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Why sati is still a burning issue
Divya A, TNN 16 August 2009, 12:36am IST
Last week, 60-year-old Sharbati Bai attempted to commit sati on her husband's pyre in Rajasthan's Sikar district. She couldn't because the village
and the police stopped her just in time.
Roop Kanwar, India's last known sati, was not so lucky 20 years ago. Has Rajasthan finally won the war against the practice of sati?
When Roop Kanwar was burnt to death in 1987, it was said her act was abetted by her husband's family and the whole village, though this was never established in a court of law. Fast forward 22 years and just a few km from the spot in Deorala where the bride of eight months was publicly burnt, a whole village prevented an old widow from burning herself at the altar of custom!
What does this mean, if anything? Has India finally been able to stamp out sati, almost 21 years after it brought in anti-Sati legislation? Yes, say sociologists who work against sati in the area. But they add that even though the custom has been dying a slow death since the law came about, the myth remains, which is why a Sharbati Bai still tries to do a Roop Kanwar.
Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan, has been actively working to discourage the practice since 1987. She says "the law has very effective in preventing the making of a sati" but adds that "it has not been equally successful in preventing the glorification of sati even though it has been rendered a crime."
Srivastava says Roop Kanwar was independent India's 40th sati but the law has done what it should have - made the practice too dangerous to abet. "Most reported cases have taken place in the Shekhawati belt of Rajasthan or in Madhya Pradesh.
"And most of these areas are where the Sati is glorified, where there are sati temples and pujas are still conducted," she says.
But even though sati may be simply falling out fashion, but women's activists and legal experts are worried it may be revived for commercial reasons. India has at least 250 sati temples and the ruling on pujas is too ambiguous to be preventive, they say. Srivastava describes the industry that thrived around Roop Kanwar's horrific public death. "It was followed by congregations and festivals, and attempts were made to collect funds for the construction of a temple at the site, although the efforts were thwarted after widespread protests and legal intervention."
A sati temple has always been a big draw. Some temples are thought to be as old as the custom itself, which is believed to have originated 700 years ago among Rajasthan's ruling warrior community. It was first declared illegal in India as far back as 1829 by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General of the East India Company, largely because of Raja Ram Mohan Roy's activist efforts.
Dr Sarvesh Dhillon, former history professor at Amritsar's Guru Nanak Dev University, says: "As per the records kept by the Bengal Presidency of the British East India Company, the known occurrences in 1813-1828 were 8,135. Raja Ram Mohan Roy estimated 10 times as many cases of sati in Bengal compared to the rest of the country. In modern times, sati has been largely confined to Rajasthan, with a few instances in the Gangetic plain."
Dhillon says many Muslim such as Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb, and some Christian rulers have attempted to stop the practice.
But almost two centuries after Bentinck's law and two decades after the anti-sati Act, activists say it is significant that there are discreet congregations at the Rani Sati temple complex in Jhunjhunu, which is called the fountainhead of sati. "Sometimes, the glorification may be difficult to prove as the rituals are conducted in the name of individual pujas," says Srivastava.
The National Commission for Women recently suggested amendments to the law to prohibit worship at ancient shrines. Kirti Singh, legal convener of the All India Democratic Women's Association, says the glorification continues "but it is a battle that we can wage because we have the Act, which defines glorification and criminalizes it."
The war on sati is not over then.
Why sati is still a burning issue - View From Venus - Sunday TOI - NEWS - The Times of India
Divya A, TNN 16 August 2009, 12:36am IST
Last week, 60-year-old Sharbati Bai attempted to commit sati on her husband's pyre in Rajasthan's Sikar district. She couldn't because the village
and the police stopped her just in time.
Roop Kanwar, India's last known sati, was not so lucky 20 years ago. Has Rajasthan finally won the war against the practice of sati?
When Roop Kanwar was burnt to death in 1987, it was said her act was abetted by her husband's family and the whole village, though this was never established in a court of law. Fast forward 22 years and just a few km from the spot in Deorala where the bride of eight months was publicly burnt, a whole village prevented an old widow from burning herself at the altar of custom!
What does this mean, if anything? Has India finally been able to stamp out sati, almost 21 years after it brought in anti-Sati legislation? Yes, say sociologists who work against sati in the area. But they add that even though the custom has been dying a slow death since the law came about, the myth remains, which is why a Sharbati Bai still tries to do a Roop Kanwar.
Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan, has been actively working to discourage the practice since 1987. She says "the law has very effective in preventing the making of a sati" but adds that "it has not been equally successful in preventing the glorification of sati even though it has been rendered a crime."
Srivastava says Roop Kanwar was independent India's 40th sati but the law has done what it should have - made the practice too dangerous to abet. "Most reported cases have taken place in the Shekhawati belt of Rajasthan or in Madhya Pradesh.
"And most of these areas are where the Sati is glorified, where there are sati temples and pujas are still conducted," she says.
But even though sati may be simply falling out fashion, but women's activists and legal experts are worried it may be revived for commercial reasons. India has at least 250 sati temples and the ruling on pujas is too ambiguous to be preventive, they say. Srivastava describes the industry that thrived around Roop Kanwar's horrific public death. "It was followed by congregations and festivals, and attempts were made to collect funds for the construction of a temple at the site, although the efforts were thwarted after widespread protests and legal intervention."
A sati temple has always been a big draw. Some temples are thought to be as old as the custom itself, which is believed to have originated 700 years ago among Rajasthan's ruling warrior community. It was first declared illegal in India as far back as 1829 by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General of the East India Company, largely because of Raja Ram Mohan Roy's activist efforts.
Dr Sarvesh Dhillon, former history professor at Amritsar's Guru Nanak Dev University, says: "As per the records kept by the Bengal Presidency of the British East India Company, the known occurrences in 1813-1828 were 8,135. Raja Ram Mohan Roy estimated 10 times as many cases of sati in Bengal compared to the rest of the country. In modern times, sati has been largely confined to Rajasthan, with a few instances in the Gangetic plain."
Dhillon says many Muslim such as Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb, and some Christian rulers have attempted to stop the practice.
But almost two centuries after Bentinck's law and two decades after the anti-sati Act, activists say it is significant that there are discreet congregations at the Rani Sati temple complex in Jhunjhunu, which is called the fountainhead of sati. "Sometimes, the glorification may be difficult to prove as the rituals are conducted in the name of individual pujas," says Srivastava.
The National Commission for Women recently suggested amendments to the law to prohibit worship at ancient shrines. Kirti Singh, legal convener of the All India Democratic Women's Association, says the glorification continues "but it is a battle that we can wage because we have the Act, which defines glorification and criminalizes it."
The war on sati is not over then.
Why sati is still a burning issue - View From Venus - Sunday TOI - NEWS - The Times of India
first of all the points my countrymen or otherwise given me uptill now are based on not the reason you mentioned.
one dude posted a news on Temple stampede with all smiles. Another dude posted a news item that "Nixon addressed Indians as Bastards" with lots of laughter icons. 
