108

Anthropology Southern Africa. 2005, 28(3&4)

A voice in control?: narratives of accused witches in Chhattisgarh, India

Helen M. Macdonald
Dept. Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town, R Bag Rondebosch 7701, South Africa. mcdonald@humanities. uct. ac. za One characttristic of violence is the unmaking of language and fracturing of the victim's social world. In recent theorising, narrative is posited to play an important role in restoring the victim to his/her status as a social person. Fiona Ross (2003) has argued that it is naive to assume the 'speaking self equates with the healed self. She shows that individuals can be harmed when they lose control over their narratives circulated in the public sphere. Using an encounter with a woman accused of witchcraft, my article traces the way her experience has been appropriated by her family and in broader spaces of engagement between villagers, police, media and finally, the anthropologist. The article raises questions about the contexts in which there Is no voice for a woman to assert her control. Seeking to contribute to an ethical theory of risk and vulnerability, this paper suggests that closer attention should be paid to the processes of forgetting and grieving as forms of control articulated through the body.

Keywords: ethics, Chhattisgarh, forgetting, memory, narrative, voice, violence, witchcraft

argue that the researcher is ethically obligated to speak for these ruptured, even absented narratives that flow from human contact (a characteristic of research). Yet in the process of appropriation by the researcher the narrative form and (Daniel 1996:121) intent will be transformed. There lies an ethical concern for the researcher, that is, of bringing coherency of a different kind to the incoherent or absent voice while simultaneously Introduction The Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice, adopted by attempting to preserve its original form. In an exploration of voice, Fiona Ross (2003) illustrated the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the the ways in which testimonies from the South African Truth Commonwealth in March 1999, clearly outlines the anthroand Reconciliation Commission proliferated outside the conpologist's responsibilities towards research participants. Our trol of the individual. While recovered narrative can play a profession requires us to 'protect the physical, social and psycrucial part in restoring the fractured victim to his/her status chological well-being' of those we study. We are asked to as a social person, Ross showed that Individuals can be 'anticipate harm' and 'minimise the disturbances' to subjects harmed when they lose control over their narratives as they themselves. In case the message is not clear, we are reminded circulate in the public arena. Following Stanley Cavell, Ross that research participation can be a 'disturbing experience' argues that the aims of the Commission to restore dignity to and 'an intrusion into private and personal domains'. This has victims of violence must be more than simply restoring voice. important implications for the study of violence, risk and vulIt must be 'a voice in control - that is, a voice with a signanerability. In most circumstances, anthropologists are ture' (2003:336). In summary, Ross states that. detached from the synchronicity of participant observer in that they are usually not in a position to observe violent Transcription, translation, entextualisation, interevents directly. This is certainly the case of public accusations pretation, dissemination: all these are core to the of witchcraft in Chhattisgarh, India, where too often these anthropological task. As scholars, we need to men and women come to the attention of the State authoridevelop a critical ethical theory of risk and ties only after they have been murdered (Macdonald 2004). vulnerability in relation to subjectivities forged in Information is then gleaned from those who survive them and inhabiting globalized linguistic forms (2003: from their relatives, the victim of mystical aggression, the 337, my emphasis). accusers or the local healer - after the harm has been My paper aims to contribute to a critical ethical theory of risk incurred. Even when they escape with their lives, the stories and vulnerability by asking the crucial question: 'what hapof accused witches are silenced in a number of ways. pens where there Is no voice?' I use the example of Lakshmi Brenneis (1988) points out that narratives invoke many Bai, a woman accused of witchcraft, who struggles to articuvoices, both co-operative and contending, so that authorship, late the trauma she underwent at the hands of other villagers. authority and the right to speak are under active negotiation. There was a specific way in which violence was used in The work by Blommaert et, al. (2000) shows that not all narthe tontfi (witch) accusation, where the body was directly ratives are equal: 'The words of some, providing they match manipulated to create involuntary and powerful (embodied) criteria of appropriate production, are perceived as more memories for the accused woman (Macdonald 2004). As a reliable and important than those of others, and discourses narrative ruptured in a particular way by violence, Lakshmi can be mapped in terms of power and impact' (2000:3). I Bai's story can only be told through appropriation by another.
How. in whose voice, or rather, in which of many voices, ought an anthropologist tell such stories? And what does he tell when the most poignant parts of their voices are their silences?

