Can you explain why some practices from the past, like the Sati system, are no longer followed today?
Sati System Practice
Sati was a past practice in which a Hindu woman sacrifices herself by sitting atop her dead husband’s funeral pyre. It was considered that those who denied practicing it were evil wives or women.
It was supposed to be the signature act of a responsible and dutiful wife who would wish to go after her spouse into the afterlife. It portrayed that women had prosperity only in association with men.
Sati was originally a voluntary practice considered to be very brave and heroic, but it later came to exist as an unwilling practice.
The Bengal Sati Regulation (Regulation XVII) was passed by the then Governor-General of India, Lord William Bentinck, making the practice of Sati unlawful in all of British India.
The British asserted that Sati was not practiced to send the husband and wife into paradise, but because widows, qualified for some of the family property after their husband’s demise (according to the Dayabhaga Law in Bengal), became a liability due to the doubt that they may take over to it.
After this rule was passed, parallel regulations prohibiting this tradition were enacted in princely states in India. In 1861, after the custody of India moved on the British Crown directly, Queen Victoria gave a public ban on Sati all over India.
In our country, in 1812, Raja Rammohan Roy was a revolutionist against Sati. He claimed that the Vedas and some other additional ancient Hindu scriptures did not sanction Sati. He wrote essays in his diary Sambad Kaumudi supporting its ban. He asked the East India Company administration to ban this tradition.
After many such acts, the abolition of Sati finally took place on 4 December 1829.
The last Sati in India, on September 4, 1987, at Deorala village in Sikar district, involved an 18-year-old Roop Kanwar, who is said to have sat on her husband’s funeral pyre and committed sati.
After this abolition, Sati was no longer practiced in India, and if it was practiced, it was considered to be illegal.
– Written By Sayali
