Who is sati in hinduism

From the time missionaries started arriving in India, lurid accounts of Sati were transported back to England, France, Portugal and other colonial powers in the form of manuscripts or on vividly painted canvases. By the time the then Governor General Lord William Bentinck passed Regulation XVII in , effectively banning the practice of Sati —self-immolation of a woman on her husband's funeral pyre upon his death—it was already a a practice well-documented and denigrated by Europeans.

Many accounts by missionaries describing the practice, called it 'barbaric' and some reported instances in 18th-century regional newspapers in Calcutta even mentioned that the widows were sometimes forced or drugged and tied to the pyre to prevent them from moving. Years later, on October 29, Amish Tripathi, the mythology-fiction writer, tweeted that the Sati system was a "minor practice that emerged in a few parts of India, in medieval times".

Thus dismissing all the women who lost their lives to the cruel practice. The statement came in response to a tweet by journalist Rajdeep Sardesai questioning the validity of majoritarian dissent with respect to the current protests against the Supreme Court verdict in favour of women's entry into the Sabarimala temple.

This is what he said:. With all due respect sardesairajdeep , you are wrong about Sati. Most of Hindu India did not even practice Sati. It was a minor practice that emerged in just a few parts of India, in medieval times.

Responding to Sardesai's allegation that the Hindu community in the 19th century had not supported Raja Ram Mohan Roy's subsequently successful attempts to convince Lord Bentinck to ban the ' Sati system' as it later came to be called, Tripathi implied that there was no opposition because the practice was not as widespread among Hindus. This version could very well be part of the fiction-mythology books Tripathi writes as it definitely is not the truth.

The abolition of Sati was not a knee-jerk reaction. It was a steady discourse that slowly grew into a political agenda for the British administrators in favour of the larger colonial narrative of 'civilising' 'native' Indian society.

But it took time to evolve. The British first put a conditional ban on Sati way back in in Calcutta. It eventually tried to regulate Sati by allowing a selective number of self-immolation cases where the woman performing was seen to not be under any pressure and was, in fact, doing it with her own will.

In fact, this attitude of the British to accommodate the practice by legislating it on the basis of individual will is often seen by historians as a way to pander to the political Hindu elite in the country, whose support was important to the crown's stability in its Indian territories.

Even when Raja Ram Mohan Roy and his Brahmo Samaj started advocating for the abolition of Sati in , he was met with intense opposition from certain sections of the dominant Hindu populations in Bengal and northern India.

While Tripathi claims that Sati was a minor practice relegated to medieval India, it has been documented that Roy was motivated to work for the abolition after allegedly witnessing his sister-in-law being burnt on her husband's pyre. Historian and cultural critic Lata Mani in her book 'Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati' wrote that over 8, instances of self-immolation were recorded by the British before passing the law banning it.

Several princely states took longer in banning the practice. Roy himself was hounded by Hindu groups and activists who were opposed to the ban. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page.

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Sati by Paul B. Introduction The word sati Skt. How to Subscribe Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. Jump to Other Articles:. Oxford University Press. In light of this incident, the government created the Prevention of Sati Act , making it illegal to force or encourage a woman to commit sati, and anyone doing so would be punished by death.

And yet, some widows still choose to become sati — at least four such cases were recorded between and We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements.

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