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2005, 28(3&4) This paper takes up the wider anthropological debate on individual and social memory and the relation between narrative and memory. It argues that closer attention should be paid to the processes of forgetting (as a form of not remembering) and grieving as forms of control articulated through the body. Context As indicated by the title of my paper, much of the discussion will concentrate on public accusations of jadu-tona (witchcraft) from Chhattisgarh, a predominantly adivafi (tribal) state of central India. Despite the surge of academic, non governmental organisation (NGO) and media interest in witchcraft accusations in India from the mid 1980s peaking during the last five years, little research has been conducted in Chhattisgarh. The powerful and ahistorical discourses of Chhattisgarhi witchcraft that circulate in the popular media focus predominantly on adivasi culture and beliefs. Given my strong reservations that witchcraft accusations as a social phenomenon could be solely studied within the boundary of a village (or a 'tribe') in its entirety, my research developed into a multisited study focusing on non-od/Vos/ peasant society. By the very nature of their being public, the sites on which witchcraft accusations were produced cross several institutions, moving across family, community, police, administration, courts of law, the media, the medical profession and the state. A central part of my research involved following 'critical events' (witchcraft accusations) out of a household and village arena into broader spaces of engagement between villagers, police, media, state and political actors. In total, records of 63 witchcraft accusations (84 persons accused as tonfTi and tonha)^ dating from 1993 to 2001 were obtained, collated from newspapers, court and police records and NGOs. One village was selected for an in-depth case study. Semi-structured interviev were conducted in approximately forty villages; in some instances up to four repeat visits were made. The most consistent finding was that witch accusations in Chhattisgarh were overwhelmingly made against women. In ninety per cent of cases, women were accused as tonfTi, and as a rule, they were publicly accused by men. However, it was impossible to identify invariant social characteristics of accused tonfu. True, Chhattisgarhi tonlTi can be conceived as marginal unprotected women

109 accused by more powerful male relatives, but they may be old or young; married, unmarried or widowed; with or without children; prosperous or poor; neighbours, relatives or else non caste members; male or female, and powerless or politically dominant. I first became aware of Lakshmi Bai, a 45 year-old agricultural worker, who was publicly accused of practising jadutona and branded as a tonfTi, from a lengthy newspaper report^. I knew from the newspaper report that Lakshmi Bai's neighbour Kumari Bai died days after giving birth and her husband, suspecting foul play, placed the body on the veranda of Lakshmi Bai's house.^ As villagers gathered, Lakshmi Bai was charged with 'eating' Kumari Bai, and demands were made for her to bring Kumari Bai back to life.^ Villagers threatened her with death, and declared she must make an oath on her children's lives at the village temple. I also knew that after the situation diffused, Lakshmi Bai attempted to end her life by consuming poison but was thwarted by her husband's 'timely intervention'. Judging her village to be within a day's return journey I set off with my driver and research assistant to investigate her case. Three years after her accusation, we entered Lakshmi Bai's village after receiving directions from a nearby police station. I was dismayed to learn that she and her husband Arjun had migrated for seasonal work and would return with the onset of monsoon rains to begin planting their fields. Six months later I returned along the same potholed mud road made all the worse by the monsoon rains.^ The female kotvar (village guard) escorted us to Lakshmi Bai's house, where we met Dayalam, Lakshmi Bai's son who works as a tailor. Dayalam warned us that his parents were working in the fields and that it could take some time for them to return to the house. As we waited for nearly an hour there was an influx of curious customers picking up their finished garments. Arriving from the fields first, Arjun closed the doors and shooed away anyone who tried to loiter. He began his description of the events: On that day, I was putting manure on my bullock cart and dropping it in my field. I began a second trip. In the meantime, my son came to me and told me what was happening, that Parmanand had brought his wife's dead body and to please come.

1. It was evident that the dichotomy between tribe and caste, made possible by the colonial discourse, remains deeply entrenched in the perceptions of dominant Indian groups (Macdonald 2004). My research specifically challenged the perception that witch killings in nontribal society are rare, thus the fieldwork site was narrowed to the non-tribal agricultural plain of Chhattisgarh, particularly Raipur, Dhamtari, Mahasamund, Durg, Bilaspur and Rajnandgaon districts. 2. A note on terminology may be appropriate here. Western terms like sorcery or witchcraft are awkward translations of Indian notions. Classical anthropological distinction between 'witchcraft' and sorcery' proposed by Evans-Pritchard based on his Azande material do not apply to the material discussed here. Although gender specific words for male and female witches exist, the feminine tonhi is used to refer in genera) to Chhattisgarhi witches. This reflects the fact that Chhattisgarhis regard witchcraft to be a feminine occupation. I use the word tonhi in the same context except where referring specifically to a tonha (male witch). 3.1 made nine visits to Ballabgarra village (pseudonym) spanning eighteen months. In total I spent approximately three months in Ballabgarra. 4. Details that may lead to Lakshmi Bai's identification have been omitted. 5. All non-Muslim Chhattisgarhi women are addressed as 'Bai' (which literally means 'woman'). 6. Despite the consistent image of cannibalism, Chhattisgarhi witches do not literally eat the flesh or drink the blood of their victims. Rare instjinces of child ritual sacrifice are not perceived as the work of tonhi. In the local context, life can be returned to a body if it has been killed by witchcraft. Numerous stories circulate about these raised bodies acting as a mosan a familiar to tonii often used to wreak havoc at its master's bidding. The request to Lakshmi Bai to bring the corpse back to life, although unusual, is not uncommon (see Macdonald 2004). 7. Witchcraft accusations are more common in the monsoon season and many ofthe festivals at that time are held to ward off witchcraft

