The history of India is one of inchoate assimilation of disparate tribes - their respective myths, customs and cults left fairly intact, only incoherently unified in a hierarchical order. This process of absorption was relatively humane by international standards, but it became the precursor of a swamp of superstitions. Placating these superstitions - as evidenced most recently by the felicitation of witch doctors, shamans and sorcerers - might momentarily bring votes to the politician in election times, but it will only exacerbate the deeper fissures.