Every time that guns are brought out blazing against the Hindu way of life over television debates, the two usual topics stay the same: the first, casteism and the second, Sati Pratha.
The first has been talked about in detail over various articles, showing that the caste-tribe network was an imposition on the prevailing Jati-Varna system, which existed with a much different purpose and in a much different manner, and led to the marginalization of these communities.
The second of these, namely Sati Pratha, has not only not been decoded in such a great depth but also, more often than not, one is led to believe that it was a forceful practice meant to embolden patriarchy, that was only abolished by a chosen few messiahs with the cause of ending suffering for women, namely the Roy-Bentinck pair (implying special British help), without the will of the society at large, that suddenly completely wiped the practice out. None of these phrases in the last sentence, I emphasize none, are the truth.
Sati, as a practice that should find no place in modern society, was rightfully abolished, or rather abandoned, by the Hindu society, but the reasons for its inception, its continuance and its ultimate destruction are neither what would appear on a cursory glance, nor those taught in popularized textbooks stunted with myopic historical views.
Scriptural Basis
Firstly, Sati, or self-immolation, is not a practice prescribed by Hindu scriptures. It was a practice that was adopted based on historic circumstances, rather to fulfil any Brahminical or Hindu religious mandates. More often than not, this is said to be false on the basis of the following verse from the Rigveda:
इमा नारीरविधवाः सुपत्नीराञ्जनेन सर्पिषा संविशन्तु | अनश्रवो.अनमीवाः सुरत्ना आ रोहन्तु जनयोयोनिमग्ने
In this, the last word: ‘agne’, would signify that the Veda suggests that the woman walk into the fire with her deceased husband.
However, the above verse is the adoption of the one published by Max Muller in his translations of the Rigveda and the other Vedas. The original text of the same was as below:
इमा नारीरविधवाः सुपत्नीराञ्जनेन सर्पिषा संविशन्तु | अनश्रवो.अनमीवाः सुरत्ना आ रोहन्तु जनयोयोनिमग्रे || (RV 10.18.7)
Translated: “Let these women who are not widows, who have good husbands, enter (anointed) with unguent andbutter. Let women without tears, without sorrow, and decorated with jewels, first proceed to the house.”
(Source: https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/rig-veda-english-translation/d/doc838695.html)
In fact, none of the Vedas suggest that the woman must perform self-immolation! Sati, the word, is not remotely connected to self-immolation in its meaning and derives its colour from the concept of Sati and Asati- virtue and vice, with Sati being the name of Lord Shiva’s wife. Manubhāṣya (or Medhātithi’s commentary) in the Manu Smriti dictates that one shall not die before the span of their life has run out (5.155), which is in direct contrast to anyone who claims that the same document asks a widow to take her own life via self-immolation!
Why then, one must think, was a mistake made by Muller in this translation? The motive becomes very clear in the letter written by him to his wife post translating Hindu Vedic documents, which read:
“…I feel convinced, though I shall not live to see it, that this edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what that root is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years.”
When a historian-translator is blinded by hate about the subject he writes about, has preconceived notions based on inaccuracies and the only motive (which he was paid for by the British, according to many sources and biographies) was to ‘civilise the heathens’ by uprooting their dharma, one should not be surprised that the results of the same were so heavily biased and inaccurate.
Patriarchy, The Reason for Sati?
This is no basis for stating that the Sati Pratha was ever related to patriarchy. For starters, as per Dr. Meenakshi Jain’s book on the subject, among the cases of Sati Pratha, there exist no texts or iconographs that state or prove that any case of self-immolation was undertaken forcibly or that justify it upto the 9th century. Only upon the British and Portuguese invasions were these records created, the reason for which will be analysed later on in this article.
Secondly, Rigveda 10.18.8 expressly gives women the right to inherit property from the dead, to choose her successor and to even marry a second time! (It is also astonishing that Sati stood the test of time for long since the wrongly translated version of Rigveda 10.18.7, when read with 10.18.8, is directly antithetical to it.)
