Witchcraft, Judgement and Cultural Perception: The Case of Jharkhand

Abstract

Witchcraft has been the focus of widespread controversy, denunciation and critique as a way of living and social phenomenon for centuries. In the state in India with the largest Adivasi Indigenous population, Jharkhand, the belief in witchcraft cannot be distinguished from native religiosity, tradition and rule. This has resulted in widespread persecution of women, the impact of which has been social ostracism, physical abuse and deprivation. This article is about the witchcraft phenomenon in Jharkhand, which involves judgement both psycho-legally and sociologically, where knowledge about witchcraft sways between condemnation, scepticism and cultural relativism. The social and historical context of belief in witchcraft in Jharkhand can be traced back to Indigenous animistic beliefs, where supernatural agencies are interpreted to be part and parcel of illness and bad luck. Colonial juridical imposition sought to go around or suppress such practices like superstition, irrespective of their socio-cultural significance. Post-colonial legal action like the Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act, 2001, has sought to criminalise witch-hunting but not to subvert the socio-economic and gendered structures upon which it is based. Thus, contravening the law, violence related to witchcraft occurs frequently and more so against vulnerable females like widows and women who are property/wealth holders. Judgement of witchcraft occurs at the community level, being an instrument of social control in reaction to inter-personal conflict, economic hardship or unforeseen events such as epidemics and crop loss. Witchhunting is gendered insofar as patriarchal states co-opt supernatural belief to exercise power and disproportionately accuse and victimise women. Government offices in the court system mostly fail to make effective interventions in native knowledge systems. Institutions decentre belief in witchcraft to superstition instead of situating them in their theological and social contexts. Feminist scholars demonstrate that witch-hunting is nothing more than an exercise of patriarchal domination, further projecting domination over women’s bodies and estates,5 and argue that cultural relativism should not be used as an excuse for violence in a gendered environment. Native activists, however, warn against foreign interventions that disrespect traditional law.