don't want to challenge this narrative.
[00:14:33] Amit Anand: I just wanted to add a minor point. So I was reading up about uh, witchcraft and what's the latest that is happening in India. So I simply found out that in the month of May, there's an article that was written in the New York Times, which was focusing on witchcraft situations in India. And it largely focused on the problem of acknowledgement, that we need to understand that yes, it happens, witchcraft accusations, witch hunting, killing in the name of witchcraft accusation does happen, but it mostly happens in places that are remote, people are not very literate. They don't know about the laws.
But we have to keep in mind that a society like India, even in educated classes or people that are well off or in metropolitan cities, people do believe in such things. They might not agree with the killing, but there are things if you ask them that, is there evil eye existence, they would say yes, they would be mindful that there is magic or superstition, some form of superstition exists and almost every Indian does believe in some sort of superstition. It might not be to the extent of killing someone, but they do relate to these things, sorcery, supernatural entities, and they do different things to, to safeguard their personal interests.
But then you look at these communities where all these killings happen, and their belief system is tied very heavily with how they associate themselves with nature. And then religion also has a very big role to play in that. And it's very difficult to disassociate these two things. So religion on one side and your belief system, which is again very complex and what actually goes into it, it's very difficult to experience. So is religion then only used as a tool to then spend on the belief system or the belief system? Is it standing on its own?
The educated class on one side, when it listens or when it hears about such killings, it automatically brushes all of this away, saying that this is something wrong, it's killing people in the name of witchcraft or witchcraft accusations is wrong, but then they don't do anything to stop it because they also in some ways play some sort of a role in then advancing superstition or because they can't then detach themselves from that very fact because their belief system, their religion also teaches them something about good people, inherently good people, inherently bad people. There is good and then there is evil, and mostly evil is associated with with women.
And because they're things are said they have a very weak nature from the very beginning, so they are, they could be attracted to evil easily, and if that happens, then the men need to jump in and safeguard the interests of society, and one way of doing that is by removing these women from the picture, and you could kill them, and then that still would be right, because it's, the good is winning over the bad, and it's how that could be wrong in any sense, so it's It's a very complex thing, like how Sam also said that if we are trying to find solutions, we are at a stage when we don't even know what the right questions are to which we are trying to find answers to.
So there are a lot, many questions, which we haven't even thought of which might play a very big role in actually moving forward with solutions that could that could really work on the ground. So there are these.
[00:17:58] Sarah Jack: It appears that the marginalization is something that many women in the country in different states are really trying to rise above and then you've got this constant branding of women as evil. That's such a complex thing.
[00:18:20] Samantha Spence: Complex, it's intersectional, because, let's take India, so you've got women, you've got the caste system, you've got patriarchy, you've got culture, you've got belief, superstition, religion, throw it all together, and you've got a mix that no one wants to tackle, and unfortunately in society, women are the other. They always have been, and we fight and fight, and we're still fighting. So imagine, and that's in places where we think we are quite modernized and democratic. We're still fighting.
And what witchcraft does is it gives people answers, as Amit was saying, then it gives people answers to the things that they don't have an answer for. Something bad happens, then we always want an answer. Why? Why has it happened to me? Why has it happened to them? And what it does, it provides the cause, because it would say, it's distinguishing between the how and the why, and we know sometimes that it's just bad luck. But actually, they're looking for someone to blame, and how does that work? Someone's daughter died from a disease? Oh, she's killed them. She looked at them a certain way, and you think, wow, really?
But yeah it's really, people genuinely believe, and it's how, it's not to say that people can't believe, that's not. It's how you manage those beliefs. It's how it's manifested, and it's that next step into, you might believe that something's happened, but then actually going and accusing somebody that is completely innocent in mob violence, which is quite often.
Again, and even the stronger women would say, Oh, she's not a witch. Oh she must be a witch as well. And it's foolproof. There's a discourse, and that's why it's used, but it's used to, um, manipulate, it's used to get answers, it's used to deal with conflict, so when it's the election time, it's rife, everybody's accusing everybody else, and these are politicians, but it's also, for me, used to deal with difference. If someone's a little bit different, and we're not quite sure how to understand that, then there must be something wrong. Mental health, for example, elderly people with Alzheimer's, widows, or you want to get rid of someone. It's a perfect example of what we'll do is we'll do this. And my question has always been, and I still don't know the answer to this and I think, I always discuss, do people actually deeply believe the people that propagate, say the witch doctors or shamans, whatever you want to call them. And they can say, this can cure whatever. Do they actually believe that? And I don't know the answer to that, because I would say no, it's a manipulation, because what we have now is I, this term spiritual entrepreneurs, I think Jean LaFontaine said many, many years ago, people now manipulate it to make money.
And this is what we've seen for persons with albinism in Africa, this kind of, as I. K. said, menu of, oh what you need to do is go and get the arm of such a person and this, and that will cure whatever you've come, and they're paying money for it, and we see it here with people are paying for their children to be exorcised from the devil when maybe they've just wet the bed, or they've got some issues there that are logically explained, and it's a manipulation, and that manipulation is dangerous. And I think this is what takes it to the next level.
So you've got an understanding here of where people genuinely are looking for answers to questions, but then it goes a step further and it becomes manipulating. So I know we can get something out of this. We can get land, we can get money, and that's where it becomes even more dangerous. And I don't know how you stop that. Because it's everywhere. That seems to be a similarity I've found globally now. It's become monetarized as such. And when money's involved, what do you do?
[00:22:03] Amit Anand: I just want to add two points to what Sam just said. One thing was, which I was speaking about earlier, which was about how the educated class in India also believes in some form of superstition. In my research, I did find that you with respect to the existence of the evil eye, there are different notions attached to it but that's in some ways common with with the most with all the educated classes regardless of which part of the country they are, they believe in certain things, so there are things like witches are often accused of casting the evil eye, and then the term witches, which is, again, only associated with women and witch hunters or witch doctors are always men is again a very different debate.
So it's said that these women, they cast the evil eye mostly on children and men. And it is said that children who are very young are at high risk of being harmed by witches. So people generally are asked to be careful around old, sterile women and women who have had a miscarriage. And when a child is frequently ill, it is usually said that there must be a witch was at work. So there are these things that go around families and regardless of how educated you are, you do believe that there are these bad people out there. There are these bad things, and we need to do everything that we can to protect our loved ones.
So you will find people, most people in India, wearing amulets, rings, threads around their waists, they'll have lockets with some incantations. All of these things they'll fairly regularly devote themselves to performing different rituals, either, either on their own or with the help of either a witch doctor or someone else, just so as to ward away the evil eye out of their homes.
Another thing that I wanted to point out was about property disputes, and this is something that Sam also touched upon, is property dispute is one of the main reasons for witchcraft accusations in India, and this happens because you have a woman who is single, might be a widow as well, and she has some property in her name. And then you have her own family members, male family members. Very rarely would it be a stranger who accuses her of being a witch. Mostly it will be men in her own family who does that to her, just because they have the intention of grabbing the property. So property disputes is one of the very big reasons for witchcraft accusations, and there's one other point that's added to it.
So it's often said, it's also true that witchcraft accusation comes from men that belong to, say, a higher class or a higher caste, and that's, and these men do it to women of lower class and lower caste. But when you look at property dispute, that within the family itself, it could be a family that's already marginalized. And the men and women belong to the same family, to the same downtrodden family and the same caste, but then these men are doing it to their women, so there isn't a higher class man or a high caste man involved here. The family is doing it to one of her own, just because she has a property in her name and she can't really stand up for herself.
But the other way is also true that generally it happens from a higher class or a higher caste man to a lower class or a lower caste woman. So it's a property dispute. The main motive is to grab the property, but then how do you do it? Superstition, fear, gossip, rumor, all these things help you then do that. And you say that you, someone in your family had some disease or something didn't work out. It could be a very minor thing, but you tend to then blame it on the woman just so as to label her as a witch and then take away her property.
[00:25:56] Samantha Spence: It removes your responsibility, then, if you blame somebody else, it's somebody else's fault, and it's just removing, so it absolves that person of any responsibility whatsoever and puts it onto the person who's completely innocent.
[00:26:08] Josh Hutchinson: Such a good point. You spoke earlier about the difficulties in approaching this culturally, because no one wants to interfere with another group's culture. However, every culture has these negative consequences somewhere within it, and we all need to work to address those things. So how do you tackle the negative without interfering with the positive aspects?
