Diary: A Woman Branded A Witch Fights Back

Branded A Witch

My name is Anita Dungdung. I am from a remote village in Jharkhand called Kalhatoli, which falls in the Edega panchayat  (village council) under Kolebira Police Station of Simdega district, about 140 km from the state capital of Ranchi. I live there with my husband, Pradip. We have a young daughter. For some years, my family and I have been tormented, tortured and ostracised by the rest of the villagers after they branded me a witch. Things came to a head in November 2020 after the villagers held a meeting at the podium close to my home.

They asked my husband to join them on the pretext that there was a lot of food still left after the Diwali feast for them to savour. When Pradip went there, our tormentors and their supporters asked him why none from our family joined the feast after a fellow villager’s husband had died. Branding me a witch, they alleged that her husband had died because of an evil eye that I had cast on him. “Your wife is a dayan (a witch),” they proclaimed and told my husband that he should pay fine if he wanted his family to stay in the village. He was asked to pay Rs 2,000 along with a gift of a live chicken and a wok as fine.

Fighting Back

However, we refused to pay them a single farthing let alone the other gifts that our tormentors had demanded. They left the venue of the meeting disappointed. But after our refusal to pay the fine, a few people in the village began intimidating and harassing my family. Taking a serious note of such acts, some members of the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society decided to hold a meeting in the village to stop the harassment. But before the meeting could materialise, they came knocking at our door at around 8 in the morning, threatening my family with dire consequences. This was in 2018.

We all decided to inform the block officials and also lodged a formal complaint with the area police. The officer in charge of Kolebira Police Station investigated the case. So did other government officials. An FIR was registered against our tormentors on February 21, 2021. A couple of days later, the Superintendent of Police also came to make his own inquiries into the case. However, the accused were not arrested. On February 5, a team of activists, who perform street plays on the issue of witch hunting to bring awareness about it, also wrote a complaint on my behalf and presented it before a jan sunwai (public hearing) held at the Kolebira Block auditorium. Finally, much to our relief, two of our tormentors were arrested by the police on June 29, 2021.

A New Life

In our hopeless existence, which was being threatened time and again by such criminal elements of our village, there was a silver lining as some well-meaning and public-spirited members of the larger society came to our rescue. They were brave enough to not only deal with  the constant threats that we faced from our tormentors but also introduced me to the Shankar Self-help Group. The group is working to uplift the victims of witch hunting like me by extending them micro-finance loans to become self-reliant and live a life of dignity. We did not have proper Aadhaar cards. The group members also helped me secure a ration card. Now, we are able to receive rations that the state governments distributes for poor families like ours. My home did not have an electricity connection. Thanks to the intervention of the group members, we can boast of one now. I have a bank account and have been extended a grant of Rs. 3,000 by the government from the BAIF fund to help me earn a livelihood. I have set up a small food stall where I sell idlis and momos.

All Is Well

Though life is still tough for poor people like us, it has become a lot easier as we are now able to negotiate with every turn that it takes. In order to help my family grow profitable crops and make farming sustainable for us, the ‘Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana’ (Women Farmers Empowerment Project) gave us seeds for madua (black millet), black gram and arhar (pigeon pea). To top it all, I was given a five-day training at the Saptrishi Bhawan in Ranchi to become an art therapist. Now, I can draw and make paintings.

From a woman who was once hunted for being a dayan only sometime back, my life has certainly taken a turn for the better.

Anita Dungdung is a witch hunt survivor and is associated with Shankar Self-Help Group