Witch Hunting: A Grave Silence In India

Alisha Vidya Malto, LL.M (Criminology), Galgotias University

ABSTRACT

Our Nation has developed into an evolving culture that recognises basic liberties to freedom of speech, right to live a life of dignity, but it nevertheless maintains traditional and conservative values in its religious convictions and standards of conduct. The overwhelming majority of citizens, particularly living in countryside regions, have prejudices ingrained in their subconscious to the point where they contribute to the nation's oppressive social and religious traditions. As a result, there is now a sharp rise in the number of crimes perpetrated in the guise of religious beliefs. The practise of witch hunt is just one example of the inhumanity that emerged as a result of this stubborn ideological paradigm.

The ritual of witch-hunting is a horrific practice that involves tormenting women which are alleged to have performing witchcraft or other evil supernatural skills in an effort to save humankind. In spite of the fact that it is widely seen as a brutal practice, it still exists, particularly in India's rural regions. It stigmatises certain groups of people, frequently abandoned wives, childless women, old people, and women from disadvantaged backgrounds. Such unfortunate women are murdered, raped, and their personal property is often taken by men who identify as "witch-hunters" and used as a weapon of retaliation. Between 2000 and 2016, over two thousand women in the country were subjected to abuse and murdered during the aforementioned assaults especially in the surrounding the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar, according to Criminal Records Bureau.

This research paper attempts to examine the factors that contribute to its existence among villages of India as well as the underlying reasons and justifications. It attempts to put emphasis onto how the State laws on Witch- Hunting are unsuccessful in eliminating the despicable act and points out on the urgent requirement to establish Unified Regulation for preventing the same.

We have to contend with, therefore, an imminent danger to the liberation of women in Indian society. One of the primary goals of the present research are in determining the aspects underlying witch-hunts, the essence of evil practices, and for offering a few recommendations for eliminating such acts.

Keywords: witchcraft, witch-hunts, brutality, law, female emancipation, and culture.