[Assam] Ojhas on the run -Bahrain Tribune/Reuters

[Ram Sarangapani]

*"Sometimes when passions run especially high, villagers set up kangaroo
courts and sentence ojhas to death, police say. " - Reuters*

Salem?

--Ram


http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?CategoryId=3&ArticleId=123951

UTTARKUCHI, Assam (Reuters)
Witch docs who awed villagers live in fear now

With a traditional woven cloth covering her hair, elaborate jewellery and a
red mark on her forehead signifying her married status, Dimbeswari Bhattarai
looks like any other woman in this corner of isolated northeast India.
But Bhattarai, 62, is far from ordinary.
She claims to possess special powers which enable her to cure diseases,
predict the future and drive away evil spirits. Bhattarai is a witch doctor,
or ojha, as the tribal people of Assam state call them.
Ojhas are figures of awe, fear, and suspicion among the illiterate village
people living in remote areas of the state.
But now the tables have turned and it is Bhattarai who is living in fear in
her village of Uttarkuchi after more than a dozen killings of ojhas in Assam
over the past few months. Police say that around 300 people have been killed
in the state in the past five years for allegedly practising witchcraft. The
killers are believed to be dissatisfied customers who believed the ojhas'
potions or spells did not work.
"These days, after the recent killings, I am scared. But I have decided to
continue practising even if it means death," she said in her village mud
house built on the edge of a forest, 80 km north of the state capital,
Dispur. Her neighbours say they don't believe in her powers. They recall an
incident in which residents of two nearby villages came to blows after she
made a wrong prediction. "We have lots of such ojhas here. But their claims
are very hard to believe. A handful of us know they are fooling people and
sooner or later they have to face the music," said Nakul Chandra Boro, a
local schoolteacher.
Many villagers turn to ojhas to cure diseases such as malaria, jaundice and
pneumonia which are widespread in the far-flung hilly areas along the
India-Bhutan border. Uttarkuchi is a short drive from the frontier with
Bhutan. There is no electricity, safe drinking water or health care
facilities for its 2,500 residents. Anyone seriously ill has to be taken by
handcart or bicycle along a rough road which passes through thick bamboo
groves and forest to the nearest hospital about 10 km away. Sociologists say
that many of the ojhas are con artists, making money out of gullible and
vulnerable people.
Nripen Patgiri, a 45-year-old shop owner who claims to have ojha powers,
says he learnt magic spells from a book a few years ago. Yet the workers at
his shop insist he is illiterate. Bhattarai said she obtained her powers 32
years ago when a middle-aged man dressed in white appeared to her in a dream
and passed on the names of disease-curing herbs.
Problems arise when ojhas' predictions fail to come true, when villagers
blame them for casting evil spells, when crops fail, or epidemics sweep
through remote hamlets. "Our medicines and predictions do not work at times
when the planetary positions are not favourable," said 57-year-old Mahim
Madahi, his breath reeking of local rice beer.
Sometimes when passions run especially high, villagers set up kangaroo
courts and sentence ojhas to death, police say. Police rarely file charges
because there are seldom any witnesses. "Not a single person has been
convicted of witch killing in a court in the last five years," said Kuladhar
Saikia, a senior police officer, who is trying to rid villages of a belief
in black magic.
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