The Burning of Sampati Kuer: Sati and the Politics of Imperialism, Nationalism and Revivalism in 1920s India

Abstract

Sati, the immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, is a rare, but highly controversial practice. It has inspired a surfeit of scholarly studies in the last twenty years, most of which concentrate on one of two main historical sati ‘episodes’: that of early‐colonial Bengal, culminating with the British prohibition of 1829, and that of late twentieth‐century Rajasthan, epitomised by the immolation of Roop Kanwar in 1987. Comparatively little detailed historical analysis exists on sati cases between these two events, however, a lacuna this paper seeks to address by exploring British and Indian discourses on sati as they existed in late‐colonial India. The paper argues that sati remained a site of ideological and actual confrontation in the early twentieth century, with important implications for ongoing debates about Hindu religion, identity and nation. It focuses on the intersection between various colonial debates and contemporaneous Indian social and political concerns during the controversy surrounding the immolation of Sampati Kuer in Barh, Bihar, in 1927, emphasising resonances with postcolonial interpretations of sati and the dissonance of early nineteenth‐century tropes when reproduced in the Patna High Court in 1928. Thus, while Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid have suggested that ‘ad hoc’ attempts to piece together a ‘modern’ narrative of widow immolation began in the 1950s, this paper will suggest that various contemporary discursive formations on sati can be observed in late‐colonial India, when discussions of sati became entwined with Indian nationalism and Hindu identity politics and evoked the first organised female response to sati from an emergent women's movement that saw it as an ideological, as well as physical, violation of women.

Gender Inequality in the Public Sector in Pakistan

“…In the early years of the empire, the British, rather than banning the tradition outright, administered it bureaucratically (Fisch 2006;. It was banned 9 in 1829 but in 1987 the Sati (Prevention) Act was promulgated in India to make it a legally culpable offence to strengthen the law in places where it had been widely ignored (Major 2008). Despite the ban, cases of sati continued to be reported 10 in some parts of India as late as 2006 in Utter Pradesh and 2008 in Chattisgarh (Ahmad 2009).…”

Murderous Ritual versus Devotional Custom: The Rhetoric and Ritual of Sati and Women’s Subjectivity in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

“…Nonetheless, Deeti seems to possess neither any faithfulness towards her dead husband nor any predilections for the ritualistic perfection of the rite. Besides, it is expected that the woman who decides to be a sati should express so by her spontaneous vow or vrat which makes her a sativrata and bestows a supernatural power on her ( [14], p. 159; [28,29]). Deeti's resolution to be a sati, however, is not followed by any vrat or vow that can transform her into a sativrata.…”