The Burning Of The Widow Bride

Sati is the practice through which widows are voluntarily or forcibly burnt alive on their husband's funeral pyre.The idea justifying sati is that women have worth only in relation to men.This illustrates women's lack of status as individuals in India.A widow's status was looked upon as an unwanted burden that prevented her from participating in the household work.A woman was considered pure only if she committed sati.Even though sati is considered an Indian custom or a Hindu custom it was not practiced all over India by all Hindu's but only among certain communities of India.Sacrificing the widow over her dead husband's funeral pyre was not unique only to India.This custom was prevalent among Egyptians,Greeks,Goths and others.In the Ramayana, Sita walks through fire to prove her purity.In the Mahabharata,Madri throws herself on her husband,Pandu's pyre.Sati,the wife of Daksha,was so overcome at the demise of her husband that she immolated herself on his funeral pyre.Sati was the consort of Lord Shiva.She burnt herself in the fire as protest against her father.Daksha did not give her consort Shiva the respect she thought he deserved.In general,before this custom was outlawed in 1892,there were hundred officially recorded incidences each year.In 1987,an eighteen year old widow,Roop Kanwar,committed sati in a village of Rajasthan.The 'Sati' version is that Roop Kanwar told her father-in-law she wanted to commit sati.Roop was forced to commit sati.The case went to court,but no one was charged with her murder.Even in the year 2000,you hear about sati occurring in rural villages.On 18 May 2006,Vidyawati,a 35year old woman allegedly committed sati by jumping into the blazing funeral pyre of her husband in Rari-Bujurg village,Fatehpur district in the State of Uttar Pradesh.On 21 August 2006,Janakarni,a 40 year old woman,burnt to death on the funeral pyre of her husband Prem Naryan in Sagar district[M.P].The efforts of Raja Rammohan Roy and other Hindu reformers greatly impacted the movement to outlaw this practice.Even after the custom was outlawed this custom did not vanish completely.It took few decades before this custom vanished.Burning the wife along with the attendants,horses and carriages of the dignitary was a common practice among the central Asian Tribes.India being the melting pot of good and bad social systems of its constituent cultures,the custom of sati was absorbed.Lord William Cavendish Bentick tried to reform Hindu society by abolition of the cruel rites of sati and the suppression of infanticide.Indians like Raja Rammohan Roy published a number of pamphlets condemning the practice of sati. Following outcries after each instance there have been various fresh measures passed against the practice,which now effectively make it illegal to be a bystander at an event of sati.Following the outcry after the sati of Roop Kanwar,the Indian Government enacted the Rajasthan Sati Prevention Ordinance,1987 on 1st October and later passes the Commission of Sati Prevention Act.Forcing someone to commit sati can be punished by a death sentence or life imprisonment.The National Council for Women has suggested amendments to the law to remove some of these flaws.