About 60 years ago, the great freedom fighters of India had fought a ferocious battle to the extent of sacrificing their lives to free India from the British rule. When Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his speech on the Red Fort at the stroke of midnight on 15th August, 1947 he along with others had dreamt of building a country that would see its citizens independent and educated. However, the situation after all these years has remained almost unchanged. Though the literacy rate has only risen post-independence the story of the villages is unmentionable. The villages, instead of progressing being independent have only lagged behind caught in the shackles of superstitions and witchcraft.
India is, as we know, the country of villages with the maximum population living in villages. But, the facilities that these village dwellers receive are not even a fraction of what those in the metros do. The educational institutions in these villages just exist for the namesake and the number of children attending them is quite low. Due to lack of secondary education the children drop out after primary education, if they are privileged to have received it. The witch doctors have found a strong foothold due to the lack of enough medical facilities to these villagers. These factors have led to the development and proliferation of superstitions. The uneducated villagers are more susceptible in falling prey to baseless superstitions. The superstitions narrate a horror story of what can the human psyche imagine and believe. The widows or single women are the most victimized being termed as ‘witches’ or ‘sorceress’ and tortured to death as a punishment for their evil deeds.
These rumors are usually initiated by those wanting revenge from the victim concerned. The tortures are horrible in nature with the woman being tied to the tree and then being burned to death or paraded naked around the village or tonsuring head. The evil of human sacrifice still continues with many women sacrificing lives to get a baby themselves. The caste system, though almost obsolete in the metros of India is still very prevalent in the villages where the Dalits are not allowed in the temple premises and considered as ‘untouchables’. All these incidents only narrate a story of ignorance and bind faith of which the tantriks and the witch doctors take advantage for their monetary gains, in the process leading or rather misleading India to further doom. These incidents put a developing country of India to shame and despite the progress that India boasts of it is these obnoxious incidents that holds back its development.
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