Policing Sati

Law, Order, and Spectacle in Postcolonial India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12074027
AutoresSaumya Saxena (University of Cambridge, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen41
Número2
Páginas341-363
Fecha de publicación2023-02-20
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLaw and History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0738-2480 • E-ISSN: 1939-9022
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0738248022000591
OpenAlexW4321374256
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas18

This article explores the response of the postcolonial state to the question of widow immolation – sati. It demonstrates that the conversation on the practice of sati at the high point of Hindu law reform in the 1950s reflected the simultaneous pressures on the new democracy to establish rule of law while also accommodating the renewed reverence for tradition and religious custom in an independent nation state. Distinct from the colonial response to sati that treated women as either “helpless and pathetic” or “brave and valiant,” post-independence police records describe women committing sati mostly as “insane” or “not in their senses,” and yet chiefly responsible for their actions. The article contrasts administrative and parliamentary narratives of the crime. Local belief in miracles surrounding the performance of sati not only obscured the experience of the woman's suffering but also made collection of evidence in such a case particularly difficult. This rendered convictions of the abettors of such “painless suicide by insane women” weaker. Legal interventions in sati eventually prompted administrative responses to shift from emphasizing the “uncontrollability” of the spectacle to deeming the spectacle a necessary precondition in distinguishing a sati from suicide

Art · Independence (probability theory · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Sociology · Spectacle · State (computer science · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law