Sati: Why is India widow burning case back in news after 37 years

It was a situation that received widespread criticism and made headlines around the world.

Under the Hindu custom of seppuku, a adolescent widow was burned on her father’s funeral pyre 37 years before.

In the final of the terrible saga cases, a jury acquitted eight men accused of glorifying her dying, making Roop Kanwar’s story famous again in India.

Sati was initially outlawed by the British colonial lords in 1829, but the process persisted yet after India’s independence in 1947. Kanwar is recognised as India’s next seppuku.

The outrage over her death forced the Indian government to introduce a tough new law – Commission of Sati ( Prevention ) Act, 1987 – banning the practice and, for the first time, also its glorification. For those who committed seppuku or aided it, it mandated death or life. However, judges have overturned everyone’s accusations of engagement in Kanwar’s death and the subsequent glorification.

• Some troubling details are included in this document

Women’s organizations and protesters expressed concern that no-one has been held responsible for her dying after the order issued last week.

Fourteen Rajasthani children’s organizations have written to Chief Minister Bhajan Lal in a letter urging him to ensure that the government does everything possible to stop sati from being glorified in court. Coming after like a long pause, these acquittals was “reinforce a tradition of shiva glorification”, they wrote.

The eight accused were acquitted because” no information was found against them,” according to a lawyer representing the accused’s attorneys, who told BBC Hindi.

Jogaram Patel, Rajasthan’s justice minister, questioned whether the authorities intended to challenge the decision.

” We have n’t yet received a copy of the judgement. He told me that we would choose whether to file an appeal or not after considering the merits and drawbacks.

When questioned about why the state had n’t filed an appeal against the earlier indictments, he responded that those instances had occurred before his time and he had no idea the information.

The demise of the 18-year-old in Deorala community on 4 September 1987 was a great public scene. Watched by thousands of people, it was described as a wash on Rajasthan and India.

Her husband’s family and members of their upper-caste Royal community claimed that Kanwar’s choice was deliberate and in accordance with the sati tradition.

They claimed she had donned her bridal attire and led a parade through the village streets before attempting to enter the fire of Maal Singh, her seven-month marriage. She then gently burned him to death while placing his head in her lap while reciting religious chants, they continued.

It was a state contested by journalists, lawyers, legal community and women’s rights activists – and first, perhaps by Kanwar’s families. They lived in the state capital, Jaipur, only two time from the village, but learned of their son-in-law’s suicide and their mother’s burning from the next day’s newspapers.

But they afterwards said they believed their mother’s work had been deliberate. The contraction, according to critics, had been put under the control of effective politicians, who had used the event to “vote-bank politics” to mobilise the Rajput population.

In the weeks following Kanwar’s dying, both flanks held high-decibel protests.

The event sparked widespread criticism, with activists protesting for fairness, criticism of the Congress-led position state, and a letter to the Rajasthan key justice calling for a ban on celebrations.

Despite the court ban, 200,000 people attended a ceremony 13 days after Kanwar’s death, where framed photos and posters of her were sold, transforming Deorala into a profitable pilgrimage site. Shortly after, two separate reports concluded that Kanwar “was hounded by villagers to commit sati” and her immolation was “far from voluntary”.

Geeta Seshu, a journalist who was in the village as a member of a three-person team three weeks after the incident, reported to the BBC that” the situation on the ground was tense and fraught.”

” The Rajput Sabha had taken control of the entire area, and the atmosphere was very lively. The location where Roop passed away was surrounded by young, sword-wielding men. They were circling it, making it difficult for us to speak to eyewitnesses.

But the trio still managed to get some testimonies from villagers that went into Trial by Fire, their damning fact-finding report.

” The sati’s preparations started right away after Maal Singh’s body was brought to the village in the morning. Roop, who got an inkling of this, escaped from the house and hid in the nearby fields”, they wrote.

She was discovered cowering in a barn, dragged to the house, and set on the pyre. On her way, it is said that Rajput youths allegedly walked unsteadily surrounded her. She was also reported to have been “frothing at the mouth,” which suggests she had been drugged.

She was unable to leave when the pyre was lit, but she was weighed down by youths with swords and logs who pushed her back onto the pyre. Witnesses reported to the police that they heard her yelling and crying for assistance, according to the report.

According to Ms. Seshu, “it was nothing but a horrific murder, but one could couch it in the language of valour and sacrifice.”

She says when she met Kanwar’s parents and brothers,” they were angry and willing to fight. However, they later changed their position after community leaders put pressure on them.

Gopal Singh, Gopal Singh’s older brother, disputes this and initially gave the BBC a suspicion of foul play. ” But our aunts who lived in Deorala told us that it was Roop’s decision. The family’s elders then made the decision to abandon it. There was no constraint on us.

Later, Mr. Singh joined the Sati Dharma Raksha Samiti, a body that was established to honor Kanwar’s sacrifice, and became its deputy chief. The organization removed sati from its name after its glorification was made illegal. He claimed to have spent 45 days in prison on sati-glorification-related charges, but that he was released in January 2004 due to “lack of evidence.”

According to Ms. Seshu, there was a general consensus when they visited the village after the incident that” sati happens, women do it.” No legitimate efforts were made to gather evidence or settle blame because the police and administrations were so ingratiated in the celebrations.

She adds that the Rajput community used Kanwar’s death as a mobilisation force to advance them politically and financially.

The supporters wanted to construct a temple at the site, but the new law, which forbids sati glorification, also forbids the construction of temples or the collection of money from visitors. This conviction may result in a revival of religious tourism there.

It’s a legitimate concern.

Some visitors continue to gather in Deorala, which is located at the edge of the village where Kanwar passed away, even after all these years.

A family photographed a year ago shows a family lighting a lamp before a frameless Kanwar and her husband, who are seated beneath a modest brick structure covered in red and gold.

But despite Kanwar’s deification, chances of justice for India’s last sati remain dim.

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