Sati

In one line

Prohibited in 1829, and Parliament had to legislate again in 1987, this time against the people who celebrate it rather than only the people who do it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: sati, the burning or burying alive of a widow with her deceased husband, was prohibited in the Bengal Presidency by Regulation XVII of 1829, made at the instance of Lord William Bentinck after the campaign of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and it was one of the earliest instances of colonial legislation against a religious practice. It was made an offence by the Penal Code as murder or as abetment of suicide. The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act 1987 followed the death of a young widow in Deorala in Rajasthan in September 1987 and the public celebration of it. The Act defines sati in section 2(1)(c) irrespective of whether the burning or burying is claimed to be VOLUNTARY; punishes the attempt in section 3; punishes abetment with DEATH OR IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE in section 4; and, most significantly, punishes GLORIFICATION in section 5 with one to seven years and a fine.

The two prohibitions

Regulation XVII of 1829. Made by the Governor-General in Council on 4 December 1829, declaring the practice of sati illegal and punishable by the criminal courts, extended to the other Presidencies shortly after. The preamble reasoned in two registers at once: that the practice was revolting to the feelings of human nature, and that it was NOT enjoined by the religious texts on which its defenders relied.

Why the second register matters. It is the standard technique of legal social reform in India: the reformer denies that the practice is essential to the religion, rather than asserting a power to override religion. The same move recurs in the temple entry legislation, in the Hindu Code Bills, and in the essential religious practices doctrine, which is [The Essential Religious Practices Doctrine].

The Penal Code. From 1860 the act itself was murder, or abetment of suicide under sections 305 and 306, now sections 107 and 108 of the Sanhita, and the criminal law had no gap. Which raises the question the modern Act answers.

Deorala, 1987. The death of an eighteen-year-old widow in a village in Sikar district, Rajasthan, in September 1987, was followed by mass gatherings at the site and organised celebration. Prosecutions under the general criminal law proved difficult, and the celebration itself was not an offence at all. The Act followed within months, first as a State ordinance and then as the central Act of 1987.

The Act of 1987

Section 1. The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act 1987, Act 3 of 1988, extending to the whole of India, deemed to have come into force on 21 September 1987 in Rajasthan and on the date of the Ordinance elsewhere.