10 Forty minutes later Lakshmi Bai entered the room and squatted down on the mud floor to my left. Within minutes of listening to her husband's description of her torturous ordeal she was visibly distressed. She continued to let him speak and added very little to the conversation. When she did speak, her distress was audible. Her quiet voice wavered, punctuated by stoppages and tears, and, on the taped recording of our interaction, is almost drowned out by the sound of monsoon rains on the roof. I quickly realised that she would not have the stamina or resources to succeed in telling her story. Then she simply stopped acknowledging my presence and fell into silence disturbed by the occasional low moan. With no outward signs of comfort being shown from Arjun to Lakshmi Bai, I became increasingly uncomfortable with what I perceived as his indifference to his wife's distress as he continued his narration uninterrupted. Wracked with remorse for instigating the retrieval of an informant's apparent anguished memories, I ended the interview quickly and left. In the same way that Lakshmi Bai did not have the stamina or resources to tell her story, I lacked the same necessary capacity to hear her story. I had not come to the encounter unprepared, yet I found I was. It was of little relief that my reaction was similar to that of the 'fear, confusion, shame, horror, skepticism, even disbelief exhibited by listeners to Holocaust testimonies (Langer 1991:20). Langer found that the more painful, dramatic and overwhelming the narrative, 'the more tense, wary and self-protective is the audience, the quicker the instinct to withdraw' (ibid). Das, writing of the desolating experience of violence pleads with her reader: 'I hope I shall be evoking these texts not in the manner of a thief who has stolen another voice but in the manner of one who pawns herself to the words of this other' (1996:69). Here would be the logical place to provide a detailed transcript of the interview with Lakshmi Bai, something I choose not to do for ethical reasons I now explain. Lakshmi Bai had few words to pawn. Das (1995:184) argues that violence 'mutilates' or 'annihilates' language whereby the fear experienced cannot be brought into the 'realm of the utterable' - language can be struck dumb. Kirmayer (1996:175) suggests that these stories sit at the edge of one's consciousness to be 'worked around or told in fragments' words, phrases, gestures, silences etc. Although narrative plays an important role in remaking the victim's social world, Ross (2003) has argued that it is naive to assume the 'speaking self equates with the healed self. For Lakshmi Bai the witch accusation had not been domesticated in a manner that allowed her voice to have control. Because of the violation of social norms on that day, Lakshmi Bai's perception of herself in that role continued to assail her three years after the event. Held prisoner by the past, Lakshmi Bai's memories remained so overwhelming that her need to remake her being-in-theworld continued to be deferred. Ethically I argue that Lakshmi Bai's narrative of disorder, silence, and irreversible loss should not be contained in writing.

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2005, 28(3&4)

