Witch branding: Cops, NGO join hands to educate tribals

VADODARA: Every week, when tribals in Dahod, Godhra and Chhota Udepur gather at 'haat' - a weekly market in villages - a small group stages a street play amid the locals. The play, 'Koi Ben Daakan Nathi', (No woman is a witch) talks about the evils of witch branding and tries to remove the superstition that their audiences have. Aiming to educate the tribals and pursue them to stop the ill-practice of witch branding, the police have joined hands with an NGO Anandi - Area Networking and Development Initiatives - for organizing the plays.
Social workers from Anandi have collaborated with the Devgadh Mahila Sangathan that enacts the play. While the cops have extended a helping hand to the tribal women by booking the accused promptly, the social workers have taken up the cudgels to spread awareness among the community.
"The police have been doing an excellent job of cracking down on culprits but witch branding is more of a social evil. Our aim is to reason with the tribals and explain them that there is no such thing as witch. If the tribal community as a whole starts disbelieving in the witch branding, then such cases will go down and women will be safer," said Seema Shah, project coordinator of Anandi, Godhra. Nearly 100 shows have been done in Godhra and Dahod till date.
And the play is having its desired effect too. "We used to get lot of complaints regarding witch branding from women in villages. But now the numbers have reduced. The street play started a year-and-half ago is working positively," Shah told TOI. The police, too, have been helping Anandi workers by informing them about the most affected areas of Dahod and Godhra. "The street play organized under the state government's Suraksha Setu project has played an important role in educating the tribals. The incidents of randomly calling any woman witch have reduced in many villages," said Anupamsinh Gehlot, Vadodara (IG) rural.