A deeper reading into Sati Pratha and its figures will also show that the cases of Sati Pratha increased under the British Rule, under Islamic invasions and in the presidencies in which the population was largely Islamic. In fact, the Sati practice was concentrated in a few areas in small numbers and grew, in those concentrated regions itself rather than the whole subcontinent, when the abovementioned factors were in place.
This finds resonance with the custom of ‘Jauhar’ where the queen of a kingdom, with all the other females in the kingdom, would self-immolate once her husband, the King, was killed in a battle with an Islamic enemy. Why, then, choose the most painful way of death without societal dogma dictating norms?
The reasons for committing Sati on an individual basis or Jauhar on a mass-scale remain the same. After the death of her husband, the women were often taken (in times of Jauhar, by Islamic armies and later, in times of Sati, by her Islamic neighbors) as sex-slaves or had to endure rape. Even after death, the dead bodies were not spared from necrophilia. This was expressly allowed in some Islamic documents, one of which is replicated below (another :
‘Since then, and based on this hadith, Muslim scholars unanimously agree that sexual intercourse with a dead woman is... “not a big deal”’ Sexual intercourse with a dead woman is not an impediment to marriage.
Al-Mabsout, Imam Al-Sarkhasi 5/133
It was due to these reasons that women felt the need for self-immolation so as to not even provide their dead bodies to anyone who may defile it. Brahminical or patriarchal angles, thus, cannot be used as the lens to justify this when the blame lies on another door altogether.
The Roy-Bentinck Pair
Lastly, you will be told that the Sati Pratha was abolished by the duo Raja Rammohan Roy and the Governor General of India, Lord Bentinck. This, while true to word, is patently false in its spirit.
Firstly, the very history of Raja Rammohan Roy seems to be shrouded with mystery. It is said that watching, as a child, his sister-in-law perform Sati on herself was what was the catalyst for his journey. However, by modest estimations, if Roy’s own documents about his sister-in-law’s death in 1811 was true, he’d have been 40 years old at the time. Additionally, what is very interesting is that there was a case mentioning his sister-in-law’s name, filed by her against Roy for a property dispute, in 1817- 6 years after her apparent death according to the year emphasized by Roy on multiple occasions!
Secondly, Sati had been seeing growing and emboldened voices against it over the centuries that called it a black spot on the Sanatan way of life. There were quite a few movements and rallies taken out against Sati even before Roy. The abolition, thus, was not the work of a few messiahs but a product of the collective consciousness of the Hindu society that demanded change.
Thirdly, what is often implied is that the British could not see the women suffer and thus helped Roy in this quest for justice. This could not be farther from the truth. Avni Gupta at pratisandhi.com writes:
‘History reveals that when the British were unable to tolerate the injustice against women during European colonial period, they even decided to abolish Sati.’
(Source: https://www.pratisandhi.com/sati-practice/#:~:text=At%20least%201%2C000%20women%20have,sati%20between%201815%20and%201829.)
If it is true, I challenge the writer to explain why the British invented the torture technique of ripping out women’s breasts using bamboo sticks if they were unable to pay tax or why women and children were allowed to die en masse (more than 3 million deaths in total) in the Bengal famine that was created by the British to a great extent to create buffer food stocks, that were never used, for their soldiers.
Lastly, it is interesting how the abolition of Sati in 1829 becomes the focal point and suddenly post this date no cases of Sati pratha are recorded to have happened. If the argument is that the pratha was entrenched into the minds of the Hindu society and that it loved the status quo, how did the number of cases suddenly become zero overnight?
Conclusion
Hinduism has a strange way of casting its heroes- what was a societal movement is credited to a chosen few, some of whom did not care about the movement in the slightest (Lord Bentinck, implied). Sati was a societal ill that crept into the system and was allowed to remain way longer than it should have been, but that is where the argument must draw a line rather than trying to portray the Hindu religion as a misogynistic and backward religion. Lastly, through the article, neither do I wish to caste a doubt on the basis for the ban of Sati, nor do I try to defend it- the motive is clear i.e. the Hindus cannot be cornered for Sati as if it is something that was preached or mandated by the religion or way of life.
Image Source: https://images.app.goo.gl/kVbdJ1XKUbf7AxQh9
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