Appropriating the voice

Arjun and his family performed a difficult task when they accepted their relationship with Lakshmi Bai as an accused witch whom persons in the wider community had simply cast aside. By claiming the victim, Arjun consequently ended up reproducing the suffering of his wife and thereby making it part of his disco'urse. As outsiders we in turn witness his authority over cultural rights, especially the right to regulate the spheres of politics, family and memory. During our interview Arjun revealed that he had in the past challenged the village headman in an incident that subsequently embroiled all around him in an ongoing financial and social boycott against his family. He listed a litany of grievances: they were denied water, the registry title of purchased land, and anyone who talked to them was subjected to an automatic fine. Where once Arjun was a respected member of the elders' council and entrusted with overseeing village finances, 'now things are quite changed. Now I live my life alone here.' It would appear that the accusation of witchcraft levelled against Lakshmi Bai Wcis simply another means by which various men (including her husband) continued their ongoing battle. In this situation where Lakshmi Bai's autonomy and equality were not salient, her story was rejected or heard in a different way. Typically in such instances, the community emerges as a political actor by disempowering the victim a second time. Revealing a particular link between witchcraft narratives and 'excitement,' Bleek suggests that community members want a dramatic explanation, not simply a 'socially relevant' one (1976: 536). Further, stories may not always be intended to provide clarity, but may equally be instruments for 'obscuring, hedging, confusing, exploring or questioning what went on, that is, for keeping the coherence and comprehensibility of narrated events open to question' (Bauman 1986:5-6 cited in Brenneis 1988:281). In order to resume social life, many accused tonhJ had apparently agreed to an implicit contract of silence (Macdonald 2004). Lakshmi Bai's voice was robbed again through the discourses of the professional - police, media, administration and anthropologist - each of which I discuss in turn. I was aware that Lakshmi Bai had approached the police, as the newspaper article reported the arrest of nineteen people for 'abetment of suicide'. Having established a working relationship with the police, I obtained a copy of the First Information Report (FIR) and Lakshmi Bai's recorded statement to the police with relative ease. At the time of Lakshmi Bai's case, there was no law pertaining specifically to witchcraft accusations.' Despite the narrow definitions of violence against women institutionalised in the legal discourse, women accused as tonlii (or the police acting on their behalf) adopted a wide-ranging number of legal avenues in which to register a case (Macdonald 2004). Lakshmi Bai's statement (if it was indeed hers) began with a statement 'I reside in village [name] and work as an agricul-

8. This point emerges clearly in his narrative. In the recording of our Interview, he recites the conversation vi^ith villagers, alternating between 'you' and 'your wife' whereby in both instances he is referring directly to Lakshmi Bai. 9. Arjun challenged an extension to the headman's house built on public land. 10. The Chhattisgarh State introduced the Witchcraft Atrocities (Prevention) Act (2005) in July 2005. It is based on the existing Bihar (1998) and jharkhand (2001) Prevention of Witch Accusation Acts.

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2005, 28(3&4)

III
owed, helpless and/or poor female victim' who is 'physically and mentally tortured' by those who have yet to develop (who may be manipulated by others motivated by personal gain).' ^ Among the simultaneously diverse aspects of modernity was the idea that one can be modern as a social identity. Pigg (1996) argued that the ideas of the modern generate a sense of difference by marking the identities of those persons who are modern as different from and opposed to those who are traditional. More importantly, she asks, 'Who recognises this difference?' The figure of the credulous villager helped mark a difference that the emerging urban middle class was particularly concerned to emphasise (Macdonald 2004). Being modern was about standing in opposition to the villager who held onto his or her deep-rooted superstitions, particularly their belief in tonlv and village healers. Being modern meant seeking help to problems in a manner different from that of superstitious villagers. The claim that village healers were exploitative quacks incapable of healing and seeking only to enrich themselves implied the use of another form of healing or problem-solving. A modern person used 'modern medicine' or consulted a ritual specialist with a 'higher knowledge' who performs a 'social service to the people'. These ideas intersected with the interests of an active press to create multiple meanings that both challenged and reinforced ideas of development, progress and modernity. The accusation against Lakshmi Bai that she was a witch was inserted into this form of public discourse. Surprisingly, the journalist reporting on this case actually travelled to the village. Only in rare situations were villagers regarded as sources of information for tonlv cases by journalists, who typically relied on information gathered from the police station or copied (often erroneously) from the FIR (Macdonald 2004). The family that accused Lakshmi Bai of witchcraft were 'tight-lipped' and other villagers were either 'too scared to open their mouths' or denied being present during the accusation. Lakshmi Bai's sons refused to talk, stating, 'a lot of harassment has happened, and we do not want to add to it by saying any more'. Lakshmi Bai was found 'sitting in a state of mental shock in a corner of her house and even the repeated consolations of her husband were unable to bring her back to normal composure.' Instead, Arjun is described as 'giving a detailed account of the happenings to the correspondent'. The unusually long and detailed media report further illustrates the power of Arjun's narrative. The report finished with a postscript hinting at tensions between Arjun, his family and other villagers. As reported by Arjun to the journalist, the previous year the family were 'fined' Rs 1,000 (a substantial amount) by the village council and ostracised by the village, following a dispute over ruined bags of cement mix. Arjun was held negligent for allowing bags of cement mix to become wet from rain and harden. His refusal to pay the cost led to a social boycott by the village.

