The Status of women in a society is a significant reflection of the level of social justice in that society. Women's status is often described in terms of their level of income, employment, education, health and fertility as well as the roles they play within the family, the community and society. The Constitution of India guarantees equality of opportunity and status to men and women. It directs that women shall not only have equal rights and privileges with men but also that the State shall make provision-both general and special for the welfare of women.


Notwithstanding the above Constitutional guarantee it is known to all, that women as a class have been subjected to deprivation, brutality and extortion in India. In other words, women who are nearly half the population suffer from many social and economic disadvantages. Culturally also their roles are ill defined for public participation.


The increasing number of incidences being reported in the press and at other forums regarding offences against women especially rape, molestation, dowry violence, wife-beating, alcoholism, eve-teasing etc. is a matter of great concern. and a matter of greater concern is the fact that a higher number of such crimes against women, still go unreported. It is felt that such offences are not merely a problem of law enforcement but are also indicative of the disabilities and inequalities from which the women in our country continue to suffer, despite the Constitutional provisions for equality, social Justice and protection of women.


The increase in the stress on women's emancipation without corresponding changes in social attitudes and institutions sometimes lead to women being subjected to various types of hostile reactions and aggressive postures. Most of the disabilities and constraints on women arise from socio-cultural institutions. The traditional social structure, cultural norms and value systems continue to place Indian women in a situation of disadvantages in terms of role relationship, decision-making and sharing of responsibility. Their social status is still shrouded by a variety of institutional complexes, connection and myths, while there is undoubtedly a much greater awareness of the need to release them from their dependent and unequal status in society, the realization of the goals as enshrined in the Constitution of India is still a far cry. Even the social laws that seek to mitigate the problems of women remain largely unknown. As a result, Indian women when found in distress are much more insecure, socially and morally, than men in similar circumstances.


It is in this background that we need to introduce and discuss the issue in hand, i.e. Dayan pratha or witchcraft, a less known, less discussed, but a highly perpetrated crime against women, peculiar in nature and evil in form.


One of the most disturbing and least resisted forms of gender violence we encounter in our times centers around witch-hunts and witch-trials being conducted in certain parts of the country. Asymmetrical social and economic development targets vulnerable women, oftem widows, as symbols of collective anger and thwarted aspirations. Media reports record these witch-hunts with monotonous regularity. Women accused of sorcery are humiliated, humbled and destroyed. Sometimes they are burnt to death. The option of survival is even worse. They are usually invisible and silent, helpless before these attacks.


The evil spirit is called by various names: dayyam is Telugu, pischacha in Kannada, Dakin in Gujarati and Malwi and dayan in Hindi. There is a clear gender bias in the beliefs about possession. Women cannot be trusted, because they can acquire an evil eye. For instance, the tribals of Panchmahals, Gujarat, scrutinize the credentials of the mother-in-law before marriage. If she is a Dakin, that family is disqualified.


Who then is a dakin? The dakin is an invisible tormentor who visits the woman's body, ravages her with distress and disease and leaves only when appeased. A woman's repressed individuality and sexuality, in a patriarchal context, often leads to behaviour chracteristic of a visitation form the Devi or Dakin. Also the woman who is seen to break society's norms (doing her own dance'), tends to get labeled a Dakin.


Closely related to the Dakin is the idea of the churail, the unsatisfied ghost of a woman who dies at childbirth. Term churail, in popular usage in North India, has become a metaphor for the woman who dares to deviates from the patriarchal norm. Over the centuries an elaborate raisond' etre has been built around the churail whose one major function appears to be to take the blame for the high rates of infant, maternal and neonatal mortality and stillbirths. Ritual acts of omission, and occasionally commission, are seen to invite the dance of the churail.Non- standard expressions of male and female sexuality are also attributed, sometimes too conveniently, to churail.


The word daya, referring to a female witch, has its etymological origin in Diana, the huntress- goddess of ancient Greece. Centuries ago the process of acculturation after Alexander's forays brought them as Daina and Hecate to ancient India, where they were assimilated into the local folklore.


In the beginning, God was a woman. The traditions of the mother religions were inexorably marginalized by the male Brahminical system, yet survived in the practices of the Shaktaworshippers and the Yogini cults. Women adepts with mystical powers were kown as Yakinis or Dakinis. While may of the female divinitied were co-opted and appropriated into the masculine pantheon, pockets of mother worship and a deep residual respect for the feminine principle remained in both theory and practice.


In our times, the social traumas accompanying these moments of accelerated change have led to polarization and gender hostility. It is always easy and convenient to hate, and the alarming proliferation of witch-hunts and witch-trials needs attention, understanding.


The murder of women in the name of witchcraft is enough to stun the modern mind. The killing, lynching, decapitation, or hacking of women labeled as witches of dayans, my seem


a tribal aberrations, but it as a fact that these crimes against women find sanction even in this day and age, what is worse, are deemed heroic.


These crimes have been subjected to various interpretations, some see them as a gender conflict, others regard them as a tussle between those who believe in witchcraft and those who do not. The tribals hate and resist any interference from outside on this issue. This clearlyreflects the influence of some of the powerful groups in the tribal villages who do not want such matters to come under public scrutiny. How else would the pradhans (the headmen), the ojhas (the witch doctors), and the purohits (priests) grab money, land, and property under the garb of witch-hunting and killing of innocent women labeled as witches. Also, in myriad villages in the country, there are "witch doctors", most of them wearing a frightening and menacing look who claim to possess divine powers to exorcise evil spirits and ghosts lurking in " afficted" men and women.


Among the tribals, women have been accused of practicing black magic sine time immemorial.they are accused of harbouring evil powers that would wipe out thers on whom whey pouredtheir evil power. Once branded witches, these women who actually lived in abject poverty wee remorsely hunted down, and various brutalities were inflicted upon them, quite often they were "sentenced to death" by mock courts thereby lynching them in public or excommunicating them.


However, there is no denying the genuine terror associated with witchcraft. The tribals truly believe in the existence of evil Spirits that are constantly at work spoiling life and property. To make maters worse witch doctors project themselves as godfathers-the only saviours-who can protect the tribe from the wrath of the witches. The result is that tribal men and women submit to all the demands of the Ojhas suppolying them with rice, chickens, goats, and local brew, to granting sexual favours.


The prejudices against witches along with the witchdoctors' -increasing demands have made the lives of tribal and non-tribal women especially the old and widowd, a living hell. Widowed women, who have been left with property, also become targets of jealousy within their peergroup.


A number of so-called witches admit that it is not the fear of death that naunts them a much as the manner in which they are hunted down. What pains them most is that many a time, their own kith and kin are the witch-hunters.


Fear of being forced to parade naked as the entire village looks on.
Fear of being gang-raped or sexually harmed in some other way.
Fear of being tonsured or being visited by some other form of bodily harm.
Fear of being forced to offer pinddaan )a tribute ot the dead, especially parents ndancestors) ' being drenched with urince and human excreta; being forced to eat human flesh the raw blood of freshly slaughtered animals.
Dread of being hapless witness to the murder of their family members and being victimized without any hope of rescue.


These victims also know that they cannot expect the police or the local administration to help Death scares them less. It is living under a cloud of continuous terror that leaves a thousand scars, each telling its own dreadful story. It is a terror that does not end with a single death sentence, but continuses to haunt them like a recurring nightmare. The dastardly crime of witch-hunting jcontinues unchecked.


Shamsher Alam
Executive Director
PHOOLEEN

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