The issue is consent. Does the woman really consent to it? Does she really want it for cultural-religious reasons? If so, the law should not stop her. It’s her life, it’s not the business of the law. If, however, women are being FORCED to do it, if they don’t genuinely consent, then it is appropriate for the law to PROTECT them from being used and harmed. See the difference? The law should protect the right of autonomy and free choice of the individual.
There are some problems. It might be too difficult to identify when a woman truly wants this and when she is being forced,
- because we may not have sufficient knowledge of what is happening on location in each case and
- because even if the woman is not physically compelled, she may FEAR being outcast and perhaps fear that her life will be under threat.
To be clear, I think Sati is a bad thing, even if it’s voluntary. I think it is overwhelmingly based on patriarchal premises and social forces and should be undermined and stopped. It would be appropriate, in my opinion, to try to persuade people through various means to change this cultural practice, both not to do it and not to pressure others to do it. This is not the law, this is PERSUASION. There is nothing wrong with that. You might use radio, TV to change people’s attitudes. Maybe you could help women who don’t want to do it to escape their villages and find work elsewhere. Maybe just having alternatives to being in the village after the passing of her husband would help. I don’t know.
This is a complex problem that requires study of incentives, anthropological study, and trial and error. It also requires a fine appropriation of the idea of consent and how to establish whether it exists. I don’t know the answer.
If your guiding principle is the idea of consent and using the law to protect people from being FORCED to do something against their choice, what should be your position on Sati?
(I would appreciate if people cited laws, case studies, scholars, etc. in the comments so we can establish some facts before exchanging mere opinions.)
There is another problem here. If the concept of Sati and the like are instilled into a child at an early age, it becomes more acceptable than it would be were the lady be presented with a choice with a neutral childhood behind her.
This happens with trafficked girls as well. They are made to behave in a certain manner since early childhood (9-10) years to make prostitution a natural progress when she enters teens. So, even though it might seem voluntary, it is not in the truest sense.
This presents a complex problem in front of us and it would be perhaps wise to err on the side of protection of life than on the destruction of it.
Abhishek,
I appreciate your response. But by that standard, there is no such thing as voluntary action because there is no such thing as a “neutral” childhood. We are always raised in a cultural context and we learn and develop our values in that context.
(Because of the complexity of this issue alone, let’s avoid the issue of trafficking in the comments.)
Hi Andrew,
I understand that you are as repulsed by this seemingly heinous custom as any free-thinking modern individual ought to be. However, you have left out an important observation that would render “Sati” nullified in modern times. Sati was a medieval Hindu practice in which a woman took to the pyre with her husband as and when he dies. It began under the Mughal rule when the fear of being defiled and taken captive by the king’s army reigned large once your husband is no more. It was a kind of legal right to “occupy” a slave’s wife. Thus, faced with a choice between death and rape/loot by the soldiers of the king, the women settled by the former. As it happens, with time, the real motivation behind this got lost and it came to be practiced out of “family-pride”(against the woman’s wishes), even well after the end of the Mughal rule. Modern society has no place for such a barbarian custom which denies an individual, the basic right to life. As for voluntarily taking this step, I doubt, if not for peer and family pressure, any woman would want to take her life. It had to be rightly outlawed, because it is very hard to gauge whether the woman committing it, has been coerced or is doing it out of free will.I don;t have the data, but to me seems ,it is usually the case of misplaced family pride and patriarchal make-up of the society
The idea of Sati firstly has been interpreted in a variety of ways through the ages. I think, religion is absolutely a matter of one’s choice, so is the practicing of it. However, it is also important to understand that even this is not an absolute right, there are reasonable restrictions to it and in the case of India, wherereigion is a bassis of communal disharmony, it is very important to supervise (but not control) the acts of religious groups so that peace and order is maintained in the social status quo. The rise in feminist ideologies, and demands of political groups etc, further, highight the fact that society needs to adjust but not compromise, so that there are no more riots ,etc. In the case of sati, it has always been a highly debated issue andd is ddefinately a matter of religious conflict both inter and intra religiously as different people interpret and follow this differerntly as well.
