Witch-hunts: Atrocities From Past And Present-Day India

Words by Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel

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In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on the product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single color background. They conveyed a sense of power and safety – basically, what travellers were supposed to feel boarding liners and trains and visiting new destinations. (Available as print)

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Witch-hunts: Atrocities from past and present-day India

In India, witch hunts remain rampant- both as superstition and a tool of oppression against marginalized women.

“I used to dream about the time I had dignity in my life,” frail-looking Anaben Pawar says in the early scenes of the short documentary film “Testimony of Ana”. “I also have nightmares about the time they stole my dignity,” she continues. 

Anaben is one of the thousands of women who have suffered torture and in many cases lynchings after being accused of witchcraft in India. According to the country’s National Crime Bureau, there were 1500 murders related to witchcraft accusations between 2010 and 2021. But these are just the cases that were reported and accounted for. The actual scale of casualties caused by this superstition is likely to be much greater than is enumerated in state and private documents. 

In 2022, I traveled to Kenya - to investigate an ACLED report that noted a significant rise in witch-hunts in Africa for The Economist. I found that more often than not, accusing someone of being a witch was a way of settling scores amongst disgruntled neighbors, a way to grab property from unwieldy family members, and a threat that would get contrarians to tie a societal line.