Sati in the days of divorce!

In this 21st century where women are divorcing their husbands for unwashed ears, is this madness or what? A news item caught my attention recently – it had to, the headline made it to the front page for Christ’s sake – that a 65 year-old woman burnt herself to death to accompany her dear, departed better half to the pearly gates of heaven. She did this in the full view of the villagers and her sons, and none thought the better of stopping this silly woman from going up in smoke. Am I stunned? Sure I am. Next to naked dancing that the women of Chakrapur village undertook to appease Lord Indra (corny fellow this. Did it rain there finally?), I’m still trying to figure the sanity behind this insane custom. Sati is an abominable practice. It’s banned under the law. It’s a violation of one’s right to live. It’s inhuman. It’s disgraceful to our race. And to think of it that the men of this nondescript village pelted stones at the police for trying to stop this human sacrifice.

I understand that for the sheer fear of insecurity, we have to hold on, to dear life sometimes, some of the most repulsive religious practices to make sense of our lives. Every religion thrives on the element of fear, of banishing you into the kingdom of the dark unknown if you don’t cower. If you don’t bow down. If you don’t dare question. If you so much as quiz your eyebrows and ask the pundits whether all their preaching is really for real. For heaven’s sake, they don’t want you to know that religion is about love, or letting the other person live. So, in the name of nirvana, to save us all from being reborn again as a pig, a cow, a sow, a one rupee coin, they reinforce fear till you cower and jump into the fire. Simple. Just like that. No questions. No hell. A shortcut to moksh, that’s it.

And wait, why is it that every religion dictates that women show their love for their men by performing feats that border on risking their own lives? Indian history is replete with stories of women being asked to `prove’ their everlasting love and fidelity to their menfolk. How come men never thought it befitting to return the compliment in the same measure? Don’t men need women to love them? I have yet to hear, or read, even if I go through the archives, of one incident where a man let his bones go up in smoke for the love of his woman. Chances are, he’ll find another wife within the following week. If they can survive fine, please, so can we. But we aren’t debating emotions here.

The practice of Sati is monstrous. Yet, it keeps raising its ugly head time and again. I remember 18-year-old Roop Kanwar in 1987 who became the unwilling victim of Sati after being forced to sit on her husband’s funeral pyre. For very selfish reasons the poor thing was elevated to goddess status – probably to encourage more women to follow suit. I was annoyed then. I am annoyed now. Nothing much seems to have changed since. We’ve walked backwards a dozen times, we’ve taken our traditions and interpreted them to suit our ideologies, we’ve flogged ourselves silly over our multi-faceted, and multi-temperamental gods. We’re still the Third World, believe you me. Even if we test a nuclear bomb in our backyards. We’re using our science to protect our borders, but we’re not taking our minds anywhere outside the kitchen windows. We’re still making our women pay the price for all the world’s madness.

Are things getting any better for our women folk in India? How does the average woman in the village live? Does she have access to free education? Does she have access to health and equal work opportunities? Does she have proper representation at the grassroot political level? Does she have equal opportunities to pursue intellectual stimulation? Does she have the independence to choose her own mate, and then walk away if the mate turns into a rogue? How many times has she made use of the word `no’ to protect herself, to assert herself, to empower herself, to speak up for herself?

Are things any better in Goa? I want you to answer these questions in the silences of your own mind. Do you want to make it any better for yourself?.

Ethel Da Costa
August 28, 2002

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