Sati-Widow Immolation: Dangerous Tradition in Deorala

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SATI-Widow Immolation I am here today to provide knowledge to my audience about the origins, practice and abolition of an age-old Hindu custom called Sati which was prevalent in some communities in India. I would like to take you all for a short journey to a modern village called Deorala which is situated in Rajasthan, a north-western Indian state. It was 4th September, 1987 and the entire village was drowned with sounds of bands, drums, hymns and religious chantings like ‘Sati ki pati ki jai’.

An eighteen year old Rajput woman, Roop Kanwar, dressed like a bride, stumbled behind her husband’s body as if intoxicated, surrounded by armed youths.

Soon after, she was buried under a heavy load of firewood in the funeral pyre of her husband and then burnt to ashes within a few hours.

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Her own brother-in-law lit the fire and whether she cried for mercy or not could not be ascertained due to the loud prayers and the cloud of pouring in the fire.

None of the 90-odd people who witnessed the murder made any effort to help the flaming woman, maybe out of shame or lack of courage.

Instead, she was called ‘Sati Mata’i.

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e. Pure Mother and a shrine was erected in her name. The embers of the pyre were kept alight for many days and stories of miracles and super-natural powers abounded, alluring the pilgrims who started flooding in with offerings and funds for the construction of a temple at the ‘Sati Sthal’ i.

e. the place where this poor widow was burnt alive. This is the account of a true incident written in Death by Fire by Mala Sen, which created furore among all the feminists, media and the educated population alike. But what led to this inhumane human sacrifice and why?

This is an age-old social custom which was prevalent in some Hindu communities in India during olden times and is called ‘Sati’. Sati was the religious funeral practice of immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, either voluntarily or through coercion. Ms. Shakuntala Rao Shastri, in her "Women in Sacred Laws" says that the major cause of voluntary self-immolation may have been the social stigma attached with living a widow life full of miseries, torture, deprivation and mortification, with an enforced strict ban on remarriage.

An immediate death over a lifeless survival may have been a matter of better choice rather than free choice for the widows. In any case, ‘Satihood’ believers viewed the ritual as a supreme act of selfless devotion and sacrifice which led to the ultimate salvation of the widow, her husband and their families in heaven. However, there were countless women, who, trapped within the values of tradition were forced to commit ‘sati’, sometimes even dragged into the lighted pyres of their deceased husbands, as if they were some non-living objects.

Now, let’s try to understand the meaning of the word ‘Sati’ and its origins. As mentioned in the book ‘Burning Women’ by Joerg Fisch (pgs. 214,215), ‘Sati’ is a Sanskrit word which means ‘a chaste woman’ and ‘sat’ refers to the virtues. ‘Sahagamma’ is the act of the widow burning herself with the husband’s body and ‘Anugamma’ is the act of the widow burning herself after her husband’s cremation. Historically, there is no mention of ‘Sati’ as an act anywhere among the Hindu scriptures.

In fact, mythologically, the Goddess Sati was the consort of Lord Shiva and she burnt herself in fire to protest against her father who refused to give her living husband Shiva the respect that she thought he deserved. According to Hindu literature, there is another famous woman Savitri who was called ‘Sati’. After her husband Satyavan’s death, she followed the Lord of death, Yama, till he gave her a boon which restored her husband’s life. The ritual of ‘Sati’ as a regular custom entered the Indian cultural scene much later after A. D. 00 and gained momentum around the period of A. D. 1500 to A. D. 1800. During this period, this system became an established institution among some communities in India. In fact, this brutal tradition was not only unique to the Indian subcontinent, but could also be traced among Egyptians, Greek, Goths, and others. But, which communities in India adopted this deplorable act of ‘Sati’? This practice was more prominent among the warrior communities in north India, especially in Rajasthan and also among the higher castes in Bengal in east India.

Described aptly in the book ‘Sati, The Blessing and the Curse’, Rajputs of Rajasthan were respected for their valor and self-sacrifice, and therefore their wives committed suicide, when they came to know that their beloved had died in battlefield. Self-immolation was a means to save their honor and earn prestige for their families. Various shrines and temples were built to glorify and respect those ‘Satis’, as if they were Goddesses. In Bengal, ‘Sati Pratha’ existed mostly among the higher castes, though the Brahmins gave it an honorable and prestigious outlook by establishing various norms with it.

As per Burning Women by Joerg Fisch(pgs 256,257), widows under sixteen and pregnant women were forbidden from burning. Also women with sons had higher chances of survival from this ritual, though rich and poor were treated alike. It benefitted the institution of caste system and the people associated with it. And as the caste system grew more rigid, the sati become more strict. According to Dr. K. Jamanadas (www. ambedkar. org/reasearch), shocked by the utter barbarism attached with this custom, many Christian and Muslim rulers tried to condemn it Albuquirk, a Portuguese ruler declared Sati as a crime.

Akbar and Jahangir enforced death-penalty for those who forced widows into funeral pyres with their deceased husbands and Akbar had also rode 450 miles to save the queen of Jodhpur just a few steps away from pyre. Even Aurangzeb declared that he didn’t want any woman to be burnt alive. However, it took years before this cruel tradition was abolished. Raja Rammohun Roy, a Bengali intellectual and social reformer began his campaign against ‘Sati’ from 1812.

He launched a journalistic attack on this rite and used Hindu scriptures to challenge the notion that ‘Sati’ played an important part in the enhancement of the Indian society. Eventually, Lord Bentinck, the then Governor General of East India Co. banned Sati in November 1829. The Abolition of Sati Act has been in force since then. However, it took few decades before this custom almost vanished. Despite being illegal, ‘Sati’ comes alive in some remote corners of India like a disease, once in every few years.

Why do people get so overpowered by their superstitions that they disregard the basic laws of life and humanity? There is need for stricter enforcement of laws banning Sati and people should be educated enough to refrain from glorifying and honoring such brutal customs. Why is it that we require sacrifices from ‘Sati’ victims to wake us up from our self-imposed slumber? Why don’t we learn to be pro-active rather than re-active? Only then we shall be truly free in its real terms- free from stigmas, free from superstitions and free from such inhumane traditions.