[00:26:46] Samantha Spence: In international human rights, you have this theory of universalism and cultural relativism, and there's long been the argument that human rights are universal to all, and the counter argument is, yeah, but not in our culture. In our culture, we believe this. As I said, it's not so much tackling the belief as it is the manifestation of the belief, because everybody believes you can't go over and as Amit well knows, this happened to me recently in India, why are you over here telling us how to behave?
And it's that's not what it's about. It's about take away all that, and it's about the women and the victims. And I, for me, these, oh it's our culture, this, it just becomes an excuse or a layer to justify, and the reality is that people are being killed, that's the reality, that's what we're trying to stop. We're not coming to take away your culture, or whatever you believe in, that's not my right to do. But what... My, I feel my right is to do is to protect these people that cannot speak for themselves and you provide that voice there, but of course you're always going to get these labels because people don't want to change the status quo.
That's the way it works. If a system is working based on these characteristics, then why would they want to change it, those in power? Why would you want to empower women and give them a voice? Look what's happening across the world. We need to shut them down. So for me, the. The UN, universalism is supposed to be there, but countries very often use this cultural relativism argument.
And I completely agree, culture is different everywhere. I mean, Even in the UK, from the north to the south, it's very different in people. I'm a northerner, my accents can tell, but it depends all over. Take all that away though, what is the issue? The issue is that people are being harmed, people are being killed and discriminated against. And that's, for me, the way I look at it, because you can't challenge the others. I can't anyway, because I don't live in that particular society or culture, and you don't want to come across as that you are coming across with your Western values, which is something else that has been thrown there.
Again, that's not the case. It's not Western values. The values are that people are dying. And that's everybody's values. And we need to sort it. How? We don't know. But yeah, let's get to the crux of the issue and stop making excuses about why we're doing it.
[00:29:05] Amit Anand: Yeah. There's also, if we are focusing only on the law or the legal aspect or looking at it from the very human rights centric, taking that approach, then I guess we tend to, at some point, we will stumble upon power and authority, these two, these two words, in a society like India. So even if we are not talking about culture or belief system or witchcraft accusation or what that is, we can't really turn a blind eye to the fact that there is someone dying or getting seriously injured because of what's happening.
But if we are only looking at it from a very legal point of things, we'll know that it's about control. It's about power and authority and which is directly going against right to life or equality before law. To some extent, if we take help of the law, it can solve the problem to some extent, but then we then need to really tell people that why is it that this person is a victim of why are we calling this person a victim?
Because to the ones who are doing it, that person isn't a victim. That person is the bad guy, the bad person. So they feel that whatever their actions is all good. It's good. It's getting a very big support from the community that nobody's thinking that it's wrong. But if you are looking from the victim's perspective or what the law actually tells these people is that there is a victim involved here and it's about what you people are doing is you are trying to make sure that the status quo doesn't change. You want to hold on to the power, you want to hold on to the authority that you get by virtue of using all of these things to then manipulate the larger society, and then they back you up with whatever it is that you are doing. So again, it's about gender relations, it's about, it's mostly about men who are trying to control gender relations through various rules, regulations that they often impose on women. And then women who do not abide by them, who are vocal, who want to fight for their rights, then they are the ones who get punished. And witchcraft accusation is just one part of it. Women have been punished for being vocal in different ways. Domestic violence, rape, domestic abuse, gender based crimes. There are so many offenses that and so many different forms of punishment that women have to bear and go through because they are trying to be vocal and witchcraft accusation is a part of all of this. It's one form of that larger punishment that is done to women for just being, just trying to be vocal, just trying to stand up for themselves.
To some extent, if you are taking the legal perspective or the human rights centric approach it's, I'm not saying that it won't work, it works, but then it can only go so far. Beyond a certain point, I believe the law does not know what more it can do. It can specify the rule. It can tell you if you do this offense, that's the punishment that you will get, but our focus shouldn't be that, and to pass a law is a very good thing, but we should try to focus on prevention rather than punishing people for having committed a very gruesome offence.
If we are capable of at least in some ways getting to a point where we can actually prevent these things, then I guess it would make a much more sense. And then we can say, turn around and say that society actually learned a few things that we try to make sure that it won't happen. Because if it does, the law obviously is there, but our focus should be about preventing it rather than strengthening the law up to a point wherein maybe to some extent, it doesn't really make that much sense in paper, because at some point, it's going to then attack culture, it's going to attack religion, but I don't think that would help, because you would then, in some ways, be violating the rights of other people, as well. You would be telling them that this is wrong, you don't believe in these things, that shouldn't be the thing. And this is where I guess a lot of confusion exists, that you're not telling you not to believe, you're telling you to believe, but then you also should be mindful of other people's right. You would believe, or whatever it is that you hold close to yourself shouldn't then lead up to violent crimes, shouldn't then encourage other people to do violent crimes. And this is where both law and then society both these different factors should then actually work together to then try and find a compromise, a solution that is close to a compromise so that the violence stops.
[00:33:49] Samantha Spence: Yeah, I'll just jump on that. As women are the bearers of their own culture and places the rights are assigned to them. It depends on their religion, ethnicity, class, caste, and that's fine. But my question is, and it touched on what Amit has just said, how can women be equal legally if they're not equal socially?
The answer is, they can't. It's impossible. I go back, you can have all the laws in the world, but if you're not equal in society, then it doesn't matter. It's as simple as that. And that is the problem. And that will always continue to be the problem until we sort that out. And people, again, don't want to sort that out because the power and control, the status quo it's there throughout the world, and people don't want others to get above the station, and they want to keep people in their place, because when people become outspoken and they start to get educated, they start to challenge. People in, in power don't want that. That's the problem. You need to be equal in society before you can be equal legally. And we don't have that as women, unfortunately.
[00:34:56] Josh Hutchinson: And how do you go about solving that?
[00:35:01] Samantha Spence: That's the question, isn't it? For me, I think you give women the tools to empower themselves. But again, that's difficult in different societies and situations. Education, I think you educate and you make people aware within their own cultures. Again, this is pointless me coming and telling somebody from a completely different culture how to live their life. That wouldn't, that's not right.
There's many NGOs, smaller NGOs that are working within their own languages and within their own cultures to make this understanding of how it works for them. There's not a one size fits all model, there's no magic bullet. It's little steps. We've been taking little steps for years, and it's little steps. There's a lot to overcome and I'm really glad that we have people like Amit, for example, who, who are men, who are fighting this cause, because that's what we need. We need everybody. Men can be part of the problem, but they're also part of the solution, and we need that. We need everybody to work together, because if everybody's not working together, then you're not going to win this battle. And that's what we need, a more holistic approach of everybody on the same page. How we get that? If you find out, please tell me.
[00:36:14] Sarah Jack: But we do, we need to work across the cultures, across the miles, around the globe, together like that.
[00:36:26] Samantha Spence: Across the cultures is that, as we go back, people are dying. People are suffering. That's cross cultural. That's nothing to do with any of those excuses or, oh no, not here. No, people are dying. We need to sort that. We need to empower people, because the levels of violence are horrific.
And there's a phrase that was used for women, which is womb to tomb. So from the very start with female infanticide, right to the very end of widows being murdered, all the way through is this cycle of violence. And it needs to stop. It just cannot continue. And I think we just keep trying and trying to get the message across as a community. That's all we can do.
[00:37:10] Josh Hutchinson: And as Sarah mentioned, this is happening globally, and I think it's important to note that other nations are facing this problem. Many are. Killings like this even happen in the U. S. occasionally, so it is a problem that's common to probably every culture but it sounds like every culture is using the same excuse or reason for not dealing with it.
[00:37:45] Samantha Spence: Very much yeah, I think the problem is state impunity doesn't happen here. It's not our problem. And you see it on the reports that come through from the UN special rapporteurs that go into a country and the country will completely deny all knowledge of it happening. And until it's actually realized that there's a problem, then nothing will be done about it.
And, of course, there's this phrase in the UK, it's, yes, it's the headline is tomorrow's chip paper, because the world moves on, it doesn't become a priority, something else happens and something else happens and takes over and that will always be the case, and that's been the case for the rights of women for forever. You keep fighting and fighting, this is just another manipulation and a way to, of controlling.
[00:38:31] Amit Anand: Yeah, a lot of the debate is. In India, it's mostly about what exactly is violence against women, or what is gender based discrimination? Till today, there isn't a very clear understanding of what these things are, let alone different forms of violence against women or different forms of gender based discrimination.
