More Perspective

Gflo sent me an e-mail (where he found this I haven't a clue) about a woman accused of practicing black magic in the majority Hindu Indian state of Jharkhand. In apparently government taught English it read, "Monday 23rd of July 2007 A women was stripped and brutally beaten with hot iron rods after she was branded a witch and held responsible for the death of a woman in a Jharkhand village, police said Monday."

The part that caught my attention was this (again in shaky English): "Witch-hunt cases are rampant in Jharkhand. More than 600 people, mostly women, have been killed in last 10 years after they were charged of practicing black magic." Remember, this is in only one of 28 states and 7 union territories in India.

Now that's a serious witch hunt. Here in the US the best we could do was the year 1692 in Salem, MA. 140 people were accused of witchcraft. Of those, nineteen were hanged, one person was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen people may have died in prison. And 10 years? Fuggeddaboutit! We wimped out after a year and later called for a day of fasting, "That so all of God's people may offer up fervent supplications unto him, that all iniquity may be put away, which hath stirred God's holy jealousy against this land; that He would show us what we know not, and help us, wherein we have done amiss, to do so no more."

Hmmm. I wonder how long it will take the Hindus to tire of hunting witches?