In February 2018, when 66-year-old Kanneboina Ramulu was hacked to death outside his house in Thertikudam in Nalgonda district of Telangana, rationalist Babu Gogineni was one of the first to reach the spot. Gogineni and the police held many meetings with people in the village, asking them to be rational and logical. Ramulu was the only graduate from the village and many in the village suspected that he knew black magic which helped him attain his degree. When a youngster in the village fell sick, the villagers turned their ire on Ramulu, accusing him of casting black magic.
While the murders of two women- Rosily and Padmam- in Kerala as part of a human sacrifice is one kind of violence related to black magic, a larger number of people like Ramulu are accused of practising sorcery or black magic and killed every year in India.
In this week’s show, TNM’s Dhanya Rajendran looks at the violence associated with such practices. She also addresses the disbelief among people in Kerala that an educated man could have executed a human sacrifice and enumerates examples that show that all kinds of people- educated, uneducated, conservative or progressive- believe in black magic and sorcery.
Though eight states in India have laws to deal with superstitions, many of them fall short of criminalising such practices. While stringent laws can be deterrents, the only real solution is encouraging scientific temper and rigour. But is that possible in a country where superstition is part of life and even the Prime Minister talks about black magic?
Watch the show