The case of Charan Shah and the media’s sudden interest in this issue highlights this clearly. Further, the deand for repealing Anti – sati laws, which followed, clearly estabish one fact that, sati is not a matter of choice, it is a part of a secular nation defining secualrism as a way of living and if this way of living has to benefit the society at large their should be control over it. Further a reading of the following will bebefit:
1.Deadly Laws and Zealous Reformers
The Conflicting Interpretations and Politics of Sati
by Madhu Kishwar
2.Article by George: Univeristy of Zurich http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth.....fisch.html
Nitin,
I have heard similar stories of its origin. However, to avoid being mislead by mythology, could you please *cite* some sources, texts, historians who propagate this story?
I am inclined to agree with you. But I’m also inclined to be humble as to the motives and cultural situations I have not witnessed. That’s why I want more knowledge and evidence.
When we talk about the Prevention of Sati Act, the objective of the act is “to provide for the ‘more effective prevention’ of the commission of sati and its glorification and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” So the law is enacted with a two fold intention:
1. Prevention of the act of performing Sati
2. Prevent its glorification
The first objective is more of imposing one’s own idea onto another where the government assumes that sati or the burning or burying alive of widows or women is revolting to the feelings of human nature and nowhere enjoined by any of the religions of India as an imperative duty. This surely is against the right to choose for an individual.
The second part, however, seems to be more persuasive in nature, where the glorification of the act of sati is being prevented. But this again is imposing ‘non glorification’ on the people who glorify it.
If glorification of Sati is prevented, women are less likely to have a fear of non acceptance by the society.
Here is a link of the act for reference: http://wcd.nic.in/commissionofsatiprevention.htm
Also, Even before the regulation was out, some three hundred orthodox Hindus petitioned Lord Bentinck to stop the abolition. They pleaded that the practise of “self immolation”, was not merely a sacred duty but a “privilege” of believers. Bentinck however would not relent.
I assume that most of the people who petitioned or challenged this law were males. So, I think that answers the thing that Sati was something which the dominating males at that time supported.
I see that we still have no answer to if females supported it or if its just that they supported males…
Here is an article that gives all the information about how this law was developed by Britishers and when, why and who opposed it: http://www.pucl.org/from-archives/Gender/sati.htm
Fantastic, Deeksha. This is a very good start. Maybe you could also give us a link to the relevant law(s) against suicide in general?
Dear Sreshtha,
Great leads. Thanks for letting me know about Charan Shah case. (The article also refers to Roop Kanwar, whose case I’ll look up.)
It is enormously valuable in giving some indication of what policing, fact finding, and enforcement might be like in isolated cases. It also suggests some cultural context:
“some residents of Satpurva claimed, without adducing any evidence, that there had indeed been a few incidents of sati in the regi on, but that they had gone unreported. Among the villagers, currently prevailing attitudes towards sati are regressive, to say the least. Many of them seemed to consider a woman committing sati worthy of deification. They appeared to be unaware that the practice of sati had been outlawed, and that even glorification of sati would invite punishment. The few who did know about the illegality of the practice seemed to place a premium on the supremacy of faith and custom over man-made laws.”
just an opinion…so, feel free to ignore.
Anarchists like me prefer no govt. So, there is no question of any public law. A law prohibiting Sati also doesn’t make sense because if the govt has power to ban Sati, it will likely also have power / ability to allow / encourage Sati.
However, in societies like present day India, a ban on Sati is probably not harmful since there probably aren’t (m)any widows who fail / have failed to exercise their genuine desire to immolate themselves due to this ban. I imagine the ban, though largely ineffective, must have saved a few lives.
How to Stop Sati?
Persuasion, as you suggest, should be very effective. However a more libertarian society will have much better education / awareness, protection of liberty, means of livelihood, individual empowerment/choice, etc. such that the practice of Sati is likely to be extremely rare.
