On the night of July 6, at Tetgama village in Purnia district of Bihar, five members of a family, three of them women, were mercilessly beaten and burnt alive. The alleged reason: witchcraft.
In today’s India, branding a woman as a witch may seem like a throwback to a bygone era. However, news from the States such as Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Assam says otherwise: women are still harassed, ostracised, and killed in the name of witchcraft. The methods are often brutal.
The practice of hunting down and publicly lynching women accused of witchcraft is not just a freak occurrence; it is a systemic part of India’s social landscape, driven by not just by superstition but also gendered violence, which is deeply embedded in structures of patriarchy, caste, poverty, and fear. Over 2,500 women have been killed on charges of witchcraft since 2000, show National Crime Records Bureau figures.
Gendered social construct
The accusations of witchcraft are not made randomly. They fall heavily on women, especially those widowed, elderly, single or otherwise socially isolated. It’s not out of any genuine belief in their magical powers that these women are accused, but because they are an obstacle to male inheritance, land ownership, or community conformity. The allegation of witchcraft is put to a new-found effective use to repress and punish.
Labelling a woman as a “witch” serves a social function; it maintains gender roles, and it punishes those who defy them. It’s usually outspoken, independent or dismissive women who are the initial scapegoats. The stigma surrounding those accusations is a life sentence for many and a death sentence for some. This pattern reveals witch-hunting as not a deviation, but an extension of gendered violence. Just as domestic violence, rape, and dowry-related murder, witch branding is a tool of oppression, rooted in social psyche.
Fuelled by other social ills
Witchcraft accusations are common in areas where poverty, illiteracy, and poor health facilities cast a shadow. In such contexts, there is frequently a tendency to attribute supernatural effects to unexplained deaths of livestock, illness or natural events. Without education or medical care, the notion of someone with dark powers working from within only seems, tragically, plausible. And the structural violence of state neglect, dilapidated infrastructure, empty classrooms, and abandoned health services amplifies the appeal of magical explanations.
This is reminiscent of Auguste Comte’s sociological notion of the “theological stage”, in which human perceptions of the world are shaded by superstition and religious interpretations, in opposition to the rational-scientific mode of thinking. It is no accident that witch-hunting is most prevalent in regions where the state has not provided basic services. Without access to healthcare, even a simple fever or prolonged illness becomes fertile ground for fear, blame, and vengeance.
Caste and patriarchy are intertwined dynamics in rural and tribal India, and both contribute significantly to the perpetuation of witchcraft narratives. The accusations (and attacks) disproportionately target lower-caste and tribal women, and often come at the hands of dominant-caste members who are looking to maintain social hierarchies. In most tribal areas, it is the “shaman” who has dominated their spiritual beliefs. Land disputes, personal rivalries, or vendettas often take the form of witchcraft allegations shielded by cultural legitimacy but driven by political or economic motives.
The scapegoats in this spectre of power are women, and in particular women who do not have family protection, social capital, or financial means. If accused, they are put under social boycott, tortured or even killed. In most cases, it is whole communities which engage in the violence, shedding light on the deeply rooted and socially accepted nature of these behaviours. Tribal beliefs are commonly depicted as the culprit in witchcraft accusations; however, this perspective is a gross oversimplification.
Traditional tribal cosmologies include healers, spirits and spiritual beliefs that have coexisted with the communal way of life. Yet those belief systems are today being distorted by new pressures to modernise, to migrate, to be dispossessed of land and to be exploited politically. Where there once existed a system of reciprocal faith, community and redress, there is now a tool wielded by the powerful landlords, village heads, or family members with vested property interests to further disempower women and stifle dissent. The cultural sacredness of these practices is, therefore, appropriated, not conserved. Understanding this transformation is critical. It allows us to shift the conversation from blaming tribal traditions to interrogating how power and patriarchy distort and weaponise culture for violence.
Need for grassroots change
Convictions in witchcraft cases are few and far between, despite legal interventions, including the introduction of State-level anti-witch-hunting laws in Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Assam. Law enforcers commonly treat such cases as “local issues” or “cultural practices”. There is no support, no rehabilitation, no justice for the survivors. The lack of implementation reflects not only administrative apathy but also a deeper failure of political will. In many cases, local authorities fear backlash or are themselves complicit. Laws, after all, are just paper protections when there is no sustained grassroots mobilisation and institution-wide buy-in.
India needs a comprehensive approach that involves legal enforcement as well as education, better access to healthcare, community mobilisation, and sensitising the police and the judiciary. To address it as a form of gender-based violence, however, it requires political accountability and a continuing public conversation about witch-hunting and superstition.
Empathy, education, structural justice
It is a blot on a society boasting scientific temper and constitutionalism that witch-hunting continues to exist in India. It is not about isolated belief systems or backward cultures, but about how power functions through gender, caste and class. Empathy, education and awareness are key, but they must be met with structural overhauls. Policies have to be developed through an intersectional lens that recognises how different vulnerabilities of gender, caste, and economic status compound each other to place people in the most extreme of risk.
India needs to stop treating witchcraft accusations as some exotic or countryside phenomenon and start seeing them for what they are: a violent manifestation of patriarchy and a symptom of state failure. As academics and students, as citizens, we must amplify the voices of survivors and campaign for a more just and humane society where no woman should fear being branded a witch.
Jisu Ketan Pattanaik is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, and Sumit Kumar Singh is a Research Assistant and student at the National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi