India Struggles to End Brutal Witch Hunts
TIRULDIH, India — They ushered the young woman into their home and closed the door. Then the beating began.
“You are a witch,” shouted one attacker, as she, her parents and her uncle punched, kicked and slapped 26-year-old Durga Mahato.
After nearly two hours, Ms. Mahato was pulled outside by her hair, dragged through her village and dumped, unconscious, next to a temple.
The attack, in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand in 2021, was evidence that India is struggling to eradicate the ageold scourge of witch hunting.
For centuries, the branding of witches was driven largely by superstition. A crop would fail, a well would run dry or a family member would fall ill, and villagers would find someone, almost always a woman, to blame.
Accusations are now often a tool to oppress women, victims’ advocates say. The motives can be to grab land, settle a score, or justify violence.
Ms. Mahato said the trouble started when she refused the sexual advances of a prominent man in the village. He, his brother, his wife and their daughter then declared her a witch before luring her to their home.
All four have been charged under anti-witch-hunt laws; the man and his brother are out on bail after spending a few months in jail.
Witch hunting still exists in nearly a dozen Indian states, mostly in Indigenous tribal areas in central and eastern parts of the country, experts say. Many states have passed laws against the practice.
Women have had their nails pulled out, been forced to eat feces, or been paraded naked. They have been burned or lynched. From 2010 to 2021, more than 1,500 people were killed in India after accusations of witchcraft, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
The assault on Ms. Mahato was one of 854 witchcraft-related cases recorded in Jharkhand in 2021, 32 of which resulted in deaths.
A state-run program there has deployed about 25 “witch-hunting prevention campaign teams,” which conduct street plays to raise awareness. Village protection committees aid survivors. Centers have been set up to provide legal aid and short stays for victims. Workers call survivors to get an update on their psychological and economic status.
But law enforcement can be weak. Madhu Mehra, the founder of a legal resource group for women, said that her organization, in a study of three states, found that the police usually intervened only in cases of murder or attempted murder.
While state officials had set 2023 as the target year for eradicating witch hunting, officials said they were now pushing back the goal by at least three years.
In Ms. Mahato’s case, the most helpful assistance came from another victim, Chhutni Mahato (the women are not related), who has been recognized by the Indian government for her work in trying to eliminate the practice. Durga found refuge for weeks in Chhutni’s home after spending two weeks in the hospital.
Chhutni Mahato has helped more than 150 women.
One of them is Dukhu Majhi. Villagers wondered how a “normal woman” could live by herself with her young children, deep in the forest, while her husband was away for work. Then they labeled her a witch.
Last July, villagers chased her with axes and sticks. She ran home; they tried to break down the door.
“I clung hard to my children. We were all shaking,” Ms. Majhi said.
She and her husband went to the police. Pintu Mahato, a police official, said that the case had been settled by village elders and that everyone was living happily together again.
He had clearly not been following up on the case.
Ms. Majhi had in fact moved out of her house. She and her family took refuge with Chhutni Mahato for a few days before finding a room near a larger city. Her husband found a new job.
They visit their house in the forest once in a while, to check on their meager belongings and their kitchen garden, and to give their children a chance to sprawl out on the charpoy beds.