The Media Language Used to Tell the Stories of Women Affected By Violence 

“Superstition", "suspicion', allegations", "in the name of…” In the media, these are the words usually used to begin the stories about women being brutally killed by mobs in Jharkhand. The framing is so familiar now that it almost goes unnoticed. But the more you read, it feels like the mob is being handed a shield, and behind it, male violence largely disappears. 

Words like "superstition", "suspicion", and "in the name of", start to stand in for the crime itself, while those who commit it slowly fade out of focus. And that difference becomes even sharper when you look at how violence against men is reported.

For decades, many newspapers and news links have reduced the mob lynching of women to lives “lost to superstition” or women “killed on suspicion of witchcraft.” The language softens the violence, almost rearranges it. It begins to sound as if something abstract happened, not that a group of people came together and killed a woman. Almost as if she, in some strange way, walked into it.

Now, compare this to how the media reports when a man is killed by a mob. There, the word is clear and direct: mob lynching. There is outrage, political reactions, and statements. The perpetrators remain visible. The crime remains a crime.

Just a year ago, the killing of Chithu Pradhan’s mother and sister was reported, once again, through the lens of “superstition.” In Durutoli village of Raidih block in Gumla, Sita Devi and her daughter Shanti were hacked to death with sickles. The explanation followed immediately that they were said to be practising black magic, and blamed for someone’s illness.

Chithu Pradhan remembers it differently. “My mother and sister were branded witches and killed. They had gone to the forest to cut wood when they were attacked. Their bodies were found two days later. The men who killed them were out of jail within six to seven months.”

His words bring the focus back: from superstition to men, from belief to violence. But that shift rarely happens in headlines.

Organisations and activists working on such cases keep pointing to the same gap, not just in policing, but in how stories are told. Jharkhand has hundreds of women who survived witch-branding and torture, yet their complaints were never registered. When violence itself doesn’t become a case, it also doesn’t become news. And when it does, it is filtered through police versions, through familiar language.

Priya (name changed) is still living that reality. When her own village and family started calling her a witch and harassing her, she went to the police. They refused to file her complaint. Told her she had to live there, so she should adjust. She says, “They still call me a witch. They say I am feeding some spirit and causing deaths. They kept asking me to perform rituals that cost lakhs. I paid twice. But how many times can I do that? Where will I get the money? When I went to the police, they said it’s a village matter, settle it among yourselves. They even told me to do one more ritual.”

There is violence here, very real, very present. But it doesn’t enter the system as violence. And so, it rarely enters the media as violence either.

Lalita Lakra, who has worked for years in Gumla, says, “Murders come out only when someone keeps pushing the issue. Media reports usually depend on whether an FIR is filed, and even then, they rely on police briefings. Reporters rarely reach the village to hear the family. And in many cases, even after reaching the police station, no case is registered.”

So what gets reported is already filtered, and what gets filtered is also how it is framed.

Even in official records, the gap shows. In Gumla district, police data over 13 years records only 17 murders in the name of witch-hunting. A number that doesn’t match lived reality.

Adivasi feminist researcher Akriti Lakra calls this what it is — normalisation. “Violence against women here is not seen as an exception. It’s seen as something that happens. That’s why it doesn’t get recorded the way it should.”

She elaborates on the media, “Murder and rape of women have been normalised. Media and society are desensitised. Crimes against women end in two lines. Rape becomes ‘honour lost.’ Women are told how to behave, where to go, and what not to do. But men are not taught what is right and wrong.”

When it comes to witch-hunting, she points to a clear difference, noting, “When a man is killed by a mob, it is called mob lynching. When a woman is killed, it becomes superstition, black magic, suspicion. The media is not just reporting, it is choosing a lens. And that lens changes how we see the crime.” Further, she discusses the idea of a “perfect victim.” “The perfect victim for the media is often the woman who dies. A woman who survives and speaks is inconvenient. She is questioned, discredited and sometimes even called a witch again.”

A woman journalist working with a leading newspaper in Jharkhand, speaking anonymously, mirrors this difference from inside the newsroom. “Violence against women doesn’t get priority. Witch-hunt stories are highlighted only when there is extreme brutality or multiple deaths. Otherwise, they appear as small reports on inside pages.”

And then she points to the contrast directly. “When a man is lynched, it is covered properly. Leaders give statements. It becomes a big issue. But when women are killed as witches, there is silence. Because it mostly happens in Adivasi and Dalit communities, there is this thinking that ‘this is normal there.’ Male lynching often brings in religion, and that creates sensation.”

In July last year, in Purnea, Bihar, a mob killed five members of a family after branding them witches. Even then, the headlines did not call it lynching. The same words returned, witchcraft, superstition, containing the violence within them. Because this is not an isolated event. It follows a pattern seen across Hindi-speaking states: women branded as witches, mobs gathering, and killings carried out by people from the same village. Years ago, in Ranchi’s Mandar block, five women from one family were killed in Kanjia Tola. The attackers were their own villagers.

And yet, the language doesn’t change.

Which raises a question that goes beyond law and order: can arrests alone change anything, when even the way we describe the crime softens it? When one kind of lynching is named clearly, and the other is absorbed into words like superstition?

Even legally, the gap continues. There is no comprehensive central law that defines witch-hunting as a distinct crime. A bill introduced in 2016 did not move forward. Some states have their own laws, including Bihar’s 1999 Act, applicable in Jharkhand, but they remain limited. However, what remains constant is the pattern of underreporting, of reframing, or of shrinking the scale of violence.

Crimes against women in Jharkhand continue to rise in official data, too. But witch-hunting, despite its brutality, rarely makes the main headline. Male mob lynchings can trigger debates, laws, and outrage. The lynching of women, for decades now, continues almost like a background reality.

So, the question is not just why the violence continues, but why it is still being described the way it is and why the focus is more on superstition than the crime itself. 

Why does it disappear from election speeches and manifestos?

Prof. Sanjay Basu Mallik, author of Dayan Gatha, puts it simply, “A patriarchal mindset sustains this practice to maintain control. Political leaders remain silent because they need votes, and most voters are men. That is why you don’t see promises to end witch-hunting in manifestos.”

And maybe that silence doesn’t begin in politics. Maybe it begins earlier, in the words we choose. Because sometimes, the difference between calling something lynching and calling it superstition is the difference between seeing violence… and explaining it away.