Conceptualizing the Issues Related to the Mob Lynching of Women in India: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Media Corpus and Discourse

Conceptualizing the Issues Related to the Mob Lynching of Women in India: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Media Corpus and Discourse

In certain parts of India, women are branded as witches, suffer mob humiliation and, at times, are lynched. To understand this phenomenon, this study engages in a critical analysis of witch-hunt discourse. It investigates the discursive layers of news narratives on mob violence executed against tribal women in Jharkhand state, India, where the tribal groups account for 27% of the total population. A corpus-based critical discourse analysis framework was applied to understand the collocational and concordance phenomena associated with gender violence in primitive communities. Our results reveal that the individual identities of the victims are underlined as social culprits, whereas the aggressors’ identities are assimilated into larger anonymous groups. Moreover, witch-hunt discourse revolves around superstition and suppresses alternative reasoning, such as the absence of healthcare facilities, gender power dynamics, and the role of state actors.

In certain parts of India, women are branded as witches, suffer mob humiliation and, at times, are lynched. To understand this phenomenon, this study engages in a critical analysis of witch-hunt discourse. It investigates the discursive layers of news narratives on mob violence executed against tribal women in Jharkhand state, India, where the tribal groups account for 27% of the total population. A corpus-based critical discourse analysis framework was applied to understand the collocational and concordance phenomena associated with gender violence in primitive communities. Our results reveal that the individual identities of the victims are underlined as social culprits, whereas the aggressors’ identities are assimilated into larger anonymous groups. Moreover, witch-hunt discourse revolves around superstition and suppresses alternative reasoning, such as the absence of healthcare facilities, gender power dynamics, and the role of state actors.