Over the years, the women's movement in Rajasthan has had some success in making violence against women into an important political issue. Activists have forced political parties and governments to demonstrate that they are addressing this constituency, which the media has dubbed 'Mahila Sangathan'. Important landmarks include the campaign against sati following the Roop Kanwar incident in Deorala in 1987, in which Roop Kanwar had been pushed into the funeral pyre. That campaign finally forced the Rajasthan government to pass a law against the issue of glorification of sati, in turn replaced by a new central law, the Commission of Sati Prevention Act, in 1987. Another significant issue was the movement for justice for Bhanwari Devi, a sathin (a worker in the government's Women Development Programme) who was gang-raped in 1992 by upper-caste men for attempting to stop a child marriage. This gradually grew, by 1996, into a full-fledged movement to counter violence against women, which resulted in women's groups establishing themselves as a political constituency.
Over the past two decades, state governments in Rajasthan have been forced to address significant issues in relation to violence against women. The latest move is the announcement of the Rajasthan Women (Prevention and Protection from Atrocities) Bill, 2011. The proposed law is an overarching legislation, bringing together several different and distinct atrocities under the purview of one umbrella legislation. One of the most discussed measures has been the provisions against witch-hunting, so much so that the law has been dubbed an anti-witch-hunting law.
As has been pointed out by activists, the sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) – Section 323, for voluntarily causing hurt, which attracts one year imprisonment and Rs 1000 fine; and Section 141 which deals with unlawful assembly – under which the accused are booked when a woman is declared a dakan (witch) and subjected to torture do not adequately address the crime, and a special law was clearly required. Normally, the accused are booked under simple bailable sections of the IPC, or the police might simply get restraining orders against the accused. Neither of these are adequate, given that they cannot address the grave nature of the actual offences: such attacks can endanger the life of the woman; she might be dispossessed and thrown out of her home; her entire family could face a social boycott.
Certain features are common to cases in which women are declared to be witches in Rajasthan. The precipitating reason is usually that a child, or several children, fall sick, perhaps followed by death. While this might be the ostensible case for a particular woman being declared a witch, in a majority of instances the underlying motive is to drive the woman and her family out of the area, often in order to grab her land and property. Analysis by women's groups has shown that the targeted women were usually single (mostly widows), bold and forthright in their social interactions, and often childless. Few in the village will stand by such women when they come under an accusation. Further, the label of dakan is more often than not directed towards Dalit and Adivasi women.