What about those rare cases where an educated, empowered women genuinely wants to die after her husband’s death? maybe the desire makes sense in that particular case….what do we know?
Dear Shailesh,
Thanks for your comment.
Above, Abishek argued that we should err on the side of ‘protecting life’ by making it illegal. I think you add a important counter-balance that to empower the state can be dangerous.
Insofar as we want a society in which individual rights are protected by law (irrespective of the institutions that serve that purpose, i.e., state or non-state systems), there is still scope to discuss what are the practical and moral principles upon which law should be based.
It seems to me from Deeksha’s post and from reading about the Charan Shah case, is that the state is banning practices and speech that will ‘glorify’ sati. On the one hand, this might help reduce the extent to which people might force others to do it (a good outcome), but it also puts the state in the business of controlling speech and practices in a way that obstructs freedom of conscience. And as you say, this means that the state can compel “us” (whoever we are) to follow the majority or public morality against our own consciences.
yes, in India, its also ‘illegal to be a bystander at an event of sati’ (wikipedia).
So, govt is not just violating our freedom to do something (glorify Sati) but also forcing us to walk away from a Sati event or actually stop it.
It shouldn’t make sense to a true libertarian. However, I’d be surprised if some libertarians in India devote meaningful time going after this law (since there are thousands of other, bigger enemies of freedom)
Hey Andrew, under the law we have a right to life. However, under the Indian Penal Code, Section 309 makes attempt to commit suicide illegal and criminal. However, when questions regarding if right to life includes right to die came before the court, the courts largely agreed to the fact that right to die is a right under the constitution. They also declared section 309 unconstitutional.
In 1996, the Supreme Court overruled this law in Gyan Kaur’s Case.
Here is the link: http://www.lawyersclubindia.co.....S3FxjBgdZA
There reason was that right to life means to live with dignity. Similarly, right to die should be interpreted as ‘to die with dignity’. Frankly, I didn’t understand what they wanted to say!
Apparantly, attempt to suicide in general is a crime but ‘to die with dignity’ is not.
Further, building on from what Shailesh had to say, I agree with him on the point that if an educated independent woman would choose to die with her husband, maybe we would not have questioned her act.
Also, in a spontaneous society, I think a practice like sati would not have existed. The source of the practice seems to be lack of choices as said by Nitin which was later converted into a custom.
Shailesh,
Sure…and from what I’ve read, there may be only “one or two” reported cases of sati “every decade,” though there may be more unreported cases due to cultural sanction. If a practice is not culturally deplored, people won’t report.
The reason for discussing this issue, however, is not the extent of the problem (although bringing that to light may be valuable), but the *principle* of the matter. If we can identify the nature of this problem and think about it clearly, it can help us think clearly about other similar issues.
…also, it would be valuable to identify to what extent it being made illegal helped reduce the problem. This would be relevant to thinking about the issue.
Hello,
Interesting to read all the comments.
I would like to just clarify that there is no basis of how less educated or more educated a woman should be to make a choice with the application of rational thought.
By neutral childhood I meant, one which doesn’t condition oneself in one or several ways. It is difficult to impose or monitor and perhaps can be checked only by imparting sound education like you suggested.
But since even the general literacy levels were partly with those of women being even lower, we can perhaps rule this out as that option would not have been available to us in those days.
So, what options do you have as a lawmaker if you want to do something about Sati?
Andrew,
You see sati as a problematic case only because you evaluate it on a problematic–incorrect–premise.
You said: “From my point of view, whatever is voluntary and expands the genuine autonomy and free choice of the individual is good.”
That’s simply not true.
Libertarianism is only a *political* philosophy. It has no ethical or moral content other than the non-initiation of force in social interactions. As such, you cannot evaluate the *morality* of actions using the NIP in libertarianism. You will need a larger moral framework–either one of utilitarianism, for example, through which you evaluate actions based on its effects and consequences, or using some other framework (like religious, etc.)
