Today’s Indian life is traveling in the twenty-first century. All kinds of facilities are increasing and people are competing with each other in the desire to get more and more in less time. Secondly, our society is becoming simple and convenient with modern material resources. On the other hand, due to superstitions and bad practices, the lives of rural and lower class people are becoming complicated. On the one hand, the motherly power of women is praised, on the other hand, our society also participates in making her destitute and helpless in many ways. 

The superstition prevalent in the society regarding calling a woman a witch is something like this. This thing is not 100-200 years old but is from the 21st year This also reveals that our Indian society, even in the twenty-first century, is still suffering from male-dominated mentality.

Generally, many factors can be found behind declaring a woman a witch, including land or property dispute, personal enmity over having children, conflict of male ego over leadership, etc. It is strengthened by superstitious faith. If a woman is declared a witch, she is tortured in many ways and is also treated in animalistic ways. of the 21st century.

In the month of July 2021, in a village in Phoolia Kala police station area of Shahpura tehsil of Bhilwara district, the so-called upper caste people and people who consider themselves to be of that class, declared a woman from a backward family a witch due to mutual enmity and the entire village. This misconception was spread that this lady of this family goes to the crematorium at night and does puja and black magic and she has made the sister of our family ill. Gradually, when this confusion spread in the village, the entire village started boycotting him socially. Their normal lifestyle like collecting water from the well, going to the temple, buying goods from the grocery store etc. were also stopped by the society. Due to this, the victim and the victim’s family started facing severe crisis even in living a normal life.

When the aggrieved party goes to the police station to lodge a report regarding this matter, their FIR is filed. It is not registered and the police come to their homes and threaten them. The reason for this is that both the accused and the police officer are upper caste, upper caste and belong to the same society. The officer responsible for taking legal action also looked at the victim through a casteist lens rather than from the victim’s perspective. This also proves that even in modern India of the twenty-first century, casteism has deeply rooted itself.

When this matter reaches the District Superintendent of Police and then S.P. The police officer is reprimanded and the investigation of this case is handed over to another officer. After this, action is taken on the victim’s case and she gets hope of getting justice and the accused are arrested. If there were one or two such incidents, then we might think about ignoring such things considering the mental narrowness of thinking of some people of the society. But such incidents have become common in villages and semi-urban areas and this is worrying.

Similarly, in Sadas village of Banera, a woman was tortured and inhumanely beaten by calling her a witch. A case is registered by the victim’s family at Banera police station and the police officer also registers the case under sections of the Witchcraft Act. But in the name of implementation, there is only fulfillment. In the morning the accused and the accused family are caught by the police and released in the evening. The lax attitude of law enforcers and protectors and depriving the criminal of punishment – both these things increase the criminal’s courage to commit more crimes. The result was that the accused family gathered the entire village and leveled allegations against the victim that the woman had filed a rape case against their son. The entire village starts spitting on the victim and her family, and within no time this news spreads to the nearby villages faster than the speed of the wind. The adverse effect is that the in-laws of the newly married victim come to her house and break the relationship with her and go away. After coming here the woman feels that her whole life has become hell. What is most strange in this incident is that here one woman called another woman a witch. This clearly makes it clear that not only a man can suffer from male-dominated mentality, a woman can also suffer from male-dominated mentality and along with patriarchal elements, a woman suffering from male-dominated mentality also plays an important role in marginalizing women. It is possible There are many such examples in our society and in the context of Bhilwara district. For example, women have played an important role in taking the purdah system or veil system forward. When the man asked the woman to remove her veil, the women did not strongly oppose him.