We have the harshest law on the offense of rape, but then we still haven't been able to put an end to it, or at least try and bring down the crime rates of the offense of rape, because the society thinks that young men have this right to, to rape women if they reject their proposal for marriage or if they reject their sexual advances. So they feel that it's the right thing to do. And that's where the problem lies, that we just don't know what is violence against women and what our behavior or our acts could then fit into violence against women. And then we are talking about something as complex as witchcraft accusation. Most people in India would say these are the things of movies and folklore and myths and it doesn't happen in the country, but it does happen. But we are still struggling to get past what is violence against women and then we are trying to tell them even something which is more complex and still deeper and we are trying to educate people about witchcraft accusation and this is happening and it's complex, there is culture involved, religion involved, gender relations. Solutions could be in policymaking, in education, in just raising awareness, there could be things that we haven't even thought about that could work in terms of a solution, giving voices to survivors could be one thing.
Yeah, the discourse around violence against women in India is very weak, and we are trying to then build it, build something on that weaker structure, which again, That's why I think most attempts have failed to actually bring some change on the ground because the foundation itself isn't strong enough. And then we are trying to then make sure that we sustain on that weaker foundation this idea of witchcraft accusations and why do we need to stop them? So like I said, it's a, it's a very complex issue. It has links in almost every other aspect of life and how people live and how they relate to each other in India.
And I think the problem starts from there. And then it becomes something entirely different when it takes the form of witchcraft accusations and witch killings in the name of men, mostly labeling women as witches. Yeah we still don't know how it starts, where it starts. Is there even a starting point? And because of these challenges, we just don't know where to look for solutions, but then just because there are these problems, we shouldn't stop talking about the problem and trying to focus on the solutions, because if we then just give up, then we aren't actually helping the victims or the survivors, that it's a very long, it's a very long fight, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't at least try to speak and educate the ones whom they can about these things.
So if that starts, then perhaps because of that could be leading up to a snowball effect and we could then educate a lot, many people and then perhaps some change, or at least we'll try to move towards some change in terms of at least bringing down these violent crimes, even if you can't really stop them, at least just trying and bringing down the, the crime rates, especially with related to witchcraft accusations and killings.
[00:42:13] Samantha Spence: I think Amit just hit the nail on the head, though, it was we need to talk about it, start the conversations, and then let's see where it takes us, because I teach in the UK, and I used to teach, and they'd go, what, he what, what, historically, you're going, no, now, this is happening now, and people aren't aware it's happening now, and we need to get the conversations out there. And the more we can do that in any shape or form, it starts to create this dialogue, whether people agree or disagree. It doesn't matter, people are still talking about it. But it still goes back to this issue in society of we need the equality in society.
We need that stable foundation that Amit was saying. If you're building a house, you wouldn't build it on mud, you'd have a solid foundation on which to build on. And we haven't got that. So these awareness campaigns and these conversations are good, but we also need a joined-up approach, because we found that when we were starting the network that there's so many people working on this that we weren't aware of, and we all need to come together because it's more powerful when you come together, and it gives you that gravitas to move forward.
But these conversations and things like this podcast are good because it gets people thinking about, Oh my God, I didn't realize that was happening. Oh, it doesn't happen in our country. I think you'll find it does. Let's try and keep the conversations going. And also it affects everybody. I think the other thing I find is, Oh, it's not my problem. It is, it's everybody's problem. And we all need to step up and deal with it. How we do that, I don't know the answer, but little steps of moving forward as opposed to just completely denying or saying it's nothing to do with us. Yeah.
[00:43:54] Josh Hutchinson: Your answers have been so enlightening and eloquent. I appreciate you both giving us your time and your best. And this has been so wonderful. Is there anything else that you wanted to be sure that you were able to say today?
[00:44:15] Samantha Spence: Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for trying to help raise this awareness. We need more, definitely.
[00:44:23] Amit Anand: I would say the same that it's important to have platforms like this where you can talk about things like these, because in societies where this is happening, you might not get the opportunity to talk about something as sensitive as this, because people just wouldn't want to know about this for whatever reason. So whatever opportunity you get to just get the message out should just grab that opportunity and thank you for allowing us to speak about something that's very close to us and just giving us this chance to talk about something as sensitive as witchcraft accusations. Thank you.
[00:45:03] Samantha Spence: Never just accept, always challenge, always ask why. I always say to my students, why? Ask those questions, because you don't know what answers you're going to get, but if you don't challenge, and you carry on to accept, then, yeah, things won't change. Culture changes, the world changes, and we need to enable the change for good and help people, as opposed to this, it's not my problem. That doesn't get us anywhere.
[00:45:31] Josh Hutchinson: Now, Sarah has End Witch Hunts News.
[00:45:34] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News. End Witch Hunts is a 501c3 non profit organization. Our Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project is actively educating about the history of hundreds of witch trial victims from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who have not been acknowledged for their suffering of such a miscarriage of justice. We are seeking formal exoneration for those convicted as witches and executed in Boston and an apology for all those documented to have suffered in the colony witch trials. We want to make this happen with an amendment to the previous legislation that has already exonerated those convicted and executed in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Please sign and then share the petition to show your support at change.org/witch trials. To learn more about this project and how you can get involved, visit Massachusettswitchtrials.org.
But don't stop there. If you live in Massachusetts, you can share this project with your legislative representatives and ask them to get involved. If you are a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, we need you to lead or collaborate on this amendment effort. Please consider reaching out to the project so that we can support you as you propose or support such an amendment. Please take action and work together to help close a chapter of American history that calls out to us all for answers.
Most citizens of Earth who have been accused, attacked, or killed as witches are not known and have not been remembered. We only know of and memorialize a handful of witch hunt victims from across time. The witch hunts of today are more than a remnant of witch trials and witch hunts past. They are the bulk of the victims. Like before, the women, men, and children are unjustly blamed and feared. They are unjustly punished. We must keep working to make people aware that witch hunts are not simply the result of superstition and hysteria, but rather a fundamental human reaction to pressure and strife, an outcome of power over the vulnerable, intertwined within all cultures and religion. There are always multiple factors that are repeatedly found in combination.
Informed advocates in countries gripped by witch hunts are asking us for our acknowledgement and support. You should not think, I wish I could help. Helping is simply you sharing the information in conversation and on your social media. Helping is you searching out knowledge about what is happening. Help by talking about what they told us today. Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the efforts to end witch hunts.
We never stop educating. You can continue to learn. Check today's show notes for links to recent news media and presentations by Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project members Sarah Jack, Josh Hutchinson, Beth Caruso, and Kathy Hermes. Does your company or organization want to invite us to present witch trial history and anti-witch-hunt advocacy? Please contact us. Your partnership helps to end witch hunts. The End Witch Hunts website has information on active witch-hunt advocacy organizations. Go and learn more. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[00:48:50] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:48:51] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:48:53] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:48:57] Sarah Jack: Join us each week.
[00:48:59] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
[00:49:03] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:49:06] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:49:09] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:49:14] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
This conversation is our podcast’s first inquiry about witch hunting in the nation of India. Our guest, Govind Kelkar, holds a PhD in Political Economy of China and is Professor and Executive Director for GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation in India. She has authored 16 books and numerous scholarly publications. This episode introduces us to the impact of witch-hunting on indigenous societies, women, and about variations between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures within the broader patriarchy in India.
We ask: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hi, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:27] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:29] Josh Hutchinson: We are so excited to bring you this interview with Dr. Govind Kelkar about witch hunting in India. This is our first time visiting that country on the podcast, and we're going to learn about some of the concepts and different occult roles that are available either by choice or by other people's labeling. It's not just about witches and sorcerers, there are also healers and diviners, and we learn about tiger people and snake keepers and all kinds of interesting stuff.
[00:01:23] Sarah Jack: A lot of what we learned today comes out of the academic study that she did on communities in two northeast Indian states.
[00:01:32] Josh Hutchinson: She focused on indigenous communities and studied both matrilineal and patrilineal cultures.
[00:01:43] Sarah Jack: Enjoy this discussion today and also take time to pull this study up to read it for yourself. We will have this specific research linked in our show notes, and you need to read it as a follow up.
[00:02:01] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we hear straight from an expert who's been working in this field of study in India for 25 years and has a lot of field experience, as well as professorial experience. Just done a lot of hands-on research in communities that are affected by witch hunting.
And another important aspect that we discuss with Dr. Kelkar is how to go about ending witch hunting in India. So she talks about the roles of healthcare and education and things like that to help alleviate the crisis.
