Paying the price in the name of WITCHES
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| Our media is also replete with the news of women beaten up for practicing witchcraft. There are many villages in the country where the light of education has not reached and the people are under the impression of superstition. Image credit: bit.ly/3rWpGio. |
Paying the price in the name of WITCHES…
LB ThapaNepalese women are still suffering from several discriminatory practices. In fact, law has guaranteed them equal rights, but such laws are only limited to the books. They are tortured, harassed, dragged, raped, and sometimes even beaten to death on various charges, one being witchcraft.
This is the 21st century, and the world has taken a quantum leap of development. But most unfortunately, there are still a lot of people in our country who live with the belief that there are spirits, ghosts, and witches. In fact, modern science does not believe in sorcery.
Our media is also replete with the news of women beaten up for practicing witchcraft. There are many villages in the country where the light of education has not reached and the people are under the impression of superstition. Quite often old, weak, and single women are targeted and blamed for practicing witchcraft. Such women are unable to defend themselves and become an easy object to be tortured by the villagers.
Sometimes the alleged witches are forced to eat even human excreta. On many occasions, the frustrated mob turned violent and took the lives of the victims. Now and then the media reports such embarrassing news. It highlights the gravity of the problem that demands urgent action without further delay. It is truly unfortunate that there are people who still continue to engage in medieval practices. Despite much hue and cry, the concerned authority has still not woken up from slumber.
In the recent past, Suk Bahadur Saru, 51, a local resident of Mityal VDC Palpa, was accused of practicing witchcraft and troubling local people and their livestock. The local village court did also confirm his crime. Then what! The crowd lynched the man to death. Later, Suk Bahadur Saru's body was thrown from a cliff to conceal the crime.
In another incident, Dik Bahadur Bhujel of Karmaiya VDC, Sarlahi, killed Goma Devi Singdali, 70, and Ratna Maya Subedi, 60. He killed them with a large knife, thinking the spell made him suffer from a stomach pain that lasted for three weeks. It sounds ridiculous, but it is true.
Here is yet another shocking revelation. This incident took place sometime ago in Simardahi, where the then VDC president, Nawal Kishore Sahani, hired Ram Kripal Pandit (an Indian national) and asked him to identify witches in his village. Sahani decreed all village women to assemble at one place for the witch identification parade. Meanwhile, some clever villagers smelled a rat with Sahani's intention. They stood against Sahnai and asked him to release their wives, or they would inform the police. Hence, the idea of parading women for the identification of witches was dropped.
It is even more shocking when such incidents happen in the heart of Kathmandu, the capital city. Saraswati Adhikari, 27, living in Maitidevi, Kathmandu, was tortured together by a shaman and her husband, who thought of her as a witch. They flogged her so badly that by the time she was brought to Bir Hospital, she was almost dead. Eventually she breathed her last before she was taken to the ICU.
Such inhuman activities are of course the result of illiteracy, superstition, and poverty. On top of that, weak law enforcement is also responsible to a great degree. Had these perpetrators been afraid of the legal punishment, they would have never executed such a heinous act against women. The first thing is that Nepali law against such offenders is very weak. Moreover, whatever legal protection is provided by the laws, they are merely confined within the law book, never adequately implemented.
Many psychologists have made it clear that ghosts and spirits exist only in the minds of sick people. They do not exist in real life. Dr. Biswombandhu Sharma, Nepal's leading psychologist, has said that only people who are mentally weak believe in the spirits and ghosts. Such stuff is the creation of a weak mind. A healthy brain is strong and doesn't come under any such influence. "When a person experiences stress and suppresses many unfulfilled desires for a long time, such a brain is susceptible to certain mental illnesses," added Sharma.
In many rural areas where people live below the poverty line, they relate physical ailments to spirits and ghosts. These people alone cannot be blamed for following shamanic treatment. The reality is that due to the absence of a proper medical facility, a shamanic treatment is the only cheap and easily available remedy for the problem.
For shamans these poor village people are easy targets. They perform some simple tricks to make them believe in ghosts, spirits, and demons. Once a patient’s family members believe that the cause of the misery is due to a spirit or a ghost, now begins the treatment. For many shamans, shamanic practice has been an easy way to make a living in rural areas where most people are illiterate.
It is noticed that mental-related illnesses mostly attack those women who are physically and mentally weaker. It is advised that whenever such women exhibit any hysteric convulsion, they should be taken to a hospital for proper treatment, but not to a shaman. A qualified psychiatrist takes care of such mental cases. A regular treatment and family support can soon make the patient strong enough to fight back the weaknesses. But if time is wasted by taking the patient to a shaman, the illness will only turn from bad to worse. So, before it is too late, the patient must receive proper medical attention for a period of time. The family members of the patient must have patience, because a recovery from mental illness takes time.
The strange fact is why only women are blamed for being witches and not men. Well, it is quite simple to understand. Women are weak and helpless. That’s why they become easy targets. And if the woman is a widow or abandoned by her husband, she becomes even more vulnerable. How easy it is to blame a woman for practicing witchcraft and how the masses can be swayed against her.
Most of the violent cases of witchcraft have been reported from Mahotari, Dhanusa, and Sarlahi. Perhaps many people don't know about a temple called Son Mai Temple. It lies in Jaleswor, the district headquarters of Mahottari. Local people say that every year witches and spirits converge there in large numbers. This is a kind of annual get-together of all witches and spirits. The local authority must discourage the people from cultivating such a kind of thing, which is based on superstition.
In fact, ignorance, superstition, illiteracy, and poverty are responsible for encouraging the cases of witchcraft against women at large, but at the same time, weak legal enforcement is also responsible for spreading violence against women. To deal with such cases efficiently, the country should have stringent laws against the perpetrators. Then strict implementation of the law is even more important.
Only making harsh laws is not enough unless they are strictly enforced. If the perpetrators are dealt with by harsh legal enforcement, other miscreants will think twice before committing a crime of this nature. Woman empowerment is not possible unless violence against them is completely eradicated from our society.
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| LB Thapa is the publisher and editor of The Hemingway Post, a literary magazine. |
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