In your case, the conflict arises because your utilitarian moral impulse (sati leads to unwanted consequences in society) is conflicting with the socio-political principle of non-initiation of force.
However, as Objectivists know, morality is a function of the individual–not the society–and hence begins at the level of the self.
Hence, libertarianism would necessarily–to be consistent–admit that the initiation of force on the self by the self–even lethal force as in the case of suicide or sati–cannot be outlawed.
It’s plainly simple that sati is one example of many such cases of autonomous, free, individual acts that are highly immoral but at the same time cannot be made illegal–such as chronic drug use, reckless sexual indulgences leading to frequent and risky abortions, etc.
Hi Jerry,
Thanks for the perspective. It’s very valuable.
But I’m not sure if you read my post or the comments. Where exactly have I advocated outlawing people hurting themselves on the grounds that people ought not hurt themselves? I don’t think you’ve correctly identified “my conflict”.
Neither have I claimed that you advocated any such thing. I’ve only noted that the “The issue of Sati is a hard question for a libertarian” only so far as you try to stretch a political philosophy to provide a moral evaluation.
Once you separate the two–and keep libertarianism restricted to only socio-political interactions and use a more effective moral framework (my bias is Objectivist)–then Sati (or cases similar to it such as the ones I identified) no longer become a “hard question.”
So, what would a free society do about sati? The same thing it would do about various other social ills–like chronic drug use, animal cruelty, cock fights, bull fights, reckless pregnancies and frequent, risky abortions, etc.
Keep them legal, but evaluate them as terribly undesirable in society.
For the purpose of establishing facts, I happened to talk to an expert on Indian philosophy last summer about the Sati practice and what I got to know is that perhaps the reason why the origin of Sati is associated with the Mughal rule is because of an epic poem “Padmavat” by Malik Muhammad Jayasi written in 1540. It is the first account of why and how Sati was performed in the Mughal period. The poem is in Awadhi and is available online.
I am not sure if any earlier accounts of Sati are available or not.
The “hindu” justification for the Sati process, I am told, is attributed to the following shloka (hymn) from the Rig Veda, which I had copied for any future references:
इमा नारीरविधवाः सुपत्नीराञ्जनेन सर्पिषा संविशन्तु |
अनश्रवो.अनमीवाः सुरत्ना आ रोहन्तु जनयोयोनिमग्रे ||
उदीर्ष्व नार्यभि जीवलोकं गतासुमेतमुप शेष एहि |
हस्तग्राभस्य दिधिषोस्तवेदं पत्युर्जनित्वमभि सम्बभूथ ||
[ Rig Ved, Mandala 10, Chapter 18, double line 7]
Translation:
Let these unwidowed dames with noble husbands adorn themselves with fragrant balm and unguent.
Decked with fair jewels, tearless, free from sorrow, first let the dames go up to where he lies.
Rise, come unto the world of life, O woman: come, he is lifeless by whose side thou liest.
Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion, who took thy hand and wooed thee as a lover.
The true meaning, I thus feel, rules out any moral justification for the practice of Sati on religious grounds as the “religion” here itself does not advocate self immolation for the dead husband. I would not question the morality of Sati with someone who chooses to perform it but as you say, I would *persuade* them to think again because the basis of their decision could be misinformed.
Very nice, Ankur. A superb contribution.
Jerry, I agree with you that it is a political question. And I’m also inclined to agree with you that it should be dealt with similarly to the drug issue, for example.
Just a hard hypothetical question, if, for the sake of argument, one had a choice between protecting the rights of some but only at the expense of harming the rights of others, or, on the other hand, allowing the rights of many to be violated but not yourself being the cause of the rights violations of a few, which would you choose?
Andrew,
If your hypothetical forces me to choose between a lose-lose situation, then it simply doesn’t matter which option I pick. Someone (or everyone) still loses.