[00:02:58] Sarah Jack: Dr. Govind Kelkar holds a PhD in political economy of China. She's a professor and executive director for GenDev Center for Research and Innovation in India. She has authored 16 books and numerous scholarly publications. She has recently completed two co-authored studies: "Culture, Capital, and Witch Hunts in Assam" and "Witch Hunts, Culture, Patriarchy, and Structural Transformation." She has previously taught at Delhi University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. There she founded the graduate program in gender development studies and also the Gender, Technology, and Development Journal, published by Sage and now by Routledge, India.
[00:03:47] Josh Hutchinson: So this is our first time for our listeners to visit India. What should our listeners know about the situation with witch hunting in India?
[00:03:59] Govind Kelkar: There is a general kind of ignorance about the witches. Once in a while, the article, a newspaper article appears, and from particular indigenous areas, and this practice does exist in rural areas also, but it generally it is ignored. Oh, this is their practice. So othering of the problem is one thing, and second is that it is forgotten, as if it doesn't exist. So this is generally kind of thing. And whenever there is a presentation I have made in Council for Social Development, where I'm affiliated, then or any other organization and they think, oh, this is not a general problem, this is only confined to indigenous people, which is very painful. We have quite a sizeable number of indigenous people, but it is very painful to know this kind of attitude.
And the so-called kind of is considered uneducated people living in forest and they are not uneducated by any means. Those who consider this kind of problem are uneducated, really, about their own society. I have been part of the women's movement and feminist movement in India, and we also did not take into consideration for quite late into the violence against women.
And it still, it is not the mainstream of discussion in the violence against women. I have a bit of critique of our feminist movement also. Now, there are a couple of filmmakers and people who talk about it, but very few.
[00:05:38] Sarah Jack: Can you give us a definition of a witch in the context that happens in India or tell us how a witch should be defined to understand who's getting attacked?
[00:05:53] Govind Kelkar: I would define the witch, which we discuss this, and when we wrote the book I have a co-authored book, as I was telling you, published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. And that is one thing that I thought that it would be. One day we will ask the question that, who do you consider the witch?
A very brief and crisp definition is a woman or a man, sometime it is men also, but supernatural powers who cause harm to their own or to her community people. So it is not that she causes harm to other people, but within, to her extended family, to her close family, to her community. Somebody falls sick, somebody has the crop loss, untimely rain, which destructive, all these kind of considered a kind of something which is caused by the witch, with the exception of Covid, which happened. There was a large number of people who were denounced as or branded as witches during that period. But Covid was not considered as a witch phenomena, maybe because it came as a tsunami or it has came a kind of a, or affected everybody. So that is the reason that if it has happened in certain parts, then probably this would've been also one reason.
[00:07:15] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:07:17] Josh Hutchinson: And so the allegations, they're usually coming from people who are close, either kin or neighbors?
[00:07:25] Govind Kelkar: Unfortunately, very close. It would be husband's brother, his nephews. In most cases they would be the people. Sometime it is close neighbors extended who are likely to get hold of some property by extension the woman has. And normally these would be unsupported women, either where the husband is weak, either physically has some ailments, or he's not there, or the sons are working.
It's very patriarchal society, okay, with the exception of Meghalaya. So either sons are away and they visit only once in 6 years or once in 12 years. And then the woman would be harassed by the husband's nephews, which are, who are her nephews, because they will get that property.
The question one raises what property it has, I think even a kind of tattered house for utensils, whatever in that context, the property there, they will get hold of that. So if the woman is driven out or killed, then this would be the case. Sometime neighbors also do, if there is a child dies, then probably the neighbors also would join together.
I recently visited about three months ago, I was in the field in a state of Tripura, and I went to see a case, which has happened only two weeks ago where a woman was buried alive and her husband and seven others, close relations of the husband, they were party to it. And I was surprised. I was in the village. I did not know before that where the husband was also party to it. So I asked the mother-in-law, I said, who are the people who did it? And she said people in the village, close relatives. I said, where is the husband? Because the son who was eight year old, he was wearing those funeral kind of clothes, white clothes, not sleeping on the cot, but sleeping on the mat. So he was carrying that to sit on that so that he did not sit either on the ground or on something else. So I said why this little boy is doing this white clothes and all this. And they said, oh, because it is our custom.
But I said, where is the father? Says that he has gone to market, but actually he was in the police custody. They were arrested. So even this kind of incident how the people are saved or they lose face in telling the outsiders.
[00:10:00] Josh Hutchinson: Are the perpetrators often arrested?
[00:10:04] Govind Kelkar: Wherever there is a law or the person is killed. The accusations or branding as a witch, that there is no arrest for that, even when the law is there, which is very unfortunate. She's harassed for months. She is driven out. Only when she's killed, then there would be arrest. So it is the case of the murder then. They see that.
So there is the Indian penal code. In seven states of India, we have the law against witch hunts, but they're also really the, they call it prevention witch hunts kind of thing. But police acts only when the woman is killed. Being driven out, being harassed, being branded as a witch, there is a whole process goes on for quite some time before she's killed. Nothing happens during that period. Although they are supposed to do that legally.
[00:10:57] Josh Hutchinson: So it sounds like authorities could step in before it gets to the point of murder, but they're not doing that.
[00:11:06] Govind Kelkar: Yes, if you see the laws of these kind of where the state has been passed, highest number is in the state of Jharkhand and then followed by Assam. These are the, we call them states, what is called the provinces in the earlier kind of thing. And then it is in Mizoram, and I have done work in all three these areas. And one finds that the law is very, Mizoram doesn't have any law. Assam has these laws recently passed. And they're really toothless, very lame laws kind of thing, including in a ridiculous, the first law that was passed in 2005 or something, it was two thousand fine for this kind of thing.
So court treats this as a part of the belief system. They say it was done as a kind of under the influence of the belief, although legally it is, this is not so in the law, but this is the treatment of the code. Police is generally from this caste society. And even when they are part some indigenous people are there, they also get influenced because they are in a smaller number. They don't raise the voice. And then also you see that this is treated as the kind of part of the belief system. This crime is not treated as seriously as the other crimes would be treated. So harassment, although they say for some laws that I recently passed, like in case of Orissa State harassment is part of the law, but it is not implemented.
Nobody reports about it. They don't go to the village. They don't know. The woman also doesn't know that she has to go to the court because she finds court very useful. First thing, there is a general fear. You don't know the language that lot of women have not familiar with Hindi or English, which is the language of the law. And the result is that they are not taken serious. They don't have the confidence to go also, that is the, to go with the lawyer or to the police. So there is a lot of gap between law and the what actual happens in the practice.
[00:13:18] Sarah Jack: Can you tell us how the gender systems are diverse?
[00:13:23] Govind Kelkar: In indigenous areas, we have two kind of varieties by and large, two major kind of thing. One is the matrilineal state, which is the, where the, it is not matriarchy, but it is matriliny in terms of the lineage, property rights that the land rights, they are with the women, they are even spiritual heads, in terms of making decisions in some community. Within the particular state, also, there are communities. So somewhere they are spiritual heads. So for example, the Khasi society, they are the spiritual heads, but not in Garo.
But they are not there in the decision making. All the decision is made in these matrilineal systems by men. So not a single woman would be there in the, either in the local body, which is called durbar, village level or onwards till the state level. So political matters and decision making, these are considered as the male role. And the male preserver a male domain. And the women's domain would be cooking, cleaning, agricultural work, managing the household, providing for the family, taking care of children, and also property management. Youngest daughter inherits the property. Whether it is a management or it is the ownership, in both cases, the youngest daughter would get it. So this is one system of the matriliny.
Then the rest of the societies, by and large, are patriarchal, where it happens. In the patriarchal, women don't own any land. There is total economic independence on men. They don't make any decisions. They, what else would be of course, cooking, cleaning, all that kind of division of labor, gender, division of labor, which is by and large universal kind of thing, except some changes happening now that is there in these patriarchal societies.
And in these societies also, there is a kind of very high level of brutalization of women, unlike in the matrilineal society. But there is one thing that needs to be really noted that even in this matrilineal society, there is a movement of men for taking control of the property. Somewhere they have succeeded also. For example, in case of Nagaland, nokma, which was the village head, that was the position, N O K M A, nokma was the title of the village head, that these village heads were women.
