RAJASTHAN ––Shanta Devi was branded a witch nearly a decade ago, after her family was plagued by long bouts of fever and breathing problems.
Villagers still cover their faces while crossing the 65-year-old woman, who lives in a tribal belt about 60 miles outside Udaipur city in the desert state of Rajasthan. Last year, the branded woman’s relatives were advised by a witch doctor to make her drink goat’s blood as a cure. But she refused, even as neighbors wielded sticks in her backyard to pressure her into doing so. For generations, women have been frequently branded as witches in villages spread across the dusty Aravalli hills and elsewhere in rural parts of India, blamed for unexplained or incurable illnesses among villagers and livestock. The lack of medical facilities near remote villages allows these superstitious beliefs to prevail. In recent years, activists have pushed for better medical facilities and sanitary conditions in tribal villages. Still, most people cannot afford the jeep fare to the nearest hospitals, which are at least an hour away. So they turn to a witch doctor, called a bhopa, who plays the dual role of doctor and priest. The bhopa, who claims to have magical powers as well, prescribes remedies like burying a live chicken, burning hands with coal as well as identifying and punishing witches. Old and young widows are easy targets. The mixing of old superstitions with modern material desires has proved deadly for these women, as many brandings are now done to disinherit them from family property. Dakat Kunwar, 25, was declared a witch and thrown out of the house after her husband died. Ms. Kunwar, a manual laborer, now lives in a small room with her three children. “I can’t get remarried and I can’t feed my children,” she said. Branded women, called dakans, rarely defy their tormentors, but Mrs. Shanta’s resistance was supported by a fellow villager, Lakshmi Khadadi, who has intervened on behalf of nine women. Mrs. Khadadi, 23, involves other bold women in the community to try to defuse a volatile situation by talking to the feuding parties or advising them to seek medical help.
As I read the title of this article I was very interested in the meaning of the word "witch" used. In today's society, especially in the United States, witch craft is not a common thing to hear about. The more of the article I read, the more interested I became. In India women are being named as witches and are being banned from many, if not all, privileges in their village. These women cannot marry nor can they take care of their children if they already have children. The article stated that women of all ages were easy targets because of the mixing of old and new superstitions. Many of these witches are used for medical help though. All of the people that these witches “tend” to live in rural villages too far from big cities to go to a medical doctor, or are too poor to afford the fair to take a bus into the cities. This relates to the idea of urbanization. Because of the rural areas that these people live in, locals are secretly going to witchdoctors for help. Also because these people live in the rural villages, many people are poorer and cannot afford fair for buses.
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