Comments on: Dangerous Dalit Women and Witch-Hunters

By: Widening the Prism « Ultra Violet

Widening the Prism « Ultra Violet — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:50:19 +0000

[...] slow to happen. It is important to recognise that women are affected in ways beyond gender alone. Remember the witch-hunting of Dalit women? This was the result of a dangerous cocktail — a casteist, hierarchical society together with [...]

By: prasant

prasant — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:32:54 +0000

i just recently read maheswata devi’s story ‘bayen’ . and now saw ur post. maybe a coincidence.

By: A choice between suicide or submission. « The Burning Times

A choice between suicide or submission. « The Burning Times — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:04:09 +0000

[...] an article highlighted in a comment on this blog by Apu of Cubically Challenged (thank you, Apu!) Dangerous Dalit Women and Witch Hunters, modern witchhunts taking place in India are exposed, examining the persecution of women in some [...]

By: Sravanthi. K

Sravanthi. K — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:24:17 +0000

Meena I am very happy that you wrote about this. I remember in class when we were discussing a case of possession depicted in Bama’s Sangati, my professor had something similar to say about possession and “witch hunts” (not to conflate the two), and how Dalit women (and men?) use the state of being possessed as a space from which they could critique caste Hindu patriarchy.

He was referring to instances of “possessed” Dalit women ridiculing/ critiquing caste landlords for their liaisons with various women etc, and this of course is more often than not followed by a very vehement back-lash in the form of witch hunts.

Thanks for throwing more light on the issue.

By: Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:38:01 +0000

May be, yes Charolette…

But Indian rural reality is quite divorced from the world outside, which is one reason why they can carry on such brazen acts. If it were just patriarchy, it would be easier to handle. Here it acquires casteist overtones, which means something that has to be condemned is left uncondemned because the affected women belong to the oppressed (perhaps, voiceless) castes

We should probably increase the law enforcing agencies.. and give local media attention..

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:32:54 +0000

That patriarchy is the fundamental cause of wichcraft hysteria is old news, what woud help is to know what anyone can do about it.
Passing more laws when the ones already in place are not enforced is an exercise in futility. Or nearly so, I guess it is better than not passing a law against this horrible practice, but it isn’t having any noticable effect. What can be done that will effect real change?

I suggest the women of India might try making public the names of men who have caused pain sufferring and/or death to a woman ..whether over witchcraft charges or some other reason.. post those names on the internet, along with their address.. perhaps the resulting international public censure would help.

By: ben from holland

ben from holland — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:48:39 +0000

with our pilgrim ancestors it was an excuse to kill a human that you don’t like.
trough unfair trail that kills them even if they where human or not.
and it evolved to a version of prair for those people

but i think its just the famine and the cataclysmic nature events that triggers this kind of behaviour.

even thou what i read here sounds like exactly like what people would do from 8.AD to the 18th.

poor women T_T

By: Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:29:23 +0000

Thanks for leaving the comment Jude…
What you say is absolutely true.. Looks like oppression the world over follows similar spine-chilling patterns..
And somehow, everytime, it is women who are at the receiveing end.

By: JadeWolf

JadeWolf — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:41:02 +0000

It’s really fascinating to me how witchcraft beliefs are such thinly veiled tools of the worldwide patriarchy. Reading your examples and analysis, I could hear my professor on the Salem (Massachusetts USA) witchcraft trials saying incredibly similar things. Carol Karlsen’s “Devil in the Shape of a Woman; Witchcraft in Colonial New England”:

P 101-2 Women in families without male heirs stood to inherit much more property than those in families with male heirs, making them “aberrations in a society with an inheritance system designed to keep property in the hands of men.” Women in this situation make up a sizeable majority of New England’s accused female witches and are more likely to be brought to trial, convicted, and executed than women whose families had male heirs.

P 180 Puritan ministers and authorities needed women to stop seeking their own satisfaction and goals and subsume themselves in helping their husband/father, and witchcraft persecution was one way to give graphic examples of what happens to self-aggrandizing women.

P 181 “people who did not accept their place in the social order were the very embodiments of evil. Disorderly women posed a greater threat than disorderly men because the male/female relation provided the very model of and for all hierarchical relations…”