tural labourer'. During our interview, Arjun revealed that 'the police didn't believe what happened. When I requested them [to listen] and explained the whole matter, then they believed it.' This implies that although Lakshmi Bai may have provided a verbal statement to the police, it was either not heard or rejected as unsatisfactory, and subsequently, Arjun's narrative became the authoritative version for recording. After a brief description of where she, her husband and son were each located during the incident, there followed a long list of names, indicating those who accused her as a tonlv. Thereafter follows descriptions of the physical hurt inflicted and threats of death should the matter be reported to the police. Incorporated is a statement that witnesses other than her husband and son will not come forward due to fear The FIR concludes with the sentence 'the report has been written as I have stated and has been read back to me. I demand an investigation'. My research strongly suggested that in cases of witchcraft accusations, a woman's experience was moulded to fit a framework of court admissible evidence, to testify to police efficiency, or was simply deemed irrelevant and disqualified. The recorded details are sketchy and there is inordinate stress on the physical violence (particularly the implements used). The police reports were devoid of any nuances of women's subjectivities and languages - almost sterilised of them. Specifically analysing cases of domestic violence, Solanki concluded that women's voice 'is missed, silenced, absented simply because her personal history is found inadequate in the wake of a bigger and better 'social' and 'legal' worldview' (2001:85). The official and moral obligations embodied in a tonlv case found their way into the official police report, transforming the verbal account of a woman's experience into a written testimony to police competence and timely action. When a woman approaches the police, she steps out of community life and enters a public arena of predominantly legal activity and procedure. By the process of exercising both its paternal and policing functions, Lakshmi Bai's right to speak was appropriated by the state in a way that distances us from the immediacy of her experience and silences her voice.

Encountering unified narratives of witchcraft

During the first months of my fieldwork, I encountered a different type of narrative privileging from that of the State official. Underwriting the majority of media reports written about witchcraft or cases of witch accusations were two assumptions: firstly, there was an inevitable, linear progression towards nationhood and modernity and secondly, this progression of the nation was being hindered in specific ways (Pandey 1995). Society was referred to as 'modern, civilised and in the 2 1 " century' signifying that a belief in witchcraft ought to be outdated because of advancements made in the fields of 'science, education, medicine, women's empowerment and human rights'. A tonfu was understood to be a 'wid-

I I. Police regulations require recording officers to record the informant's complaint 'word for word as dictated' (with carbon copies) and read it back to the informant who will then attest to the statement by signature or thumb impression (Government of Madhya Pradesh, Police Department 1967:105) 12. This view of witchcraft accusations as a means for attacking or harassing marginalised women is widely held (at least at official level) by the police, administration, NGOs and politicians.

112
Academic silencing: Constructing a dialogical ethnography Thus far I have shown that victims of v^^itch accusations have their voices taken away from them in a number of ways. In the case of Lakshmi Bai, her husband Arjun, the community, the police and media have all chosen to speak on her behalf. I want to now describe my experiences of writing about Lakshmi Bai, and suggest that ethical dilemmas surrounded and continue to surround any attempt I make to write about hen In the first instance, neither life experience nor academic schooling had prepared me for the trauma of Lakshmi Bai's memory, and the subsequent vulnerability it evoked and continues to evoke in me in the face of another's suffering. Despite my own sympathetic understanding, I did not know how to manage Lakshmi Bai's memory which had brought her past directly into the present. Applied anthropological research methods courses had done little to aid understanding of the complexities and awareness of the challenges of doing research on gender violence. Requisite literature reviews had guided me through academic writing that focused predominantly on underlying motives for witchcraft accusations with an emphasis on contradictions in particular interpersonal relationships. Conceptually, I was prepared for a study of witchcraft accusations. Fieldwork, on the other hand, was a matter of 'finding my own way'; an anthropological rite of passage surrounded in mysticism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the notes I made following my interview with Lakshmi Bai: My apologies, which typically pull [my informants] from their thoughts, didn't work in this case. I always apologise for having caused any distress and so far, without exception, they have been quick to reassure me that I haven't. I always make a point of saying this, knowing what the response will be. I know it is incredibly selfish on my part, but it's my way of assuaging guilt for bringing these memories back. When I think back to my earlier thoughts about her [Lakshmi Bai] being a perfect case for a life history, I know now that I could never have handled her pain. My fieldnotes allude to engagements of relative comfort and easy management that prevailed prior to my meeting Lakshmi Bai. All my informants expressed a willingness (some seemed compulsively driven) to be interviewed, despite the demanding effort that remembering violence entailed. Some were more skilful storytellers than others, drawing on physical movements, gestures, parody, metaphors and tone to convey their significance and simultaneously signal a distance between themselves and what was being said. In addition to the variety of presentation styles, their narratives had a rather formulaic quality, repeating how the story had been told before rather than reproducing the memories themselves. My notes also indicate that I had both detected strategies (gentle urgings and apologies) to bring a faltering informant back to the present, and utilised them to this effect. Although writing specifically of Holocaust testimonies, Langer (1991) offers a way of understanding the narrative encounters of Lakshmi Bai and her husband Arjun. Langer refers to chronological and orderly remembering like those of Arjun's as 'common' or 'thinking' memory which, he

