Abstract:This article explores the response of the postcolonial state to the question of widow immolation – sati. It demonstrates that the conversation on the practice of sati at the high point of Hindu law reform in the 1950s reflected the simultaneous pressures on the new democracy to establish rule of law while also accommodating the renewed reverence for tradition and religious custom in an independent nation state. Distinct from the colonial response to sati that treated women as either “helpless and pathetic” or … Show more
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