Prayed for a child, raped by a godman: India’s deadly childbirth superstitions

Satish Bairagi, who claimed to be the Man Friday of a 220-year-old holy man in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, had an idea. When his childhood friend Hemant Kolapkar confided that his wife Kavita had not been able to conceive after six years of marriage, Bairagi convinced him that the saint – whom he claimed was a reincarnation of Lord Shiva – had magical cures to all illnesses. There was an invisible power working against his family, Bairagi told Kolapkar, and a ritual would solve the couple’s medical issue.

On a designated day, Bairagi arrived at Kolapkar’s home with the paraphernalia for the ritual – the mutilated feet of a parrot, lemons, vermilion, and red thread. While chanting prayers – hoping to invite Parvati, the Indian goddess of fertility, into the slain bird’s feet – he asked Kolapkar to consume a powder, which he claimed was the “magic medicine”. Once the ceremony was done, he announced the family’s troubles would now leave them.

“After a few weeks, when I still hadn’t conceived a child, I approached Bairagi,” Kavita noted in her police complaint. “But he threatened me. He said the medicine my husband had consumed was laced with a spell – one which would keep our family childless for generations. If we wished to reverse its effect, we would have to pay the holy man 1.5 million rupees (US$20,762). Petrified, we paid the amount. We had to part with another 51,000 rupees (US$705) before we realised we were being conned, and approached the police.”

Although India is a rapidly emerging economic power, its social fabric is still marred by gross superstitions, ones which often dictate the births and deaths of children in the country, according to Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association. Modernisation has failed to build medical literacy and scientific temper in India, and progress, he says, is lost on millions of followers of self-styled “godmen”, who continue to exploit the gullible populace with claims of assured motherhood and promises of male children through supernatural powers.

“The problem does not pertain to rural India alone. In the National Capital Region [which encompasses Delhi and several districts around it], we have identified 2,000 self-styled godmen – they’re present in every city all over the country,” he says. “Each year, at least 45 to 50 women come out, stating they’ve been sexually exploited by these gurus, who claim to have conception cures. And that number is only the tip of the iceberg.”