Inside a Northern India Temple Where Women Are Exorcised to Tame Their ‘Ghosts’

ABC News(MALAJPUR, India) — Screams rang out from the temple of Guru Deoji in Northern India. It was the sounds of a woman who seemed to be begging for mercy.

The woman, believed by her husband to be possessed by demons, was undergoing an exorcism. And she is far from being the only one.

Locals in Malajpur, India, where the temple is located, say thousands of women have been brought to the temple by their husbands or family members over the years to submit to a reclusive guru and his disciples who claim to drive off demons and restore sanity for a fee. Exorcisms can involve the women being shouted at, their hair pulled and even beaten.

ABC News’ Nightline obtained a video that captured an exorcism ritual at the temple in which women were beaten with a broom.

To get rid of ghosts, rural India has traditionally relied on gurus claiming to have supernatural powers who the husbands or family of the possessed pay in exchange to have their loved ones exorcised.

V.B. Rawat, an activist and author who has written about social development in India, said it’s all a sham.

“It is an attempt to keep people subjugated for years in the name of tradition, in the name of religion, so they do not question the wrongs done to them,” Rawat said.

Most often, he said, it’s the women who are wronged. “These kinds of things are used against women….A woman can easily be declared as a witch.”

Rawat is a so-called “rationalist,” meaning someone who works to expose “black magic,” and it’s dangerous work in India. Last year, a rationalist named Narenda Dabholkar was shot twice in the head at close range on his morning walk by two assailants on a motorcycle, according to the Times of India. Dabholkar was mobilizing public support for a new law against superstition in the state legislature at the time.

Nightline set out on a journey with Rawat to Guru Deoji’s temple in Malajpur to see what was going on.

While at the temple, a woman named Krishna said she had lived there for one year because her husband believes she is possessed. He said he believes his wife’s own ghost abuses her and won’t let her have a son.

“She gets aggressive, she can’t speak,” her husband said in Hindi.

During an exorcism by the guru, Krishna’s eyes went wild, her body slacked, but it was over quickly.

When the guru finally agreed to talk to Nightline on the second day, he said through a translator that the “temple heals,” not him, and he is more of a caretaker who channels the powers of gurus before him. He also claimed that women he performed exorcisms on later gave birth to sons.

But on that day, a group of rationalists arrived, saying they were there to stage an intervention on the guru and expose him as a fraud. The guru refused to perform any exorcisms until the group left. Within minutes, the temple was shut down and the doors closed.

On the third day, Nightline was allowed back as the only outsiders in the temple. Inside, men and women separated and the chanting began as the guru’s disciples prepared the exorcism on women ready to submit.

“People who will watch her will say it is the ghost who is beaten up, not the woman. The problem is it is the woman who is beaten up,” Rawat said. “I call it a celebration of ignorance.”

One after the other, women approached and bowed down before the temple’s altar, as they were shouted at and had their hair pulled. All the while, one of the guru’s disciples demanded demons leave the women’s bodies. It was a frantic, desperate scene. But Krishna said she will keep coming back until she is certain her demon is gone.

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