Godwin’s ‘law’ claims that the longer an online discussion gets, the more likely that some comparison will be made with Hitler or the Nazis. Certain words, concepts and themes (like ‘Hitler’) have such wide currency (among Westerners and a few browns) as powerful symbols that they have been used in all contexts, to counter anything, to badmouth anyone.

I have noticed similar things in some modern brown people (aka ‘enlightened Indians’ who have a particular distaste for hair-oil users). When one defends things whose ethno-cultural roots are to be found locally, the hair-oil haters react with contempt. If something indigenous contradicts something from a White domain, all hell breaks lose. Specifically two hells — Sati and snakebite.

In that predictably unimaginative barrage, any talk of being comfortable in one’s brown life mode in defiance of the imported flavour of the week makes one a wife-burning enthusiast. The ‘gotcha’ question follows – would you call the witch-doctor if a snake bites? Such is the potency of these two symbols that even partner-assaulting modern males and patient-gouging doctors liberally use these without an iota of shame and self-reflection. Only ‘ideology’ matters, stupid. Any engagement with the historical phenomenon of Sati (its fall and rise, caste specifics, colonial influences) is apologia; any nuance is ‘obscurantism’.

The modern gloats over his/her ignorance. They demonize ‘witch-doctors’ and faith healers. Their social alienation makes them perplexed at the continued presence of these institutions in society, against tremendous odds. This ‘high-minded’ ignorance reminds me of savarnas who ‘do not believe in caste’, ‘hate casteism’, have largely savarnas friends and cannot name even 10 shudra caste surnames.

Wife-burning was opposed by those with a social connect, and they couldn’t have succeeded without the people’s consent. It is in this context that the Maharashtra ordinance against ‘black magic’ has to be seen. It criminalizes miracle displays, ‘black magic’ to search for missing things, claims of divine possession and so forth — things considered quite possible by many people in whose name the ordinance has been promulgated.

Paying homage to selfless martyr Narendra Dabholkar is something. Passing ordinances as a knee-jerk reaction is quite another. There are powerful, organized vested interests in the ‘supernatural’ business. But to think that whole people, who are being manipulated, need saving by know-it-alls is demeaning to the personhood of the believers and to the concept of unfettered universal adult franchise.

Except fundamental rights of individuals like right to life, to consent to bodily intervention, opportunity equality, etc. whether a practice in society is harmful or not is not something that only ‘experts’ can decide. Social practices are multi-dimensional and can have more consent and agency built into them with ‘uses’ beyond the immediate ‘efficacy’ of ‘black-magic’.

One has to understand why a witch doctor whose interventions could not save a patient’s life is looked upon as a bigger criminal than a MBBS doctor whose negligence causes a patient’s death. Those who view the people as superstitious might do well to ask themselves — why is it more likely that they have heard of England’s fiery rationalist Richard Dawkins, but less likely to know the frail, brown Aroj Ali Matubbor? The alienated cannot expect people’s support. A veteran of people’s movements, Dabholkar knew that. Do his mourners know that or even care?

The author is a brain scientist at MIT