And the, when she got married, then the husband would assist her. So he would be called traditionally as nokma's husband, but now it is the other way. As soon as the nokma gets married, the entire kind of responsibilities and authorities, powers, they are taken over by the husband, and he goes around, and he makes the decisions, and nobody even knows really, except the village itself, that the nokma is the woman, not the man, only that kind of village. I was surprised. I was three days in this village. Third day I came to know that woman was the nokma, and I was interviewing with the husband as the nokma, he was introduced. And this was the general pattern. This is happening in Garo society, particularly, which are the matrilineal.
In Khasi society, you find that there is a movement of the men. There are two organizations like that. One organization called the equal rights of property division that to boys and girls, they should inherit both. And second is saying that no, we should follow what is happening in the rest of India. We are not progressive. We are backward. Progressive means here, not in terms of ideology and ideas, economic development, but they use the word progressive. So we are not economically developed or so-called progressive, because women are ruling here.
These are the kind of gender systems, the kind of, but even in matrilineal kind of thing, what is important? No decision making powers with women except when a woman is involved kind of thing. But even then, within that, there is a kind of less number of cases, a woman being denounced as witches or brutalized, that kind of thing. Once or twice a case happens, there is actually there more attack on men. This is surprising.
There, which I have found that men are considered as a kind of doing the, if we same take the definition of the witch, which I told you that they are causing harm to others as the thlen keepers. Thlen is the biggest snakes. So that is they worship the kind of this big snake, giant snake, or we can call it dragon, but they call it the serpent.
So this serpent, which is known as thlen, the household known as the thlen keeper, and thlen keeper are the people if you make money, all of a sudden. That's why I consider capitalism also responsible. So suppose you are working outside in Delhi and you send remittances and you have a good house and you don't associate so much with your community, then probably there would be a initially no interaction with you or with your family, because it's supposed to be, if you go there, then your blood would be sucked. Nobody knows kind of thing. And they say, oh, the thlen changes the shape, sometime he is as as a string of a thread, so nobody sees it, but he is supposed to subsist on human blood. The saying goes like this, that even this family employs some men to collect the blood from the fingernails. So the distrust is there that if any kind of unknown person comes to the village, he's threatened with his life. There have been some cases, and particularly young boys have been killed. I think about two years ago, five young boys were killed because of that. Three in one case and two in one case.
[00:19:39] Josh Hutchinson: And that's because they were outsiders?
[00:19:43] Govind Kelkar: They were outsiders. They were having some free time and they wanted to go around and they did not tell the families and they were outsiders. So they were.
[00:19:52] Josh Hutchinson: Okay. And you mentioned that accumulating wealth causes suspicion, as well?
[00:20:00] Govind Kelkar: That's precisely the kind of thing. This is happens in both matrilineal and patriarchal societies that if you are rich and the rich, better off, economically, much better off than the rest of kind of thing, than rest of the household, then it is considered that you have some mystical powers. And then through a, those kind of exploitative means that you have become rich. So I visited one area in matrilineal society where the ojha or the healer was killed, the ojha or shaman, why the shaman was killed, and by his own nephews, because the nephews kept asking him, why don't you teach me how you have become rich?
He didn't say clearly. He said, of course, I just treat others and I don't do anything. He said no, you must have some mantras, some kind of powers you must have. So you have become rich. He has much better house than the cousins have, or the brother's sons have. And then he couldn't give them anything because probably there were not. And one night, 11 in the night they came, this is about a year old story and Garo Hills in the matrilineal society. And these three brother Sons they came, nephews. And these nephews just beheaded him.
[00:21:22] Josh Hutchinson: For the listeners, I just want to let everyone know we recently read your study titled Culture, Capital, and Witch Hunts in Meghalaya and Nagaland. We'll put a link to it in the show description so people can see what we're talking about.
The ojha or shaman that you spoke of, they also are involved themselves in finding witches?
[00:21:50] Govind Kelkar: That has been their role that when something happens, the villagers go to ojha to the shaman. They have different names. Sometime they are kabiraj, that is the healer and the one who treats others some. So because the person gets sick, then they go there also. Now he first probably tries to find out what is the diseases has caused kind of thing. And then he finds out, oh, it is a difficult disease if in case there is fever, persisting fever, like typhoid or something. Then he tries to really tell them that somebody has caused this problem. Now he doesn't name the person. But he indicates enough that person is that direction, third house from that house.
And there is a general kind of process. So that who would be the kind of person who would be identified? So without even naming, precisely naming the person, the whole village or that part of the village knows who is going to be affected. So this is the identification. Now, these ojhas, after where the law has been passed, these ojhas have now underground practice.
So they consult each other. Almost every village has a ojha. But now two, three villages would have one ojha, because the practice is little bit on decline. And they also is scared of the legal system, because the system of ojha is illegal in the states where the law has been passed. In Nagaland and Meghalaya, there is no law.
So they are the thlen keepers, and I have given some photographs also, and they're a ritual kind of thing. And where they put a hot, iron rod in the bubbling, in the bottle. And if the bubbles come up, they think it is the witch kind of thing. So I made a video out of this and he allowed that. He says, okay, because there is no law, he was not think that this can be at one point illegal, but it's not illegal. So then he will find out who's the thlen keeper, which household has the thlen? And if the household is very powerful, somebody in the government or somebody in this, then they leave that household. Otherwise somebody from that household would be affected and um, less killing in that household, because that generally these households are powerful but no interaction. It is the communitarian way of life, but they are ostracized, that household. So they are not invited for any ceremonies, any village functions.
And you live there or they are asked also in some parts that you please leave the village, if they are very poor, similar kind of thing. So they don't have the power really to report to the police or report to do something. And also when you are socially boycotted, there is no kind of action that you will report to the police also for that.
So that kind of, you live in a society which is ostracized. Their children also would carry that. So the, in the school, when the children goes, I interviewed one woman who has said that how she was really harassed while she was in the school, because the little girl, that household was known as the thlen keeper household. And oh, it was declared by the ojha.
And what did the system goes that you cut a piece of hair, girls have long hair, or you cut a piece of cloth that's a scarf, and this is, they say, then it offered to the serpent, it turns into blood and the serpent drinks, that kind of thing. So nobody's going to sit next to you, thinking that you might cut little piece from the flowing hair and the long hair, or you, or from the scarf, you can cut it kind of thing, and then you would be affected, you would die as a result of that. So total kind of boycott or, eh, total lack of interaction or isolation.
[00:25:53] Josh Hutchinson: Nobody feels safe interacting with that person or being close to that person?
[00:25:58] Govind Kelkar: That's right.
[00:25:59] Sarah Jack: It sounds like the thlen keeper families for generations, they would be viewed as the thlen keepers.
[00:26:14] Govind Kelkar: The only way that unless they made it so much in the system, because from, I know two thlen keepers family where one woman has married a UN official. So she definitely upgraded one. Her sister was a police officer. I met out of seven, only two. So that family could survive, but no interaction. Villagers would not interact with them. But they were able to live, they were not driven out.
And the other family I know who was a professor in Delhi. The girls are the supporters of the family. So she was professor and she also has written about it. So this is the only way out, that you made it in the system. Then you can really get rid of this. Then you will get married, not in your community and some other community out of, I mean it would be the so-called self-arranged or love marriage. It'll not be in the traditional system, the village or the surrounding villages.
[00:27:17] Josh Hutchinson: How does someone become an ojha?
[00:27:21] Govind Kelkar: One way is to dream. Somebody getting a dream that is and in different ways, in different kind of things. So one way was the dream that you, and in lot of cases it is from father to son that is the kind of practice. He learn.
Interestingly I met an ojha, who was, whose picture also I have given and who was very frank in discussing this kind of thing. He was a truck driver earlier, and he tried to become ojha. And I told him, how did you become? And he said he was being treated and nothing was working. That ojha was not. So he thought he would practice. And so that's how that he learned. And he, I said, how much time you took to become ojha, and he said about one and a half year.
So it is also learning from others. Sometime you become ojha, they have the kind of assistant also. Initially you watch, you help the kind of thing. You heat the fire, you put the fire on, and you boil the water. And so that is how you learn. And then you set up your own practice. Sometime dream, dream is very convenient. They strongly believe it. And since I'm a nonbeliever, so I say it's very convenient, but they believe that they had the dream and this kind of thing, and this dream can be sometime like that you dreamt about a word entering into your body or some other objects entering your body, and that is seen as this is a kind of God's wish that you become a healer kind of thing, that you have become the treating others as your duty to the community.
