Villagers in the hamlets that dot the Sonebhadra district of India`s northern Uttar Pradesh have hit upon a
novel way of routing out the witch doctors who routinely
fleece them.
Written By Miscellaneous|Last Updated: Mar 30, 2007, 12:00 AM IST|Source: Exclusive
Nagwa Village, Sonebhadra: Villagers in the hamlets that dot the Sonebhadra district of India's northern Uttar Pradesh have hit upon a
novel way of routing out the witch doctors who routinely
fleece them.
They send their children to the witchcraft training schools
run by the village council in the public squares.
What they get in return may not exactly emulate Harry
Potter and his fellow wizards training at Hogwarts but a
homegrown doctor who wards off evil spirits and illnesses
by conducting the rituals at home.
Vinod Kumar, a teenaged tribal boy from the Nagwa village
who was trained under a witchcraft teacher now routinely
administers such rituals at home.
Whenever his father or grandfather is ill, Vinod Kumar sits
down with his pail of holy water and flowers and chants the
ghosts away while applying the 'sacred' water to his
patients' forehead like a balm.
Before Vinod Kumar mastered this ability to do-it-yourself,
his family had spent thousands of Indian Rupees that they
could ill afford, to pay off the local village doctor
called Ojha. The Ojha would demand the sacrifice of a goat,
or loads of money and gifts in return for his work.
But the Nagwa village is not a case in time as all the
villages in the backward tribal belt of Sonebhadra come
under the grip of the witchdoctor teachers.
In the Sukhani village that borders the slightly affluent
Roberts Ganj in the same district (Sonebhadra), the
villagers hold open-air classes in the village square where
masters of the witchcraft teach through
demonstrations.
Dangerous rituals like lighting fire on a piece of cloth
placed atop a small girl's head while whispering
meaningless mumbo jumbo are routinely done as is self
mortification with heavy iron link-chains.
Lallan Singh Patel who trains young boys to become their
family's witchdoctors is sure that their work is helping
combat the dominance of the lot who had grown averse to
people's suffering.
"Everyone should learn this art and benefit. We impart
training to those who are ready to learn. Other
non-believer boys who would rather scoff at the fact than
learn can stay away. We get inundated with students who
come to us after being enlightened by encounters with the
netherworld while still in their homes," said Patel.
Thankfully, there are people like Dharmendra Kumar Raju who
work relentlessly to educate the hapless tribals about the
ill-effects of their so-called schools.
But Raju blames lack of basic health care facilities for
the fostering of the evil. When the government-run health
units are either too far or not staffed at all, one can't
blame the hapless villagers for turning to these quacks.
"The poverty ridden villagers have no basic amenities of
health care to turn to in times of medical emergencies and
so turn to the age-old methods of trying to ward off the
spirits or evil eye that has been cast upon them. The
superstitions are so deep-rooted in the psyche of these
villagers that despite efforts to uproot the beliefs and to
educate them, we have not been very successful. Many such
witchcraft training classes run here," said Raju.
Activists who are trying to educate people about
superstition say it's the environment one grows up in
that's usually responsible while others are looking for
avenues to overcome stress in adversity.
In India's rural areas superstition is quite prevalent and
villagers believe in exorcism more than medical treatment.
While most god men restrict themselves to relatively
harmless fraud, others get caught up in much more sinister
affairs, including human sacrifice to appease "evil
spirits."
Hundreds every year either die undergoing the bizarre
beatings and fasting or lose their mental balance due to
severe torture.
Bureau Report
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