I am a witch. And you, woman, are a witch too. If perchance our kohl-rimmed eyes penetrate those of men and reach parts of them that they did not know existed, then they call us witches. They don’t thank us for having found their wayward fragments. Our broomstick-hands are said to have cast an unholy spell.

We are witches because we read, we write, we fight, we light up their lives. Instead of seeing the beauty of their own honeyed lips in those flickering flames, they twist their mouths in sardonic unrest and call us witches.

Are we witches or are we just more women, a little more of everything?

Is Pusana Devi more of anything? Is she anything at all? I just read about her. She lives in a village off Ranchi. For 20 days, they kept her locked in a room with her sons and tortured her. They beat her up, extracted one of her nails and forced her to consume human excreta. Her husband, Gahan Manhi, accused her of using black magic to set their fields on fire.

A few years ago there was Pedki Devi of Dhanbad. She fought to stay on the soil she had helped till. She was called a witch. She was stripped naked in her village and, like Pusana Devi, was tortured.

And then there is Ipsita Roy Chakraverti who “looks a picture of elegance and beauty” and is toasted in elite circles. She has written an autobiography. She is the subject of a new film ‘Sacred Evil’. She proudly claims to be a witch.

It makes me angry that Ipsita can, for the sake of honesty in “celebrating life”, nonchalantly talk about using black magic, whereas a Pedki Devi is accused of and humiliated because she is suspected of using it, because she is a widow who won’t let her husband’s relatives grab her little piece of land.

It makes me angry that while the fancy witch can give tips on eternal youth and beauty, the suffering ‘witch’ can “still feel the revolting smell of faeces in my mouth”. At 50, Pedki was a strong woman. So, would Madame Chakravertis’s contention that “A woman who’s not a conformist has some anger in her. It will show in anything she does. That’s why I say that every strong woman is a witch” apply to the poor villager? Will the glitterati flock to Bihar in their search for a magic potion?

My anger does not mean that I am indulging in my own version of branding, but because a case has to be made against the cultural romanticising of the witch when for centuries she has been abused for being more compassionate than her male compatriots. As one observer noted, “…the witch, like the involuntary mental patient, is cast into a degraded and deviant role against her will; is subjected to certain diagnostic procedures to establish whether or not she is a witch; finally, is deprived of liberty and often of life, ostensibly for her own benefit.”

The witch was accused of ‘hidden powers’ when it was her obvious ones that were causing an upheaval and upsetting the hierarchy. It is valid to ask, as Phylis Chesler does, “Were witches cultural and political revolutionaries, matriarchs and Amazons come back to do battle with the church? Were they wealthy and powerful women whose property was coveted? Were they beautiful women whose sexuality was both feared and desired?”

The fact is whether it is the 21st century or the 12th, witchcraft has been a weapon used not by women but by men. Take a look at the persecution…

* Women accused of heresy were killed.

* Menstruating women were considered witches; Aristotle too believed that a glance from one such woman could tarnish a mirror.

*They were hounded for making men impotent, devouring newborn babies, turning their neighbour’s milk sour or preventing their butter from setting, causing their children to fall ill and their cattle to die.

* Old women, under torture, confessed to being possessed by the devil.

* Even little girls were not spared. With a price tag of 21 shillings over their heads, a Scotsman killed 220.

* In the Bishopric of Trier is 1585, two villages were left with one female inhabitant each.

* The problem really began to get worse when ‘wise women’ in 16th century Scotland who showed powers as healers, herbalists, and surgeons began to be called ‘blessing witches’. This was like the nail in the coffin of what had already been propounded by two Dominican Inquisitors in a book. They claimed that only women were witches because they were more impressionable, credulous, feebler in mind and body, and more carnal.

It is strange indeed that those whose lot it was to be ‘vulnerable’ enough for the demon were also feared for their powers. It was perhaps this reason that made patriarchal society introduce the devil in the scheme of things and many female witches began worshipping a male evil spirit and symbols of masculine power.

Even Pedki Devi’s case can be simplified if we wish to see it from the male point of view. As a widow, while she was seen to have devoured her husband, her unrelenting hold on his land could have been construed as devil worship.

Destructiveness is part of the deal. Therefore, when art and literature were celebrating women in Europe, the moral imagination of the time was in thrall of female witchcraft.

The Muse was attributed to female seduction/inspiration and it had to have a relevant cause. All those men who sat there with quills and brushes, apparently under a spell, felt powerless and while they themselves probably were less judgmental, society had to find an explanation for their solitary confinement in dark attics and studios.

The film ‘Practical Magic’ had almost consolidated this stereotype when it talked about a family curse where the women unwittingly caused the death of the men they loved.

All the ingredients of witchcraft -- rituals, a dark distant house, and an all-female ambience—were used. The saving grace was the central theme of two sisters, doomed by their history, trapped in an all-encompassing love for each other. More than woman power, it was the compassion they shared. And the beauty (Nicole Kidman), although she has a lesser hold on witchcraft, uses another form of sorcery – temptation – to make life interesting. The Plain Jane (Sandra Bullock) who can perform the most magical tricks has a mundane life and routine.

In the end both want to escape from the roles fate has assigned them because they are the victims. Just for being women. One was humanised because she could get men’s lives to revolve round her; the other was dehumanised because her life did not revolve round them. Talking about her role, Bullock had said, “The word ‘witch’ bothers me. I think there are people who just have a gift. An innate gift, in a sense, to see things beyond what we logically allow ourselves to see, because if we don’t have scientific evidence we don’t want to believe it.”

As women have traditionally had little say in formulating social norms, it gave them ample time to formulate their intuitive skills. Today, they bring this additional talent to the workplace, which is why their success is viewed with suspicion. Their strength is seen as capable of unleashing a storm.

Pedki Devi and Pusana Devi have suffered for it. Ipsita Roy Chakraverti won’t. She has glamourised it. The Salon Witch cannot be a threat, just as a bordello never has been. Both follow the male construct of perpetuating vanity. Alas, there is no place for it in Dhanbad or Ranchi.

There is no place for it for millions of women who break through glass ceilings only to realise they have to pick up the shards themselves so that they are not shown a fractured image of themselves.

A surprise is in store: The woman who manages to recreate this whole picture transforms magically from a witch into a bitch.

I am a bitch. And you, woman, are a bitch too. If your kohl-rimmed eyes register the pain of another whose mouth was stuffed with shit, then you are blessed. You can feel more than just your own feelings. You have broken through more than just a ceiling.