COVER STORY
Violence against, and the murder of, women deemed witches is a regular part of life in various parts of India. What will change this?
Outlook Magazine - 11 March 2023
Dragged naked, forced to eat excreta, beaten to death. Around 3,000 women reported murdered between 2000 and 2021. The actual figures are much higher. Witch hunting is a war against women, a terrifying manifestation of the oppression of women in India today
An account of the blood-curdling violence that groups of men become complicit with in their fear of women with power
According to researcher S. Bosu Mullick, most analyses of the persecution of women as witches focus on economistic perspective and tries to attribute it to political economy; the cultural origins of it are undermined
Peiro Devi, 34, who lives in Angada block’s Bisa Gaon in Jharkhand was branded a witch by the villagers in 2018. For almost a week, stones were being pelted at her house at night.
Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan enumerate the ways of raising consciousness about the negative aspects of culture and the impact of witch hunting on a sustained basis
Recounting the horrors Geeta Devi, an older woman, had to undergo at the hands of fellow villagers, who not only lynched her but also banished her from the village, Jyoti Kumari and Pallavi Pratibha tell us how women could be branded a witch for their facial features
In a candid interview with Abhik Bhattacharya and Md. Asghar Khan, Padma Shri awardee Chutni Mahato talks about her travails after she was branded a witch and became a saviour to 140 victims of witch hunting in Jharkhand
More than the lack of education and health services, it is the politics of dispossessing a woman that keeps the belief in the ‘witch’ alive
Lack of access to healthcare is a major factor that leads to the branding of women as ‘witches’
In Jharkhand, there is no accounting of the mental health effects of being marked a ‘witch’
An account of the blood-curdling violence that groups of men become complicit with in their fear of women with power
According to researcher S. Bosu Mullick, most analyses of the persecution of women as witches focus on economistic perspective and tries to attribute it to political economy; the cultural origins of it are undermined
Peiro Devi, 34, who lives in Angada block’s Bisa Gaon in Jharkhand was branded a witch by the villagers in 2018. For almost a week, stones were being pelted at her house at night.
Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan enumerate the ways of raising consciousness about the negative aspects of culture and the impact of witch hunting on a sustained basis
Recounting the horrors Geeta Devi, an older woman, had to undergo at the hands of fellow villagers, who not only lynched her but also banished her from the village, Jyoti Kumari and Pallavi Pratibha tell us how women could be branded a witch for their facial features
In a candid interview with Abhik Bhattacharya and Md. Asghar Khan, Padma Shri awardee Chutni Mahato talks about her travails after she was branded a witch and became a saviour to 140 victims of witch hunting in Jharkhand
More than the lack of education and health services, it is the politics of dispossessing a woman that keeps the belief in the ‘witch’ alive
Lack of access to healthcare is a major factor that leads to the branding of women as ‘witches’
In Jharkhand, there is no accounting of the mental health effects of being marked a ‘witch’
OTHER STORIES
Sabitri Munda could never gather enough courage to approach the police but recently, after a local NGO got in touch with her, an agreement was signed and it was decided that the villagers would stop harassing her.
Fighting cultural erasure and gender-based discrimination, Adivasi women lead lives of triple jeopardy
Engaging with a bhagat offers a complex account of the cultural pressure that engenders violence
Witch hunting is not new to India as the evil persists in all its numbing brutality and scale, with thousands of women being persecuted, tortured and killed over the years
Project Garima was launched in Jharkhand to restore the garima (dignity) of women branded witches. Outlook visits a few villages to see if it has been effective
The journey of isolation of this 80-year-old woman began around 20 years ago when she lost her husband, and she was branded a witch by the villagers.
Bihar was the first state to enact an anti-witch hunting law. Yet it is doing little to stop the practice
A legal researcher speaks of the need to make the laws against witch hunting more effective
In Assam, which has the strictest law against witch hunting, the practice continues. Some of the victims have made a small hamlet in Goalpara district their home. The locals call it Dainigaon—the witch village
Rooting for the second term, Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma, the son of former chief minister and Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma, talks to Outlook on the eve of the state elections
The repercussions of Swami Prasad Maurya’s latest controversial comments are yet to unfold but his gambit is unquestionably bold
An anthology of translations brings rare gems of pre-colonial Kannada literature to readers
The struggle of a woman against the victimisation involved in being called a witch
