The Impact Of The Salem Witch Trials And The Abolition Of India

Salem Witch Hunts and the Partition of India

The events leading up to the Partition of India threw the country into a state of hysteria that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Muslims and Hindus, similar to the chaos that erupted during the Salem witch trials. During the partition of India, the country was split into two major groups, the Hindus and the Muslims. Due to political friction and the desire of the Muslims to have their own separate country, violence and hysteria were generated from both sides. At the time of the Salem Witch Trials, the town ostracized and, in many cases, hung people that were deemed witches. These groups acted violently out of fear that they were threatened by the “other” group. The hysteria, caused by bigotry towards the opposing group, led to numerous deaths that could again rise as an issue if people aren’t aware of the

Riots, in reaction to an assumed political statement of two trains being burned, rampaged through towns and cities in mostly the Northeastern area of India. Since both groups, Hindus and Muslims, took turns rioting, each group was threatened by the aggressive riots. Golok B. Majumdar, a Hindu student in India at the time of the riots is quoted in (title of documentary), “I was thinking of going out for a stroll, and then all of the sudden I found some Muslim hoodlums shouting… then I found that a dead neighbor who had come out to see what was happening, his head was cracked and layed bleeding…” (PeaceMongerSoul). In The Crucible several women were under the threat of being hung for witchcraft. The slave Tituba is threatened to be hung if she didn’t confess to being contracted with the devil, to which she replied, “No, no, don 't hang Tituba! I tell him I don 't desire to work for him, sir.” (Crucible 42). Both the women in Salem and the people of India were terrified of violence threatened