[00:29:05] Josh Hutchinson: And then how does someone get associated with keeping the serpent?
[00:29:11] Govind Kelkar: Keeping the serpent. Nobody has seen it. It is normally the rich families. I'm using their term as the rich, better house, children going outside, better clothes, acquiring car. In such a way that you are called within your community as much economically better off, much better off than others.
And then they think that it is the thlen worshipers, they are known as the thlen worshipers. That serpent must have blessed them. And thlen lives on the human blood as I explained earlier. So that's why people don't go to the house. But they, in most cases, they are not driven out, because of their economic power.
[00:29:54] Josh Hutchinson: Speaking about the economics, you talked in the study about the emergence of the accumulative economics, where before it was largely communal economics, and what impact is that having on witch hunting?
[00:30:16] Govind Kelkar: Either we call it market forces or we call it accumulative society, or we call it a capitalist society. So this is one of the thing, so the accumulating household, that means who are in their perception accumulating household. And really they are become the, they are much better off than the rest of them. There is a mystical belief that how they have acquired the wealth and we have not acquired? Or for example, if I fields and then that it would be considered how your fields are fertile? I have also fields, I'm also working, but my fields do not produce as much as your fields produce, so there must be the kind of some kind of mystical means. So this thlen is considered that you must be worshiping, thlen must have blessed you. The thlen is like a kind of god in this sense, the spirit, and that that has blessed you and that's why you have become like this. So that is one thing in Meghalaya, the matrilineal state.
The other society, Nagaland, this is the tiger. The human takes the form of the tiger, and they go on robbing others. And that is very kind of a system has become like that. They have council of tigers, tiger men, and nobody can blame them for this kind of tiger men, because they are not human when they attack them, when they rob others.
The first thing they do it in the night, and it is supposed to be that these are the tigers who are doing it. Tiger men, they call it tiger men who are doing it. And it is really not those our neighbors who are doing it. Yeah. Or the villagers, our villagers are not doing this is the tiger spreads that make them. So no reporting against them, no appeal against them. They take anybody's cow, anybody's pig, anybody's chicken, and they subsist on that. And of course this is a scot-free.
They also molest women, and that was very meekly discussed in a kind of that they go in the forest where there is a drinking, there is a feasting because somebody has, who has got this by other tigers within the village, outside the village. And there would be the, a woman who is collecting, gathering things from the forest, she would be normally subject to their attacks. The sexual attacks I'm talking about.
[00:32:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:32:46] Govind Kelkar: The tiger possessors, they are not really driven out of the village, because they are considered tiger. And it goes like that tiger and humans are brothers. On the one hand that even if the real tiger comes, animal, they would not kill that tiger because that is considered as the brother has come, and of course there are studies also sometime for random at the Burmese border, Burma, and Mizoram border. There are some people who in order to terrorize I was in one interview was I was told that there is a random shooting of the human beings also. So that it would be the, and of course there is also that human flesh eating or cannibalism that was also reported. From earlier period of headhunting, it emerges from there, but now they don't talk about that much, but they say that tigers have this urge to eat raw meat. That is the time that they go on robbing others.
I met a tiger woman also and a tiger man, and they discussed their kind of thing. Woman has retired from the government service, and I was surprised all her life from the childhood till now she was being blamed as the tiger woman. Tiger girl, tiger woman. And when I had a dinner with her, and I asked her that, how did she herself probably started, because I didn't have the courage to ask whether you were branded as a tiger woman, but probably she could know that why I was meeting her all of a sudden coming from Delhi.
She said that she had preferred to work in the night. And that she was sleepy during day in the school. And as a result of being sleepy, she was not able to pay more attention or the focus attention or she will look like this here and there. That was also his, and they said that because she's active in the night, she's a tiger girl. And this tiger girl, she kept studying, but they kept saying that kind of thing. And of course you don't say the girl, you would say that she's a tiger girl, but when she becomes a woman, she starts kind of thing. You don't start talking to her as that. Are you a tiger woman or not? So everyone talks about you, but nobody says things on your face.
She gave some information to her brother-in-law, who was in the deputy inspector general of police, who were looking in that area. She gave some information because she happened to gather some forest produce, and her brother-in-law, in fact, informed me that I have a sister-in-law who's a tiger woman. Would you like to meet her? I met this retired police officer. That's how I met her. So even the brother-in-law confirmed that she was, and a police officer, highest ranking police officer in the state, confirmed that she's a tiger woman.
I asked him, where are the other tiger men that you are talking about? And he said they are in the lot in the police force, a lot in the army. So I was surprised to see that, how matter of fact, he, of course, he gave me very frank interview that I was doing the research that he understood well. But I was also surprised to know that how this system is prevalent, belief that they change the form in the night. They become tigers, these human beings, and then go and take resources from people.
[00:36:19] Sarah Jack: These interviews are so important. The information that you gather firsthand from the individuals seems very important.
[00:36:31] Govind Kelkar: Thank you. I also thought, because I have been associated with the indigenous studies for, I don't know, over two decades and that time I studied in Central India and these two states, Jharkhand and all this, this system was not there. So this is also diversity kind of thing. The tiger were not there. Witches were there, outright witches. And killing them was only to getting rid of them. And you ask them that, what is the number of the witches would be there. And they would say that their, every village would have two or three witches, women. And they are either old, most of them are old. Sometime you do find young women also, but they would be unsupported, sometimes single, sometime unsupported and sometime they assert their right. I got a call, I think last year a woman ward member, ward is the panchayat, which is the local village kind of thing.
She's a considered important person to deal with the local affairs. So a woman was a ward member, and she was very effective, and she was told you step down, otherwise we'll call you a witch, and we will treat you like that. And her husband was there, but he could not protest. And the child was also young. Two daughters, one son. So it is the normal family, but it was not by single, by any means kind of thing. The single women now are supportless women. Everybody was there, but because she was asserting her right? So patriarchy is another factor. You should be where you society has kept tradition, has kept you subordinate to men, economically dependent on men, and do your kind of work that has been assigned to them, household. Don't attempt to do things. So that is also factor besides capital, besides accumulation, these things are also there.
[00:38:32] Josh Hutchinson: And how do you make changes to improve the situation for women?
[00:38:39] Govind Kelkar: Very important question there. The government of India recently in the last two, three years, have recognized three women for fighting the witch system. They were denounced as witches and one in central India in Jharkhand state, one in Assam, and one in Mizoram. They were labeled and they fought or they fought this kind of thing.
So government gave them a kind of award called Padma Shri, so I interviewed this Padma Shri woman I said, how you have become so important. You were able to fight the system. You didn't care. One point was that, of course, it was not easy fighting the system, was not easy.
What I gather from that discussion that you have raised, that women's agency is very important. Capacities and agency is very important. I don't care if you call me a kind of tiger woman or you call me a witch. Okay. So that becomes very important capacity of the household. If of course, if household is supportive kind of thing. In one case, this woman, her husband has denounced her as witch. She took the support from other women who were, some organizations have come, NGO support, and she left the house and she went there because that's how she was able to survive. Supportive structures within an outside community is very important. That is one is strategy is important.
Second is law is also important. If you have, wherever there is a law, these ojhas and shamans, they are no longer as active as they used to be. They are underground. They are working very stealthily, but they are not they would be arrested if they know that they are ojha. Then particularly if there is witch killing case, then ojha also would be arrested because he would be the person who has identified. So he's scared for that. So law is important, but law by itself is not enough. Law has to be strict, more kind of punitive and punishment for this action, and punishment has to be not only in terms of when she's killed, but punishment when she's branded, because that is a state that would be there. So the law has to look all kind of things.
A general neglect of the indigenous people I also feel in the legal system. Oh, this is their part of the belief. And some people also, I also feel felt a bit of resistance and it is state like Meghalaya. They say you are, this is the part of our sacred culture. So indigeneity or kind of identity movement, which is coming, that needs to be really a cushion that in, your identity as a group, as a community is important, but this identity has to be the human rights respecting culture.
So the cultures have to be really, and there is no harm in taking good aspect of the culture from any other part. There has to be good kind of aspect of culture, because I give them example of India where the sati system was there. I don't know if you're familiar with sati. Sati was the, S A T I, sati was the system where the woman was burnt alive with the death of the husband, which was outlawed. And this was considered as a part of the Indian culture. So I gave them that example that how these things have been eliminated. Treatment of the women or burning of women in Europe, witches thing. So this so that, so this is the second law has to be effective by capacity building of women and it has to be Good punitive with good punitive measures. It doesn't have to be larger sphere of the sake of it has to be implemented. Third has to be really the case, which is more important, strike at the belief system. So throughout the campaign, the discussion, research-based advocacy would be important against this kind of practice. So women's agency, effective legal measures. Third would be really the good kind of research based advocacy at the community level, advocacy at the state level, because we normally think everything you do to the government, it is solved. No, here the community is also involved.
