Title: Immolating Women
Author: Jorg Fisch
Publisher:
Permanent Black, 2006 (First published 1998)
ISBN: 9788178241746
Pages: 610
It was a fine morning in
September 1987, while India was stably under the rule of a young and dynamic
prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who had immense charm and real world pragmatism
at least during the initial stages. Many of the antediluvian measures in
socialist planning were removed and the country was placed on the track to
modernity. So it came as a rude shock to many to read the story as it broke, of
a young widow from Deorala, Rajastan who had burnt on the funeral pyre of her
young husband, purportedly observing the custom of Sati, which most Indians had learnt only in history books and had
thought extinguished a long way back. Sati again became an issue of contention
and national debate. The government was quick to bring in legislation that
offered harsh punishment to the perpetrators and participants. But even with
all this, nobody is quite sure whether the mindset that worked in the
background to send young widows already much stricken with grief to a pyre
raging with fire, had changed. Indicators still suggest that there are some
hardliners in the country who take pride in ‘Sati’ committed earlier and want
to cherish them. Jorg Fisch analyses
the idea of following into death in general and also Sati in particular. The
author is
a Professor of modern history at the University of Zürich. His research and
teaching includes non-European history (South and Southeast Asia, South Africa,
Latin America and European 20th century history (the world wars).
His research focus is on the history of international law and international
relations.
Fisch undertakes a comprehensive survey of the recorded instances of
the following into death among civilizations scattered across the globe and
brings out results from all continents. The research that has gone into sifting
and cataloguing of relevant information compiled by scholars is a gigantic
effort that must be appreciated. We read about all kinds of executions under
the broad category of following into death. Attendants were often buried along
with the accompanied, and in some cases, they were burnt along or after a lapse
of time since the funeral of the accompanied. The victims were mercifully
drugged in some cases, or they would be killed first by the living servants of
the master. In quite a few cases the death was slow and painful, as in the case
of partial burning like that of the Talkotin tribe in North America. Strangling
prior to interment was the usual practice in the islands of Oceania. Contrary
to popular belief, not only women, but men were also forced to accompany their
spouses on their death, as in the case of Natchez tribe in America. In Japan,
the institutional form of accompanying one’s master in death was practiced even
in the beginning of the last century, when General Nogi Maresuke committed
Junshi (ritual suicide) when the Meiji Emperor died in 1912. Even up to the middle
ages, the custom was in practice in Europe as exemplified by the Christburg
Treaty of 1249, when the Prussians agreed to stop the custom of interring
horses, humans, weapons, clothes and other precious objects. Everywhere, the
custom prevailed among the followers of primitive religions. With the advent of
Islam and Christianity, the evil practice came to a stop. In those cases where
it continued thereafter, the final chapter came when those regions came under
colonial administration. The books extensive first part conveys the idea that
the ritual existed worldwide at one time in man’s climb from the dark pit of prehistory.
The second part of the book is dedicated to India where widow burning
had been sanctified to ethereal heights. The first recorded case of Sati occurs
in the description of Diadorus of Sicily regarding a battle at Gabiene in Asia
Minor in 316 BCE between Antigonus and Eumenes, who were the generals of
Alexander the Great. After the Emperor’s death his successors fought among each
other. Eumenes had an Indian contingent among his troops. Ceteus, the commander
of the Indian soldiers fell in battle and one of his wives immolated herself on
the pyre. This was such a spectacle for the Greeks that they noted it down with
astonishment. However this incident runs counter to another argument raised
elsewhere in the text. While considering the origins of Sati, Fisch proposes
that the custom was not part of the Hindu belief system and that it might have
originated in Scythia on the Black Sea coast and carried eastward by Scythians.
If such was the case, the wonder caused to the Greeks by Ceteus’s wife’s
unusual act is unfounded, as the Greeks were familiar with the ancient customs
of the northern coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas or at least the ritual
might not have been totally unknown to them. But in India itself, numerical
frequency of the savage custom increased in the middle ages, with the crescendo
reaching around the beginning of 19th century when the British
established their rule in Bengal. The British at first tolerated the practice,
particularly when the act was voluntary without any force or coercion from the
family members and spectators, as Sati was invariably practiced as a public
ceremony. They didn’t want to incite public wrath while curbing a religious
custom. But the barbarity began to sink in them and their hold on power grew
stronger over the years. Activism by reformers also helped to turn the tide
against the custom. Sati was abolished forever in 1829 in British India, but it
prevailed for a few years more in the princely states. When the Sikh king
Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in 1839, eleven of his harem inmates immolated
themselves.