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2005, 28(3&4)

argues, serves dual functions. Firstly, common memory restores the narrator to his/her pre- and post-witch accusation normality. Secondly, common memory offers a detached narrative of what it must have been like during the witch accusation from the position of the immediate present. 'One effect of common memory, with its talk of normalcy amid chaos, is to mediate atrocity, to reassure us that in spite of the ordeal some human bonds were inviolable' (Langer 1991:9). This contrasts to what Langer (1991) calls 'deep' or 'sense' memory, where the self as it was during the witch accusation is voluntarily and involuntarily recalled, a feature that appears to be characteristic of Lakshmi Bai's testimony. What remained for Lakshmi Bai was a post-accusation narrative where memory is a site and source of anguish. When Lakshmi Bai did not shift from deep to common memory, I understood for the first time that I had attempted and, more significantly, failed to urge her subtly in that direction. It was through this troubled encounter that I became self-conscious of my own partiality in favour of secure common memory narratives. With this in mind, I wrote Lakshmi Bai into my doctoral thesis. In the introductory chapter of the thesis, in a section entitled 'The Dangers of Remembering and Telling', I exposed and scrutinised my role as a researcher as part of a wider project to write a dialogical ethnography (Macdonald 2004). It formed a critique of witchcraft discourse that in the past had often failed to include and scrutinise the researching self. In doing so, I translated Lakshmi Bai's experience into one of my own; an approach which Pat Caplan, following Ricoeur, defines as 'the comprehension of the self by the detour of the other' (1988; 9). Our encounter became a demonstrable story for examiners and a wider anthropological audience of an introspective participant observer juxtaposed in the analysis. Caplan goes on to say, 'we need to acknowledge, and this happens but rarely, that in making this detour, the self also changes' (ibid). Firmly ensconced in this hermeneutic circle, I have glimpsed another change in myself. By writing about my personal discoveries as a researcher in the field, I effectively quashed any attempt Lakshmi Bai made to communicate with me. With this acknowledgement lies the recognition that I remain locked in a relationship with her I see this most clearly as my fingers move over the computer keyboard and uneasy memories project Lakshmi Bai 'here' to my left, sitting on the polished mud floor in silence. It is striking that some narratives are recycled continuously by researchers, suggesting a personal (possibly unfinished) relationship to the narrative's original author, its contents, the encounter in which it emerged and/or the final interpretive text where it is translated for the reader. I cannot undo what has been previously written, except by adding to it, that is, speaking some more of Lakshmi Bai's story.

A voice in control: The first syllables

Veena Das cautions against the apparently heroic task of breaking silences. 'Even the idea that we should recover the narratives of violence becomes problematic when we realize that such narratives cannot be told unless we see the relation between pain and language that a culture has evolved' (Das I996;88). If, as I am arguing, the researcher is ethically responsible for the ruptured narratives (and the silences) that

