Almost 200 years after being outlawed, the practice of Sati still looms large over every academic discourse about Hindu philosophy and customs. It remains a potent symbol of deep-rooted patriarchy and cultural misogyny of pre-modern India. Time and again the banning of Sati has been invoked to argue that British colonialism helped bring a regressive Indian society out of the dark ages. Even for contemporary Indians, who are proud of their heritage and culture, Sati Partha poses a strange predicament. How did a civilisation so advanced in science and philosophy, that produced great thinkers through the ages such as Mahavira, Gautam Buddha, Kabir Das, Adi Shankara, and many more oddly remained comfortable with a practice so barbarous? With so many glorious periods under numerous Indian dynasties from Guptas to Vijayanagara, Mughals to Marathas, why did India need a foreign mercantilist power to ultimately put an end to this cruel and inhuman custom? It is important to address these questions as they play a key role in how we Indians see ourselves as a people. Were our ancestors really as backward and superstitious as we are told? And did India really need the enlightened Victorians to free her from its social evils?
top of page
bottom of page
Minaxi Jain is a sociologist not a Historian, but she has a grudge against Ram Mohan Roy, without knowing who was Roy and what he wrote and where does he stood in relation to Hinduism. Following Rajiv Malhotra, Rajib Dixit, Payel Rohatgi, and Avijit Chabra she is propagating against Roy. Sati was not voluntary like Johar in Rajasthan but absolute compulsory particularly for the lower caste women. Roy never converted himself to Christianity but like Ram Ram Basu he had great respect for Jesus. He wrote a book about the History of Indian Philosophy and another book on Nayya doctrine in English. He was the spirit of the foundation of the Presidency College, Sanskrit College, Medical College and Engineering Colleges…
Talk about India after 17th century. We all know the history of Sati. Prove that there was no Sati in Bengal. Prove that Rammohan Roy invented Sati to propagate Christianity. Rammohan Roy already mentioned all these; there is no need to repeat all these.
There was no Sati, no caste system, no poverty, all prosperity and all perfect in India before the British came.