So we are not attacking the cultures, but we are attacking some aspect of the, I have a lot of respect for the indigenous people's culture in their communitarian way of life, in their conservation of the resources, water conservation, forest management, the very kind of good practices. But along with good practice, you have unfortunately this practice. So that is important that somehow it is not a attack on their culture. It is only one part of the culture that needs change like untouchability cast system in India that needs to be changed. Whatever the good kind of part would be of the Indian culture. That would be the one of the things. Or like racial situation in the US or treatment of the indigenous people. So in any society, we have these kind of belief features and they need to be changed. So that is one thing that repeated kind of dialogue with the indigenous people with their community, that has to continue and till they take their in their own hands so that, because there are some women group that has come, there are some individuals, one or two organizations. And film would be a good source for this.
And most important was a woman who was a kind of awardee, this Padma Shri awardee, in Jharkhand, whose husband has denounced her as a kind of witch. She said the proof is very important, and in the European history also, if you see that proof was required. Show me how I have caused harm. So it is not really that I did something to make somebody sick. There has been concrete evidence, concrete proof. So once if the judicial system is start asking for the proof or the legal system start asking for the proof, the community asking for the proof, because first the cases go to community before they go to the court, then the proof is very important. If I am witch, then show me what I have done to your child, kind of thing.
Healthcare is also considered, good healthcare. So these are the five strategies that I think would be useful to address this kind of system, because there has been a PhD work on somebody did a research on Chhattisgarh one state, and there used to be in the 19th century cholera witches, because people were dying of cholera, children were dying of cholera. And that time it was that they were called as a cholera witches. That means that somebody has caused some kind of poison the child through some means, and she was known as the cholera witches. Not much earlier, not now. This brand of cholera witches completely disappeared after this kind of became that what you need on the dehydration, rehydration kind of thing in order to avoid the cholera. And you could survive.
So I think decentralized, effective healthcare also would be important. So then people won't go to ojha. These states are also literate states but out of belief, they will not go to a doctor, they'll go to ojha for treatment. So if you go to fever, so that, that is also needs to be changed. And I think this will be changed through the community dialogue.
[00:46:32] Sarah Jack: I have a question. How does the education of children work in these communities?
[00:46:42] Govind Kelkar: Very educated, very articulate in English, very articulate in other subjects. But there was a young man who was recently for me, local researcher. And he was studying in very elite College of Delhi. I asked him, because he was my local, I said, do you believe in the witch system? He said, not in Delhi, but when I go back home, I believe. I said, how do you believe? He says, I'm fearful that something might happen to me, somebody might cause something. I was so surprised. Then I said, this is the study that is not there in that kind of thing, but hopefully soon you will be able. I'm writing that study. So I was surprised, because I thought a person who is comes very articulate, very knows things, and he is acting as my research assistant, so we have discussed the thing. But he also said that while I'm Delhi, I don't believe in, that's nothing would happen to me, but back home, something, somebody might do something.
So how this kind of in socialization kind of thing, socialization does internalization also, we we internalize many things without knowing, and there nothing as education that attacks our internalization. It is the other way, in fact. If we are questioned for something, then we become very defensive. So that is one of the things that education is not, that's why I didn't refer to education. 86. 6% and 90% people are educated. Much better kind of educational figures than you have in the other parts of India. But they have these practices.
And there is nothing in our textbooks. And sometime media, it seems very popular in terms of television shows talking about how the witches are there and how would this source of kind of so-called entertainment their feet are towards the backside and upside down feet and they don't touch the ground. All these kind of promoted as a part of the entertainment, but they enter our mind for this. So they further reinforce the belief system.
So in this young man, then I gave him the assignment that he interviewed about 21 young people, youth, and out of 21, and they were all in the college and the doing the BA. Out of 21, only one did not believe in the witch system. Others, including he himself, everyone believed in the witch practice. So this is the education that is the role, how we can see that. Probably education is important, but what kind of education we are, we question that.
These things should be included in the textbooks, in the primary school itself kind of thing. Then education works. That definitely education works. This is our attempt, but I don't know when we will be able to effectively address this. That in the education really it should be kind of part of the thing and that need to be addressed. But we are going through a difficult phase in terms of with our political system. So let's hope that someday, change would come. That kind of education is very important that with the real education, I would think and parents also need to be educated probably. We stop saying that. Oh, stop crying. Otherwise the witch would come and take you. Huh? So that also happens. Many families. Many families.
[00:50:23] Sarah Jack: That could happen in any culture on any continent. That warning, for sure.
[00:50:29] Govind Kelkar: Yes. These are the lingering kind of things that continue with their cultures. Yes.
[00:50:34] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:50:35] Govind Kelkar: Yeah, that is very important, really how effective kind of thing it can be. That is because here it is the kind of vengeance, vendetta. As soon as somebody child dies, particularly child dies, and then they are looking for somebody to attack. And they know that child may has been having fever or something, but even then they are looking at that, start looking what somebody must have done something.
So along with the healthcare, availability of the healthcare, this kind of measure also needed, training of the healthcare workers, ASHA, we call them, this would be important at local level. There is a healthcare worker, ASHA, a training of ASHA in this regard would be very important.
[00:51:19] Sarah Jack: When you were talking about the asking for proof, the requirement of proof, that's the beginning of critical thinking and questioning. I know when we heard from Dr. Leo Igwe with witch attacks in Nigeria, one of the things that they're trying, the Advocacy for Alleged Witches is really trying to implement critical thinking curriculum in the elementary, young pupils, and just getting them to question things.
[00:51:55] Govind Kelkar: It would be important probably. There is some beginning is being made here also in terms of questioning. In Jharkhand it has happened both among the supportive structures outside the community and within community. But in northeast India, which is more literate and more as a kind of, these seven states together, what kind of thing, as all are indigenous states and all are highly educated people, and I think 60 to 80% are Christians converted to Christianity. They are also very well educated because one of the things for Christianity was the education and doing kind of thing there.
I did not find this kind of questioning. That is what comes as a surprise to me. And one of the things was also that limited research has been done and anthropological researchers that have been done earlier, they have done really like a state of affairs that is this is happening among these communities. Why it is happening, what kind of impact it has, whether it need to be changed, this was not questioned. So this othering of the people, othering of the problem, that is the only thing that kind of is available in the literature that is on the society that is there. Our attempt here in this alliance that they are like us and we are like them, whatever the way we can put it.
And every society has some problems, so it is not really that, and we need to address this problem. We need to question that problem, because both caste system and sati which I gave these two kind of very bad examples, or even female infanticide, we are still working on these kind of things. Somewhere it has changed, somewhere has not changed. But it has come with much kind of after long struggle kind of thing. So I think this thing is also going to change. I am a strong with optimist that this is also going to change. The laws have been passed in some states. We are trying our kind of effort to pass a laws in other states also. And central, some people were thinking that there should be one laws from the center. And probably there is need for it, but we need specific laws from a state level also, because there are special characters of this problem.
I define witch, thlen keeper is also witch, because it causes harm to the community that kind of furthering or the tiger person. So that's why I call them in ritual attacks and witch hunts kind of thing. This is hunting of these people, witches, going on within that largely women because they are at a weaker place in the society. So 80% or 85% would be women only. Some men would be denounced. These are the figures that come.
I have a case study. This has been qualitative study, so case studies about one. 1 63 people, 110 from Jharkhand and the other kind of thing, 14 plus the, FG D'S focus group discussions. So I've not included them, so probably that would be an important thing. That's why I am trying my best to write in these kind of, small monograph or small papers like that. They can be sent to these states, and they can be subject of discussion, but they can be in English because everybody knows English. The language is English. So that is what, but where it is not, probably it can be translated in local languages, also. So that will be the next step that I am aiming at, or we are aiming at the part of this society.
[00:55:45] Sarah Jack: I'd be interested in understanding a little bit more about the struggle and the work for the human rights around the gender inequalities.
