Sati

by Rishi Sat Jun 08, 2013 12:31 pm

It is not true that, as some internet Hindus
claim, Sati dates to the Muslim or even to the British period. It may be true
that in some cases, families forced widows to commit Sati under pressure from
altered British inheritance laws, but under these new circumstances it was
still Hindus themselves who misused a hoary Hindu practice. They even cited a
skewed reading of the Rg-Vedic verse in support of Sati, a classic case of the
pliability of “tradition”. As for the Muslim period, typical for some battles
was that Hindu warriors fought to the death and their wives who had remained in
the towns committed collective self-immolation
or Jauhar, not to fall into
the hands of the Muslims. This was a specific practice building on the
long-existing Hindu practice of Sati, but not to be confused with it.

It was confined to the real or would-be warrior
castes, though, in keeping with their ethos of pride and passion. For Brahmins
it was forbidden, a negative judgment going back to this Rg-Vedic verse. Taking
such a momentous decision within at most 24 hours between the husband’s death
and his cremation, under the impact of heavy emotions, was deemed to be in conflict
with the Brahmin ethos of self-control. It is only logical that some rulers in
the Brahmin-dominated Maratha confederacy forbid the practice even before the
British East India Company Governor Lord William Bentinck (under prodding from
Hindu reformer Ram Mohan Roy) abolished it by law in 1829. Brahmin and other
high-caste widows were expected to remain loyal to their deceased husbands and
refrain from remarrying, no matter how young they were. They became white-clad
widows, often kept at a distance because of the stench of death figuratively
hanging over them: primitive belief held them responsible for the death of
their husbands (the converse implication of the belief that the wife’s force
protected the husband). Though lower castes widely emulated this practice by
the time European travelers recorded Hindu customs, the rule and often still
the practice among low-castes had been that no womb should go unused and so widows
remarried.

What is so puzzling about Sati for moderns in
general and multiculturalists (in India: secularists) in particular, is that as
per numerous testimonies, most self-immolating widows went into the pyre
voluntarily, often overcoming pressure from their relatives or from the
authorities not to do it. The shrill feminists who were protesting the Sati of
Roop Kanwar in 1987 (calling it “murder”, a view which the Court refused to
uphold) don’t want to understand this, but the testimonies are clear. The
problem is that willing Satis confront the multiculturalists with a really
different view of death, of freedom and of a woman’s place. Multiculturalism
may be fun as long as it’s about exotic cuisine or Buddha statues in the garden,
but here it gets really serious: actual difference
between our and their conception of the rights of woman. Here was a class of
women who, even as brides, knew very well that their husband’s death would
leave them with the option of self-immolation, and accepted the custom.

Then again, we’ve been here before. In some
Western countries, progressives have stood up for the right of women
(effectively, of their parents) to commit female circumcision. All over the
Western world, it is considered progressive to stand up for the right of Muslim
women to cover their faces, even on passport photographs. Under their creed of
cultural relativism, progressives ought to defend Sati as well, instead of
being judgmental and applying narrow-minded Western prejudice to it.
Alternatively, they might hold on to the modern “prejudice”, condemn Sati, and
admit that multiculturalism has its limits.

http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-rg-vedic-reference-to-sati.html

by Kris Sat Jun 08, 2013 12:54 pm

Rishi wrote:.... Multiculturalism
may be fun as long as it’s about exotic cuisine or Buddha statues in the garden,
but here it gets really serious: actual difference
between our and their conception of the rights of woman. Here was a class of
women who, even as brides, knew very well that their husband’s death would
leave them with the option of self-immolation, and accepted the custom.

Then again, we’ve been here before. In some
Western countries, progressives have stood up for the right of women
(effectively, of their parents) to commit female circumcision. All over the
Western world, it is considered progressive to stand up for the right of Muslim
women to cover their faces, even on passport photographs. Under their creed of
cultural relativism, progressives ought to defend Sati as well, instead of
being judgmental and applying narrow-minded Western prejudice to it.
Alternatively, they might hold on to the modern “prejudice”, condemn Sati, and
admit that multiculturalism has its limits.

http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-rg-vedic-reference-to-sati.html

>>>>Of course it does, otherwise we would have to defend Sati, slavery, child marriage, pedophiles etc etc in the name of everyone having their rights.

Sati

Sati

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