A similar incident has also happened in Ulela village of Jahazpur. The most sad similarity in these incidents is that all these incidents happen to Dalit or marginalized people and especially to women. In the incidents so far, it has not come to light that anyone has described the man as a ghost or vampire.

says that most of the victimized women are from backward class, tribal and Dalit communities and women are held responsible for very small things and are declared witches. For example, if the cow stopped giving milk, the water in the well dried up, if a child died, then due to superstition the woman was declared a witch. In many cases, women were declared witches with the intention of grabbing property. In normal circumstances, a historian does not pay attention to any dissatisfied villager or village, but no historian can ignore the millions and crores of dissatisfied villagers living in thousands of villages.

Regarding such incidents, all the social service organizations of Rajasthan have worked to put pressure on the government to enact a law to stop such incidents and to punish the accused and provide protection and compensation to the victims.

Tara Ahluwalia, president of ‘Bal and Mahila Chetna Samiti’, an organization that works to prevent violence against women and the practice of witchcraft in Bhilwara district and has made an important contribution in the making of Rajasthan Witch-Harassment Prevention Act-2015, says that –

The practice of witchcraft has not only marginalized women but has also put their lives in danger. Women victims of witchcraft violence live with a mental stigma on their lives, when they are thrown out of the village by calling them witches, they are not rehabilitated in the village even after the arrest of the accused. The rural people start socially boycotting those women who are rehabilitated, like that woman cannot come to the temple, cannot sit in the group dinner, cannot participate in social programs.

Marriage of daughters of a family whose woman is declared a witch also becomes difficult. In this way, the practice of witchcraft not only pushes the woman to the margins but also becomes a curse for her and her family.

Once a woman is declared a witch in the village, even if the accused are punished and the victim gets justice, still the stigma of being a witch is not erased from the victim’s head. She is forced to live like a living corpse. When she passes through the village, small innocent children see her and run away to their houses in fear and shouting Dakan Aagi…Dakan Aagi (the witch has come). If a woman is breastfeeding a newborn child, and If a woman declared a witch passes by and a child who is drinking milk vomits naturally, then the child’s mother tells other women that Tabor ka Doi Munda Chalba Lagya. (The child got vomiting and diarrhea due to the evil eye of the witch) If a woman declared a witch goes out of the village and any other women sees her, then she starts spitting on herself to save herself from the evil eye of the witch. The villagers consider his sighting anywhere as inauspicious. Imagine how inferior such behavior would have made that woman feel.

The law to ban witchcraft was pending in Rajasthan since 2011. Due to increase in incidents of witchcraft violence, Rajasthan High Court on 11 December 2014 ordered the Rajasthan government to enact a major law to ban the practice of witchcraft. On this, Rajasthan Assembly passed the Witch Torture Act 2015. As a result, Rajasthan Witch Harassment Prevention Act 2015 was enacted. In the Rajasthan Witch Torture Bill 2015, witch means a woman locally known as Daayan, Dakin or otherwise, who is identified by any person or persons in the belief that she is capable of causing any harm to any person or property. It should be said that the woman is possessed by some evil power or she has some evil power. Today the law has been made, but its implementation at the ground level is still a matter of concern. At the ground level, the condition of this law is still the same as it is mandatory for everyone to wear a helmet while driving, but the reality appears to be different. In such a situation, Jaiprakash Choukse’s statement seems relevant that the changes visible on the surface of the society and the changelessness of its bottom are the biggest stressors of our present. Within a year of the implementation of these Torture Acts, more than a hundred cases of witchcraft torture had been registered.

Thus, it is clear that the conscious intellectuals of India have helped in implementing the Witch Torture Act, but despite this, such incidents keep rearing their heads. In such a situation, there is a need to make even more efforts towards making women capable of living life in a human form and with self-respect. It is necessary to include adequate material regarding removing superstitions and evil practices in the present education system. Apart from this, there is also a need to promote awareness programs. There is a need to create an environment of change regarding this evil in common public life through street plays etc. by various theater troupes. Accepting a woman’s independent identity and protecting her self-respect is an important responsibility of a human society. No one should have any doubt about protecting the victims of superstitions that marginalize women and giving strict punishment to the exploitative elements.