A FEW GAPS IN THE BLACK MAGIC LAW

In August, Gujarat officially outlawed black magic and related inhuman practices. But the landmark bill that effected this criminalising human sacrifice, cruel practices and allied superstitious acts - is still being seen only as a beginning.

- Jumana Shah

For Ashwin Karia, it was a moment of reckoning. The former law professor's public interest litigation (PIL) in the Gujarat High Court is what led to the unanimous passage of the Gujarat Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Bill, 2024. Karia, founder of the Gujarat-Mumbai Rationalist Association, had filed the PIL in January after over two decades of campaigning against superstition that resulted in the painful deaths of children, among other horrors. Within six months, the government promised to introduce a law against such practices, and made good on its word by August.