The book dispels a deep rooted myth in the minds of people, including
me. Most of us thought that all the widows in India were being burnt on the
pyre of their dead husbands forcibly. This is far from the truth. Only a very
few widows - Fisch says one or two widows in a thousand cases - committed Sati and almost all of them were
voluntary. The widow decided to end her life out of sorrow, despair, the urge
to acquire lasting honour and also to obtain great merit in the after world.
She descended the pyre on her own free will, which is attested by many eye
witnesses, including foreigners. Use of force is applied only when the lady
changes her mind after the pyre is kindled. A victim was not allowed to escape
after the ceremony had begun. There are brutal cases cited where the spectators
threw the widow a multiple number of times after she escaped from the raging
fire. But the decision was hers alone. Some people argue that the social life
of a living widow was worse than death and that might be the reason which
forced many to accept immolation. This is also refuted in the book, as there
are many cases in which very poor women who had nothing to look forward to,
decided to live and well-to-do widows burnt themselves. Notions of honour may
drive a person to his or her own death.
Fisch rejects the social work of Raja Rammohan Roy or the enlightenment
of William Bentick, the governor general, that put an end to the custom by
abolishing it in 1829. Roy’s protests are portrayed to be feeble and limited
only to Calcutta and in the upper classes of society. We gather the impression
that he was not taken seriously by the British administration. On the other
hand, Bentick was vacillating on the measures to be taken against the ritual.
He was mortally afraid of provoking unrest among the society which tolerated
this savage ritual in the name of religion. So, how did the abolition came into
effect? Fisch argues that the unsung heroes are the officials of the East India
Company’s civil service who were in charge of the districts. After a brief time
of toleration and tacit acceptance, which was the policy of the administration,
they could no longer permit innocent women to burn under their noses. They
intervened and stopped many voluntary immolations without causing any outrage
among the people. This prompted the government to bring forward the legislation
to abolish the custom.
The barbarous practice of Sati maligns the honour of Hinduism in
general and even questions its status as an enlightened, modern religion. But
the curious fact is that this practice is not prescribed in any of its
religious texts. In the Vedas, it is mentioned and in Dharma Sutras, it is
commented, as the path for a virtuous wife, but nowhere is it enjoined on the
devout. A rational conclusion from this evidence is that the authors of these texts
found the custom as a fait accompli. During the middle ages, the practice
became widespread, with both the upper and lower castes eagerly taking part.
Statistics for Bengal just before the ritual was made illegal in 1829 shows
that Brahmin women constituted 38% of all deaths, while Shudras and untouchables
constitute nearly 50%. Not only In India, widow burning was carried to
everywhere Hinduism went. This custom was prevalent in Java where Hinduism
flourished, until the 15th century. When the island came under
Muslim rule, the practice was proscribed and the people were converted to
Islam. Widow burning continued to exist in Bali till the onset of 20th
century. Bali is prominently Hindu even today. There, the wives entered the
funeral pyre and were called Satia, while the concubines were first stabbed to
death and then thrown to the flames, and were called Bela. This trans-oceanic
carriage of the inhuman ritual is a bloat on Hinduism, which is all the more
vitiated by attempts from fanatics to justify the practice, even if one were to
occur at present. The only saving grace for the religion is that reform
movements that clamored for an end to this custom grew from within its fold, as
in the case of Raja Rammohan Roy and his Brahmo Samaj. Efforts to compare Sati
with burning of witches and duels in Europe during the Renaissance era may
appear to lessen the guilt, though!
The book presents a fine poem by Euripides in the tragedy Supplices in which Capaneus dies, and
his wife Euadne resolves to jump down from a rock onto the burning pyre. It
runs as follows,
“From this cliff’s brow
For wifehood’s glory
With spurning feet I dart
Down into yon fire’s heart
To meet him, ne’er to part, -
Flames reddening o’er me, -
To nestle to his side,
In Cora’s bowers a bride!
O love, though thou hast died,
I’ll not forsake thee” (p. 36)
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 3 Star
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