Anthropology Southern Africa. 2005, 28(3&4) flow from the dialogue between researcher and informant, then here lays an ethical issue. When one dwells alone in the 'ruins of memory', as Lawrence Langer (1991) calls them, how can the narrator seek a voice in control, and how does the anthropologist write that voice without causing harm yet again to the victim? Seeking to contribute to an ethical theory of risk and vulnerability, this paper suggests that closer attention should be paid to the processes of forgetting and grieving as forms of control articulated through the body. I discuss each of these in turn. Kirmayer (1996) suggests that as more stories enter the public realm, they assist in making it possible for individuals to recollect and tell their personal stories. Where the narrative has crystallised, the accused woman attempts through narrative to comprehend and remake her world using what Das (1990, 1991) calls 'organising images'. By constructing a fiction for Lakshmi Bai through the organising images of other accused tonlTi, the reader is afforded the experience of collusion in seeking out, and hiding from memory possible meanings. I take a moment to acknowledge the risks of such an endeavour in relation to Kirmayer's project and mine. A constructed fiction runs the risk of homogenising or essentialising the narratives of women accused as tonfTi. When Lakshmi Bai was questioned about what she thought 'now' of what happened three years prior, she answered in a flat, matter-of-fact tone with a single word 'nothing' - before her husband started complaining about a land dispute other villagers had foist upon his family. This simple utterance expressed by Lakshmi Bai conveys control as she stands in opposition to her husband's active promotion of remembrance. Her answer does not indicate just how much she remembers or forgets, but it expresses both a need to forget and the strategies by which she may be attempting to do so (denial, refusal to speak). I do not suggest that silence is therapeutic. In fact, the need to forget sustains the need to remember what must be forgotten, a paradox highlighted by Lattas (1996). However, I suggest that closer attention should be paid to the process of forgetting as a controlled form of not remembering. In cases of witch accusations we are dealing with what Battaglia calls a 'willed transformation of memory' (1992:14) where not remembering can be identified as means of systemic and controlled action. Acts of remembering and forgetting emerge as forces for mediating and constituting how those involved in toniv accusations define themselves in the present. Certain memories are invested with powerful and culturally salient meanings, causing them to become less meaningful or actively suppressed (Carsten 1995; Eves 1996). For Kirmayer (1996), memory following trauma is actively suppressed (involving a conscious effort not to think something) by concentrating effort on alternative narratives, refusing to speak about events and flat denial (to self and others) that the events occurred. These strategies, he argues undermine the process of rehearsal and semantic bridge building necessary for ready recall. In trying to write the meaning of violence in tonfTi accusations, I found the languages of pain and rupture inadequate in creating a text by their failure to represent the experience of an accused tonlTi. Can terror be contained in writing or the interpretative boundaries we create for it? Both Das (1996) and Panjabi (1995) speak of a space - a physical language

113
yvhere meaning can be articulated. In the genre of lamentation, women have control both through their bodies and through their language - grief is articulated through the body, for instance, by infliction of grievous hurt on oneself, "objectifying" and making present the inner state, and is finally given a home in language (Das 1996:68). Veena Das suggests that an articulated transaction between body and language can be created. Calling on the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein's The Blue and Brown Books, she discusses how the pain of self can reside in the body of another, arguing that pain can be shared in imagination, despite lack of understanding and the inability of language to express pain. It is here that my experience with Lakshmi Bai finds a home. In a sense, I grieve for a personal loss of innocence brought about by bearing witness to Lakshmi Bai's painful and deeply disturbing story. Das goes to say that, "we need to think of healing as a kind of relationship with death" where one is permitted to grieve and lament whereas "the silent death is the asocial 'bad death' without kin support" (/b/</:78). Lakshmi Bai's attempted suicide expressed her necessity to re-establish and ultimately retain control over her body. Ironically, suicide in the context of tonhf accusations amounts to an admission of guilt in the eyes of the wider community. In our interview Lakshmi Bai expresses control through a non-verbalised language of weeping and gesticulating followed by periods of almost physical immobilisation, silence, ignoring questions, spatial separation and finally by terminating all communication with me. I propose that Lakshmi Bai's vocalised and nonvocalised grieving is an extension of two realisations: firstly, that her body was abused in an exchange of violence simply because it represents a site on which competition between her husband and other men can be played out, and their respective honour expressed by the exclusion of hers, and secondly, that she occupies a space of living death, rather than life or death.

Concluding comments: "It will always have cracks"

Ethical guidelines require that the researcher anticipate harm and minimise the disturbances to research participants. In the specific context of violence, harm has been performed in a previous milieu, and the disturbances that flow from human contact between researcher and participant can be positive and/or negative experiences for both parties. Ross' (2003) conclusions suggest that harm to the victim of violence may lie in the way that narratives are contextualised, recontextualised and circulated in the public arena. As Ross points out, although the recontextualisation may be experienced as harmful to the sense of self of the original narrator, the perspectives of others can, and do, have value (2003:334). The context of writing for entry into a profession, via the doctoral thesis-writing process, demands that a student position him or herself in the text. Fulfilling these demands, I scrutinised the myself and translated Lakshmi Bai's experiences into one of my own but in a largely uncritical way. Here lies an ethical problem on which guidelines have yet to elucidate. I have suggested that a personal relationship exists between

