In this chapter and the next, we concentrate on examples from our case studies to illustrate both the types of witch persecutions and successful or failed attempts to survive those attacks. Most often, the accounts are as told by the survivors themselves or, in some cases of murder of the accused witch, by a surviving family member. In the literature, other than in reports by human rights organization, little attention is paid to the brutal, demeaning, and murderous ways in which witch persecutions are carried out. These two chapters aim to correct this imbalance and bring the violence of witch hunts into scholarly discussions.

Witch violence involves denouncing women as witches, mostly after a witch finder (called ojha in some parts of central India) identifies a woman as a witch. The woman who is identified as a witch is subject to varying forms of torture and humiliation such as beatings, burning of body parts, being forced to drink urine and eat human excrement, rape, insertion of sharp metallic or wooden objects in her vagina, cutting of body parts such as nose and fingers, pulling out teeth and hair, and even killing by beheading. In most cases, such violence is committed in the presence of the village community, including community elders. It is a public event, such as that seen in the cover photograph of a recent (1998) witch hunting ritual in Kondagaon in the state of Chhattisgarh.

The incidence of witch killings

Since 2001, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has been recording witch accusations as the motive for murder. According to its data (see Table 3.1), a total of 2,468 murders were committed between 2001 and 2016, where witch accusation and persecution were recorded as the motive. In 2016, 134 persons were killed for supposedly practising witchcraft and accused of causing harm to an individual, a family, or a community.

It is to be noted that the NCRB data are likely to be an underestimate of the situation. Instances of witch killing could well be listed under other categories, such as property disputes or personal vendettas. Nevertheless, the numbers of witch-related killings are non-trivial. The period 2001–12 averaged 168 witch murders nationwide per year, with a range from 114 murders in 2004 to 242 murders in 2011.