[Assam] AT: Tony Blair and Harry Potter's practice in India also?

[umesh sharma]

http://www.assamtribune.com/
   
  A tribal mob in Asom lynched and decapitated two women accused of practising witchcraft, threw their bodies into a river and paraded their heads as trophies. The news, indeed, is horrifying. And what is more shocking is that such incidents of witch hunting have been occurring frequently in recent times. One of the latest incidents is the August 21 murder of five villagers in Kokrajhar district on suspicion of practising witchcraft. Around 20 such horrific incidents have been reported this year alone and 200 deaths have been recorded during the last five years across Asom. 
 Hunting ‘witches’ and killing them have been a sort of game for many. The killing of five persons in Kokrajhar district for allegedly practising witchcraft is just a barbaric incident. These incidents of targeting people suspected to be practising witchcraft or sorcery has its origin in superstitious beliefs. If one goes through local as well as national newspapers, it is not really difficult to come across cases, especially in rural India, of women and their families being hurt and harassed and even murdered because of the suspicion of them being ‘witches.’ 
 The more startling fact is that, nowadays, being branded a witch is often a means for people to settle disputes ranging from property claims to ensuring that women do not stand up for their political and other rights. We are all aware of issues like dowry, child marriage, caste wars, etc., but witch hunt stands out as a problem that is not on the national radar.
 The ‘existence’ of witches and witch huntings are not merely a tribal phenomenon, though the general belief is that such crimes take place among the poor and the uneducated. In distant England, too, far away from the illiterate masses in rural India, for instance, this weird practice of witchcraft is prevalent. Published reports say that Cherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister, believes in witchcraft. Journalist Paul Scott’s book, Tony and Cherie: A Special Relationship, alleges that Cherie routinely sent her husband’s toenail and hair clippings to a New Age guru to run his pendulum over them for guidance on important events. It said Cherie remains deeply attached to a practice borrowed from white witchcraft, which directs her to cast a circle to create “sacred space” in a symbolic act of magic designed to ward off evil. Scott says the prime minister, in deference to his ‘New Age’ wife, always keeps a grey velvet pouch in his breast pocket. The pouch, which
 contains a small piece of red ribbon and a piece of rolled-up paper, is a deep, impenetrable secret even to his closest advisers, but Tony cannot operate without it, says Scott.
 Etymologically, witch hunt is a traditional search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, which could lead to a witchcraft trial involving the accused person. Many diverse cultures throughout the world, both ancient and modern, have reacted to allegations of witchcraft either by superstitious fear and awe, and killed any alleged practitioners of witchcraft outright; or shunned it as quackery, extortion or fraud. Today, such events are recognized as a type of moral panic. Witch hunts still occur in the modern era, in different communities where religious values condemn the practice of witchcraft and the occult. On a general basis, the term may also denote the persecution of a perceived enemy (commonly socially non-conformist groups) with extreme prejudice and disregard of actual guilt or innocence.
 Witch hunting occurs with alarming frequency in many regions of the country. But it is difficult to make reliable estimates because cases of witch killing are not registered as a separate category. Most of those declared as ‘witches’ are women. Witch naming, hounding and punishing may include stripping and parading the victim, blackening the face, slashing the victim with a knife or any other sharp instrument, beating, burning, or burying alive.
 The ojhas (witch doctors) practise witchcraft to make ends meet. They want to perpetuate and manipulate the popular belief that they have supernatural powers. In many instances, witch hunting is aimed at robbing the woman of her property. Among many Adivasi communities, women have more than equal rights to land. Efforts to exercise those rights are thwarted by means of declaring the woman a witch in order to rob her right to the land. This happens particularly where the woman is unprotected, a widow or a single woman, since there is no dearth of others who have an eye on the land. Sometimes, the entire family is declared ‘witches’ and are eliminated. It is also found that individual financial disputes are also behind witch naming.
 The identification of Dalit or tribal women as witches is also linked to preservation of caste structures and upper class hegemony. Whenever the upper caste supremacy is challenged, for example, a lower caste woman standing for elections challenging their political power, the upper caste communities target the women in the Dalit family as a witch.
 In several areas of the North East, the practice of witchcraft is actively encouraged by certain insurgent groups who use this tradition to command obedience and to eliminate opposition to their activities from within their own communities. Similar is the case of Laxmi Deb Burman, who was a Communist supporter and also an active worker of a public organisation in Tripura. She was a tea garden worker and was very popular in her village. In September 2000, one of Laxmi’s colleagues, living in the same village, died due to high fever. Laxmi took her to the local hospital for treatment but she succumbed to her illness. The very next night, a group of men known to be involved with the NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura), an insurgent group in Tripura, rushed into Laxmi’s house, dragged her out, hacked her to death and put up notices in the village that she had to be killed because she was a ‘witch’. The terrorists did not want to say that she was killed for being a
 Communist supporter.
 Again, when the spell of the witch doctor fails to cure the patient, a scapegoat has to be found and mostly it is the poorest and most vulnerable women who are sacrificed. Whipped into hysteria by the ojha, the hunt is usually accompanied by a mob. An undeniable truth is that hundreds and thousands of families have lost members, mainly children, due to the increased costs of medicines and health care. Surveys of tribal and downtrodden families show that at least one member of the family is ill at any given time. The worst affected have been the Adivasi dominated areas in remote and inaccessible parts of the country. In the absence of any medical support systems, these poor and uneducated people rely on the local ojhas for magic spells to cure the ailing ones.
 Another striking factor related to witch hunt in the BTC (Bodo Territorial Council) area, as pointed out by the president of the Bodo Women’s Justice Forum (BWJF) Anjali Daimary, is somewhat religious. She said a ‘third force’ was behind ‘witch’ killings to destroy the religious identity of the Bodos. A number of aboriginal followers among the Bodos have been converting to other religions just to save their lives from being suspected as daini (witch) because the practices of ojhas and alleged witchcraft originated from the indigenous Bathou festivities. There are available instances of Hindu Bodos, who were accused as witch practitioners, having changed their religion and converted to Christianity and other religions and getting themselves freed from being suspected as witches.
 The brutal killing of five innocent villagers, accused of being ‘witches’ in the year 2000 at Thaigarguri village, stirred the conscience of law-enforcing agencies. The Assam Police launched ‘Project Prahari’ (people for progress) in August 2001 at the village to fight the malaise of witchcraft. The Project has now become a major component of the Assam Police’s community policing programme. In view of the shocking incidents of witch killing, the authorities have now decided to embark on a special campaign to educate the police force to tackle social problems. Since it is a challenging task for the security forces, the police intend to include schools and colleges in the campaign. It is also true that there has to be an attitudinal change in the society and simply enforcing the law and punishing the guilty will not solve the problem.
 Talking to this writer, Sri Kuladhar Saikia, Inspector General of the Assam Police, said that any action against witchcraft has to be taken with a multi-agency approach involving schools, colleges, NGOs, local clubs, etc. “We are expanding the Project Prahari with a determination to curb this social menace”, Sri Saikia, who has been at the forefront of ‘Project Prahari’, said. 

Rani Pathak Das



Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, 
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740 

1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
 		
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