114 the researcher and the recycled narratives that continuously weave through the academic production of text. My initial relationship with Lakshmi Bai lay in the final interpretative text that translated the encounter in which it emerged. By failing to recognise her as the original author of the narrative and the contents of her narrative (limited as they were), her story remained unfinished - hers is a voice lacking her control. In an attempt to correct this I have chosen to 'speak some more' by mapping out the alternative trajectories of Lakshmi Bai's experience through family, community, (X)lice and media, before attempting to recover some of her voice via the voices of others. When a narrative is so annihilated by violence that it becomes largely unutterable, what becomes of the silences and non-verbalised language? Unless we see the relation between language and pain, the problems of vulnerability will go unaddressed. By understanding violence as a form of death, non-verbalised languages of pain afford victims of violence a means of control articulated through their bodies, even if this simply means endurance. Lamentation goes a step further: it suggests a voice in control. However, by concentrating on picking up different threads, the paradox of forgetting (the need to forget sustains the need to remember what must be forgotten) can be located in the narratives of those who have endured most. I leave the last word (from interviews) to them: I was brought into this world to suffer this burden. My virtue has been lost and this I can't regain. (Binda Bai)

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2005, 28(3&4) Blommaert. J., M. Bock and K. McCormick 2000. Narrative Inequality
and Hearability in the TRC Hearings. LPI working paper no. 8.

Gent. URL (consulted May 2005): http://bank.rug.ac.be/lpi/

workingpapers. htm

Brenneis, D. 1988. Telling Troubles: Narrative, Conflict and Experience. Anthropological Linguistics 30 (3-4): 279-91. Caplan, R 1988. Engendering Knowledge: The Politics Ethnography. Anthropology Today 4 (5): 8-12, 4 (6): 14-17. of

Carsten, J. 1995. The Politics of Forgetting: Migration. Kinship and Memory on the Periphery ofthe Southeast Asian State. Journo/ of
the Royal Anthropological Institute I (2): 317-35. Daniel, E. V. 1996. Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropographyof

Violence. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Das, V 1990. 'Our Work to Cry: Your Work to Listen,' in Mirrors of
Violence: Communities. Riots and Survivors in South Asia. Edited by

Veena Das. (pp. 345-98) Delhi: Oxford University Press. Das, V. 1991. Composition of the Personal Voice: Violence and Migration. Studies in History 7(1): 65-77.
Das, V 1995. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on

Contemporary India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Das, V 1996. Language and Body: Transactions in the Construaion of Pain. Daedelus 125 (I): 67-91. Eves, R. 1996. Remembrance of Things Passed: Memory, Body and the Politics of Feasting in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Oceania 66 (4): 266-77. Government of Madhya Pradesh, Police Department. 1967. Report
of the Madhya Pradesh Police Commission 1965-66. Bhopal:

Government Central Press. Kirmayer, L. J. 1996. 'Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative and
Dissociation,' in Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and

I'd like to die, but I will never compromise. (Radha Bai)

Memory. Edited by R Antze and M. Lambek. (pp. 173-98) New York: Routledge.
Langer, L. L. 1991. Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory. N e w

Haven: Yale University Press.

I cannot face people because of the shame. (Latha Bai)

Lattas, A. 1996. Introduction: Mnemonic Regimes and Strategies of Subversion. Oceania 66 (4): 257-65. Macdonald, H. M. 2004. Resolution and Rupture: The Paradox of Violence in Wtch Accusations in Chhattisgarh. India. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Panjabi, K. 1995. 'The First Syllables of a New Language: Responses to Sexual Violence'. Indian Journal of Gender Studies 2 (I ):87-100. Pandey. G. 1995. Voices from the Edge: The Struggle to Write Subaltern Histories. Ethnos 60 (3-4): 223-42. Pigg, S. L. 1996. The Credible and the Credulous: The Question of "Villagers' Beliefs" in Nepal. Cultural Anthropology I I (2): 160201. Ross, F. 2003. On having voice and being heard: some after-effects of testifying before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Anthropological Theory 3 (3): 325-341. Solanki, G. 2001. Women's Experiences through the Police Lens: Analysis of Cases Registered under Section 498(A). Journal of
Gender Studies 10(1): 83-86.

I am very scared. The villagers can do anything to me. My neighbour said, 'I am prepared to go to jail, but before I do, I will kill you'. (Rameen Bai)

Some avoid me. Those that talk to me are still cool. They don't react in any specific way. If they come across me, they stare at me and don't talk. If an urn cracks and you want to patch it up, it will always have cracks in it. (Bati Bai)

References
Battaglia, D. 1992. The Body in the Gift: Memory and Forgetting in Sabarl Mortuary Exchange. American Ethnologist. 19, pp. 3-18 Bleek, W. 1976. Witchcraft, Gossip and Death: A Social Drama. Man 11 (4): 526-41.