[00:55:59] Govind Kelkar: Gender equality and in this kind of sense also, both are sustainable development goals are very important. And there the all states have signed. So it is not really that it is the imposition of North on South that south is very much responsible for the, and a state of gender inequality is very high. India is known for kind of gender inequality. Yeah. Women don't have land rights. Land, I am saying property rights. But land is very important where it's still 63% population is in the rural areas, you will take land as the one kind of factor. So land, house, other property. So this economic dependence of women on men, unless this is addressed, this is the fundamental part of the kind of their inequality.
Second is about the kind of socialization process. Care work, not being recognized as work. This is another part kind of thing that is, which really feeds on all of us, and these are done at. You know how educated these people are. You sit in the UN system and then you or the economist doing this kind of thing that not a woman does work from morning to evening that goes, and that work is not recognized as work. And so eight hours or six hours you work in the office and that is recognized as work.
So these are the struggles that are going on in the whole feminist movement or gender movement. Economic rights in terms of the real property rights and in terms of the care work, these are the important kind of thing and social norms. How do you question the social norms? Social norms inhibited these laws that have been passed. We need to question our social norms everywhere kind of thing. That would be important. The dress, the hair, the kind of whatever that we want to do. We can do this thing. I'm not taking anarchic position, but I'm taking really the rights based position that we have signed human rights, we have signed human rights declaration. Since 1948, we have been talking about these things about that no discrimination based on sex, class, creed, but these are continuing kind of things. They go back, they come back, some changes made kind of thing. So this is the inequality and that gives us hope, that witch question is also part of this?
How much violence is there women within home and outside in public spaces, and we are all civilized people, that kind of thing. So this is not really that we kill, we call gorillas from somewhere and they are doing it. No, we are doing within our own society. I don't want to blame only indigenous people or indigenous societies or some rural areas for these kind of practices. We are so much engaged in these kind of practices both North and South. South is also North is also a struggling. Women in the North is so struggling against for recognition of their work for maternity leaves.
I studied the University of Michigan five years was there. And it is not really that women , has any maternity leave as a producing child is the private thing. If you stop producing children, what happens to the human society? Huh? That is the otherwise we talk so much of human resource development, but production of the human resource is not considered, given any value. And how do you maintain support that kind of that work is not even recognized, and there is no recognition of this kind of thing. So of course we come from a historic past where the women did not have the even the right to vote. So in kind of European society, what is the Switzerland got in 1971 or something that is as late as that. So inequality is so much ingrained. Gender inequality is so much ingrained in our social systems.
These norms need to be changed. And this also applies to a whole question of the witch hunts, that also norms should be changed.
[01:00:08] Sarah Jack: And how are the women as far as fighting for this change? Even getting women to the point where they can say, this isn't fair. There's probably so much work to do there.
[01:00:26] Govind Kelkar: We are doing so much work, both in terms of advocacy, in terms of writing, in terms of protest. Doing a lot of work. There is a very vibrant movement in India, also, both women's movement and feminist movement, but atrocities also are committed against women. But we are also not taking it lying down. We are protesting, we are questioning the government system. We are questioning the judicial system. So both are happening, but when you don't, you are not in the positions of power, then it becomes very limited change that you can bring about. So women are not there in parliament. They should be in the parliament in 50% numbers. We don't have 30% kind of thing. And how long this law has been that 30, this is the goal that has been 33% women. So that is, they should be there if, except in the Scandinavian countries, we don't find this kind of number coming up. US doesn't also have, so this is the global situation that we're talking about.
Globally women's movement also very vibrant in the US. And also in India, also in China. China is supposed to be a very controlled society, but within China also there is a very kind of strong women's movement that is happening. But besides this, there is a kind of this strong movement and the repression is also a strong. So those who are in the positions of power, they also want to maintain their power, whether they are men or women, but in this case it is men who are in the positions of power.
[01:02:04] Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you want to be sure to get across?
[01:02:11] Govind Kelkar: Not as a question, but as a kind of as a solidarity statement that was, I was thinking that at international level this is a big progress. You in the US and Miranda in the Pacific or that part of the world and I in South Asia. Coming together and discussing this itself is a very important step.
We are not really living in our comfort zones, having the kind, we are talking of the social transformation when we are discussing these things. But I don't want to treat this as the exceptional kind of exceptionalism of indigenous people. That has to be the kind of thing it is.
We have also similar situations in Europe, in US, and in Pacific, much worse. Violence is very high in Pacific. We have racial question in the US. My daughter is there, so I'm familiar. I studied there. So I'm familiar. In India, caste system and in a neglect of indigenous people by and large, that prevails all over. We have a solidarity to work together towards this.
[01:03:21] Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.
[01:03:32] Mary Bingham: Elizabeth How was a woman in her late fifties described by her friends as a devoted Christian and wife, everything a good Puritan carried in her heart. In fact, Elizabeth sought membership with the Ipswich Church in 1682, which she lived in Colonial Massachusetts, British America, but was railroaded by Samuel Perley, who at that time believed that Elizabeth bewitched his sick, 10 year old daughter, Hannah. Hannah remained sick with an illness the doctor could not diagnose. She remained in ill health for three years and blamed Elizabeth for her illness until her dying day.
So now Elizabeth was considered somewhat of an outcast by some with anger and vengeance rearing their ugly heads. Eventually, Elizabeth was formally accused of witchcraft 10 years later, and the Perley family were soon to testify against her recounting stories from 10 years prior. The only thing that Elizabeth could do as she waited to be hanged at Proctor's Ledge in Salem was to stand to her truth until her dying day, which she did with grace and dignity.
Let's fast forward to 2012 in the country of Papua New Guinea. A beautiful 20 year old woman and mother of two, Kepari Leniata, was accused of witchcraft when a young neighbor became seriously ill and died at the local hospital. Due to the continuing strong beliefs in others using supernatural harmful means when a sudden death occurs, his grieving parents and relatives blamed his death on sorcery. Two women originally hunted down by the family pointed the finger at Kepari. Kepari was forcefully removed from her hut, dragged through the streets to the local landfill, and was burned alive on a pile of trash with onlookers watching, not helping to save her life. Kepari, like Elizabeth How 320 years prior, stood firm to her truth while she was violently and brutally murdered.
Please listen to Sarah Jack inform as to how you can become involved to end violent deadly witch hunts. Thank you.
[01:05:53] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:05:55] Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:06:05] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Thank you for being a part of the Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends, have conversations with them about what you are learning and how you want to jump into end witch hunts with your particular abilities, influence, and network. Community development that works to end witch hunts is an ongoing, long-term, collective effort for all of us to participate in.
I wanted to share about a special email I received this week from Connecticut. The email was from a local coffee shop that will be featuring an original drink concoction on their upcoming fall menu, honoring their local witch trial history. Stay tuned to our social media to see photos of the drink and find out which town and coffee shop is remembering this victim. What a meaningful gesture to recognize the story of this victim. A menu item created as a tribute to one of the victims named in the recent Connecticut General Assembly bill, HJ 34, is a thoughtful act of memorialization. Those accused and tried for witchcraft crimes in the American colonies were innocent of all witchcraft charges. We are so pleased that Connecticut leadership voted to clear the names of all 34 witch trial victims who are known that were indicted, arrested, or hanged. We'll be continuing advocacy work to see that the remaining known victims in the American colonies witch-hunt history receive exoneration in their states, as well.
That's two cliffhangers I'm leaving you with today: a coffee surprise, and you just found out you'll be able to join us in continued witch trial victim exoneration efforts in... you'll find out soon. Well, if you follow our social media, you may already have a hunch.
This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate and create projects that build awareness, education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch hunting behavior. In 2022, while we were working on the exonerations for the Connecticut Witch Trial victims of the 17th century, volunteers from the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project founded End Witch Hunts. This organization directs our current and future initiatives such as collaborations for more education and a memorial in Connecticut, exoneration efforts in other states in the U S A where witch trial victims remain guilty for supernational crimes, as well as growing the podcast and our international partnerships with witch-hunt advocates in other nations. When we say that we are working with others to end witch hunts, it means just that. End Witch Hunts employs a three-pronged approach to the problem, focusing on knowledge, memory, and advocacy. You can learn more by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country- specific advocacy groups and development plans in motion across the globe. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org.
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[01:09:15] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:09:17] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:09:19] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:09:23] Sarah Jack: We look forward to talking to you next week.
[01:09:26] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:09:32] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:09:35] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, and coworkers about the show.
[01:09:41] Sarah Jack: Please continue to support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:09:47] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.