HISTORY

BOOK REVIEW
 INTRODUCTION
• Interconnected argument:
1.)societal structure
2.)patriarchy
 Whose Sati? Widow Burning in Early-
Nineteenth Century India
ANAND A. YANG
• Abolition of sati through different
perspectives: British, native elite
• Anxiety amongst the psychologically
marginalised conservative
• Initial stance of the British and Nizamat Adalat
“an invented and reinvented tradition”
• Nowhere referred to in the Vedas (misreading
of the RigVeda)
• Widow remarriage in the early Vedic period
• Manu and Yajnavalkya
• Puranas- sati an option
• Hence, sati was “invented”
 S
• Religious logic underneath sati
• sati “an expression of the perceived
superfluity of women who were considered
unmarriageable in a social context where
marriage was the only approved status for
women”
 Sati “reinvented”
• Associated with kshatriyas, upper castes, kings
and warriors
• Sanskritization
• Brahmins surfacing as prominent practitioners
• Hence, sati was reinvented
 Other Proposed reasons for sati
• Kulinism
• Dayabhaga system
• Malthusian means of population control
 CRITICAL ANALYSIS
• Main focus on Bengal
• Reliance on official data and stats
• Administration focus on cities
• Limitations of kulinism, dayabhaga and
malthusian explanation as reasons for the
widespread practice
 The Worship of Women
BEGUM ROKEYA
• Conversation
• Sita and Khana
• Pratapchandra Mazoomdar
• Girl of a rich family
• purdah
 Tracts Against Sati
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY
•Contention that women are by nature of
inferior understanding, without resolution,
unworthy of trust, subject to passions, and void
of virtuous knowledge.
•Is sati considered desirable than living a chaste
life?
•Vyasa, Angira and Harita
•Manu, Yajnavalkya, Bhagvad Gita, Vedas
 Sexual Politics of Caste
ANUPAMA RAO
• Sirasgaon incident
• Veskar
• Disciplining dalit men and viewing dalit
women as a “right”
• Maharashtra village case
 REVIEW
• Social construction and systemization
resulting in subjugation of women
• Construing the meaning of ‘sati’
• Sati invented and reinvented- practiced to
show religious fealty when it is even against
the religion
• dayabhaga
 k
• Hypocrisy of society as evident from girlchild’s
and Mazoomdar’s mother’s case
• Sirasgaon case-police in cahoots, ”alibi of
female modesty”
• Gravitas as manifested in the fact that no one
came to the womens’ resue
• Maharashtra case
 CONCLUSION
• Even the mechanisms built to support these people are
working against them- are either inefficient or when
efficient, people have to face the consequences for
seeking recourse.
• In various ways and through various means, the society
has buttressed, intensified and underpinned the
despotism women are subjected to, for a long time
now
• Even caste hatred manifested through women
subjugation.
• whether through the practice of sati, the hypocritical
worship of women, or through their sexual exploitation
in conformity with caste violence, women have been
deeply suppressed, oppressed and repressed.