Voodoo is a bad thing people in our country do because of their religious beliefs. In the villages of our country, it is common to take someone to a Tantric Baba or Witch Doctor if they start acting strangely or show signs of mental illness. This is done instead of taking them to a psychiatric hospital. Lady is said to know a lot about Occult Arts and Voodoo.
In the modern world, Psychiatric Science has come a long way. Experts, scientists, and even the law all agree on the ideas of mental health and mental illness. People who could get help for their mental health from experts, psychiatrists, and doctors don’t get it. Instead, they go to frauds and “Witch Doctors” who say they can perform exorcisms to cure the disease magically.
The Problem: Broken Down Case
People in villages don’t know much about mental health, which cannot be shown with accurate and confirmed data. It’s important to remember that this doesn’t fit into the four walls of any one religion. Every religion, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and other local beliefs, supports this blatant disregard for mental health and human rights. People are turning to fraudsters, Witch Hunters, and Witch Doctors more and more for help because they can’t read or write, and there aren’t any medical facilities nearby.
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I will give some recent examples to show why my point is valid. It’s also significant to note that most of these cases don’t get reported, so all we hear about in the news is the tip of the iceberg or the most extreme ones.
A thirty-year-old woman was killed in Jharkhand because people thought she was a witch. Witch hunts happen a lot in the state of Jharkhand. This is the 12th case that has been found so far this year.
Exorcism Led To Death Case.
Another exorcism-related death happened in Telangana, where a 24-year-old girl was beaten for three days by a man hired by a family member. Lady was taken to the clinic but later died from her injuries.
One of the most recent cases that have come to the attention of the Orissa High Court is the killing of a woman while trying to get rid of a supposed demon inside her. The Orissa High Court looked at a bail request from one of the accused, the brother of the person who died, and turned it down because these cases are so severe. The court saw that the petitioner pretends to be a Witch Doctor and does exorcisms on people who are said to be possessed.
This threat is not just about mental illness. Two kids who snake bit recently went to snake charmers instead of the hospital, where the Ojhas told the parents to bury the kids in cow dung. The kids died, but the Ojha’s were not punished.
In another case, State of West Bengal v. Kali Singh and others, three women were killed because people thought they were Witches. In this case, about 50 men went to the victim’s home and demanded that they pay 60,000 rupees as a fine for witchcraft. If the three women didn’t pay, they were taken to the river, killed, and buried. In this case, one Hon’ble Judge decided that the death sentence should be changed to a life sentence because the accused were blinded by superstitious beliefs and were from the Scheduled Tribe community.
Case What Happens
Mental trauma and physical pain caused by witch doctors or the public, lynching attempts by an angry crowd (also called “witch hunting”), and fraud and stealing money from the victim and the victim’s family in the name of religion.
There are witch doctors who use exorcisms to get rid of evil spirits from people who are said to be possessed. In a recent case, this sneaky practice of exorcism caused the deaths of two young children, ages 4 and 6.
To stop Witch Hunting from being harmful, State Governments have passed laws that make it illegal to do horrible, evil things to women, children, and sometimes even men. States like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Assam, and Jharkhand have passed laws to fight superstition and reduce crime.
Even though these laws help people in specific situations, they do not eliminate societal evil. Also, there is no consistency in how the crime is punished or the sentence. In the law passed in Karnataka, the punishment is more than one year and can go up to seven years. In Bihar, some crimes are punished with as little as six months. Aside from that, there are other problems with state laws, such as that some acts are punishable in a few states but not in others and that there is no uniform appeal for awareness campaigns or schemes, among other things.
These laws also don’t cover enough. The rules must not only punish this disgusting behavior after it happens but also stop it from an incident in the first place by giving the victim a way out. This is where the mental health factor comes into play.
