Essay --

Somewhere in August last year, around the date when anti-superstition social reformer NarendraDhaborkar was killed, two women were killed in a remote village in Assams Kokrajhar district by villagers who suspected them of practising witchcraft.A 70-year-old woman and her 42-year-old daughter-in-law were killed by a large number of village women, who accused the duo of practising witchcraft in June 2013 in Ranchi.A 50-year-old womanFuloTopono and her 30-year-old daughter Suggidaughter were hacked to death in Khunti district in Ranchi in November 2013 for allegedly practising witchcraft.These are just few examples which found a mention in the English newspapers of our country. Of late the branding of women as witches and subjecting them to dreadful and irrational torture has been on a rise. The juxtaposition of this practise twine with superstition with the rapid modernisation in the rest of the country and the proficient progress is hair-raising. A National Crime Records Bureau re port quotes that a total of 1,157 women have been killed for witchcraft in Jharkhand between 1991 and ...