The Practice of Witch Hunting

The sun was a dark pink as it rose this morning.  I watched it from my yoga mat on the roof top seventh floor.  The assortment of machines were still sleeping and memories of roof top yoga across India, Nepal and Palestine all came flooding back, rolled into one dusty memory of stillness amidst the madness of the day which was always seems to rise with surya. My mat was held down by random bits of metal as the morning breeze whisked dirt and non-descript smells over me.  A two hour practice through arm balances, hand stands, standing poses, twists, forward folds and mudras.  Its days like these that I am so grateful for my practice. Days like these which remind me why I not only began this journey into Yoga but also began to share it.  Pre-dawn is a magical time.  It’s my solo time to explore movement within one place, to focus, to breathe, to prepare – in silence.  Several times I caught the mechanic attempting to watch from the corner, yet he was shy and for this I was doubly thankful.

Breakfast was extravagant.  A buffet which an eager waiter walked me through.  There was enough to serve the whole of Howrah train station.  I took a plate of papaya, feeling guilty for disappointing him and guilty knowing the amount of good food wasted on those who likely had never experienced what it was to be truly hungry.

The driver arrived in his huge jeep, both vehicle and man tired from a lifetime of driving through traffic and over broken roads.  His horn was pressed for most of the journey, despite the requests from the team that it was useless.  He wasn’t taking any risks, besides it was part of the daily theme tune, which every other car, bus, bike and rickshaw orchestrated.  I smiled as Urmi chastised him for having no insurance.  The horn was his insurance.  We drove for much further than I had anticipated, through Ranchi and out the other side.  Concrete buildings turned to brick and corrugated iron which made way for open dry and dusty fields.  Tribal life came to life.  Baby goats tottered through the traffic, along with stray dogs and kamikaze pedestrians.  Eventually we turned down a partially existing road and parked outside Asha – a local organization opened a decade earlier in service of the children of migrant workers, persecuted and displaced.  Our welcome was humbling.  Two lines consisting of the Asha staff waited to give us tikka and throw rice over us. The building was beautiful.  Simple, with an open court yard and lined with potted plants and hanging baskets.  In Indian style painted in bright colours, which a friend had earlier commented was most likely chosen depending on what paint was on sale at the time of construction.

As is customary in any part of India we were given sugar saturated chai and seated down under the shade of a bael tree.  Our host explained a little of the history of Asha and his own personal involvement in our project.  Mass bonded labour is very much still alive and kicking all over Asia and here is no exception.  Smart and unscrupulous men visit rural villages.  Workers are offered a 5,000 rupee advance and are then taken to the outskirts of Kolkata to work in the coal mines, steel factories and the brick industry.  Their “advance” comes with huge interest which the workers then spend generations paying off.  The kids go along for the ride, and are often given the most dangerous jobs, yet of course child labour is illegal.  Therefore all that Asha did was visit the factories and take the children away threatening to bring in the police if the owners didn’t comply.  Initially, Asha simply provided a makeshift school inside on the factory premises and then eventually managed to move the children (around 150 so far) away from the site where they now attend local schools during the day and have a safe home with adequate food and support for eight months of the year.  When the parents return home for the wet season they are free to go.  Many of the 89 children who currently live at Asha prefer to stay at the centre all year round.  Asha’s projects have rapidly expanded and promoted by our hosts own personal story this has included work with the witch hunt.

The founder of Asha is only too aware of the social consequences of being branded as a witch.  His own grandmother had suffered such a fate.  As a result his mother grew up tormented and discriminated as the daughter of an outcast.  Now the history of witchery runs deep.  Like in all cultures around the world powerful women – medicine women, wise women, women who were considered “special” have been feared.  In England women accused of sorcery were weighted down with stones and thrown into the river.  If they floated they were innocent, if not...their fate was sealed.  Women have been burnt at the stake, hung, humiliated and taunted to death.  Here in Jharkhand five women were slaughtered on the 9^th August 2015 in five different villages.  Often stoned to death.  Often times it is because the women are widowed, disfigured, or have valuable land covered by their neighbors.  What’s more is that wizardy is still common.  Villagers with problems such as ill health or failing crops would visit the wizard for a solution.  A typical “solution” is for the wizard to describe a local woman as a scapegoat and she is then deemed responsible for the spell and a vigilante team gather and punish her.  Other women have been declared a witch if a child dies (she must have eaten it) or another member of the family.  

Although the practice is illegal the local police often fear to interfere with the wizard’s decree.  Her life will never be the same again.  Asha works both directly with the women and more importantly with the villagers to educate them on the practice and open their ideas to the immorality.  One of the social workers at Asha (a wonderful young woman from Darjeeling) explains that attitudes are hard to change.  The belief in witches is a powerful superstition: “People’s mind’s don’t change”.  However, no matter what great work we do over the next four days to uplift, inspire and support the women on their way to meet us, without a radical shift towards compassion and wisdom from their villages little in their external reality is likely to change.

I have no idea what to expect.