The superstitions of daain/bisahi, black magic, and ojha-guni (shamanism) are not just limited to the Adivasi and Hindu communities, but also have strong roots among Muslims and Christianity.
In his address to the nation on India's 75th birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi beckoned citizens to fight misogyny and called for a 'change in the mentality' towards women. But women in India continue to suffer, be it...
Sabitri Munda could never gather enough courage to approach the police but recently, after a local NGO got in touch with her, an agreement was signed and it was decided that the villagers would stop harassing her.
Usually, it all begins with some pre-existing animosity between neighbours or closely residing relatives. From here, the process of social construction of witch is triggered. In most cases, neighbours, relatives, and...
Peiro Devi, 34, who lives in Angada block’s Bisa Gaon in Jharkhand was branded a witch by the villagers in 2018. For almost a week, stones were being pelted at her house at night.
The struggle of a woman against the victimisation involved in being called a witch
An independent woman —a misfit— pens a personal essay defending women’s choice to be witches and their right to not be persecuted for it.
In Assam, which has the strictest law against witch hunting, the practice continues. Some of the victims have made a small hamlet in Goalpara district their home. The locals call it Dainigaon—the witch village
A legal researcher speaks of the need to make the laws against witch hunting more effective
Bihar was the first state to enact an anti-witch hunting law. Yet it is doing little to stop the practice
Project Garima was launched in Jharkhand to restore the garima (dignity) of women branded witches. Outlook visits a few villages to see if it has been...
Engaging with a bhagat offers a complex account of the cultural pressure that engenders violence
Fighting cultural erasure and gender-based discrimination, Adivasi women lead lives of triple jeopardy
In Jharkhand, there is no accounting of the mental health effects of being marked a ‘witch’
Lack of access to healthcare is a major factor that leads to the branding of women as ‘witches’
More than the lack of education and health services, it is the politics of dispossessing a woman that keeps the belief in the ‘witch’ alive
In a candid interview with Abhik Bhattacharya and Md. Asghar Khan, Padma Shri awardee Chutni Mahato talks about her travails after she was branded a witch and...
Recounting the horrors Geeta Devi, an older woman, had to undergo at the hands of fellow villagers, who not only lynched her but also banished her from the...
Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan enumerate the ways of raising consciousness about the negative aspects of culture and the impact of witch hunting on a sustained...
According to researcher S. Bosu Mullick, most analyses of the persecution of women as witches focus on economistic perspective and tries to attribute it to...
An account of the blood-curdling violence that groups of men become complicit with in their fear of women with power
Violence against, and the murder of, women deemed witches is a regular part of life in various parts of India. What will change this?
Witch hunting is not new to India as the evil persists in all its numbing brutality and scale, with thousands of women being persecuted, tortured and killed...
Witch hunting is not new to India as the evil persists in all its numbing brutality and scale. This issue is dedicated to the women who were killed and to...
The journey of isolation of this 80-year-old woman began around 20 years ago when she lost her husband, and she was branded a witch by the villagers.
