Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: why satti is practiced
From: <RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Sunday, 30 Aug 1992 12:04:16 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

 >From: Shyamala Parameswaran <U11983@uicvm.uic.edu>
 >Subject: Re: why satti is practiced
 >
 >Nothing that I have read so far (sources below) indicates to me
 >that the "noble" element of sati was what motivated women to do
 >sati, at least in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    I found this article extremely well researched.  I do not have any
    specific comments.

 >=========================================================================
 >From: peram@cs.tamu.edu (Suresh B Peram)
 >Subject: Re: why satti is practiced
 >
 >        The main reason I think is lack of education and inequality of the
 >sexes.
 >

         I want to comment on this point at some length because there is an
    issue being ignored  here.  There can  be no such  thing as a  forcible
    Sati since it is part of the notion of Satihood that if a woman becomes
    a Sati  thorugh self-immolation,  then it  HAS to  be voluntary.   Also
    Hinduism considers the taking of female life to be a great sin (I  know
    it is  practised -  but it  is not in accordance with  Hindu doctrine).
    This `voluntary' feature is crucial. Christ is worshipped by Christians
    no only because he was crucified,  many other people also were who  are
    not worshipped.  What makes Christ different is that he chose his  fate
    as part of what he said was God's plan.

         However,  there  is  a  crucial  difference  between  contemporary
    Western civilization  and Eastern  civilizations regarding  suicide and
    martyrdom.   I  will  point  to  some  examples.   Some  years ago, the
    Japanese  writer  Yukio  Mishima  committed  Seppuku.  Despite Shyamala
    Parameswaran's claims, I believe he was a man.  During the second world
    war, Japanese pilots, again men, did kamikaze missions where they  were
    certain to be killed.  In India the custom of `kashini karvat' is quite
    familiar.  The belief  is that if  you go to  Benaras (Kashi) and  have
    your head cut off there, then you go to heaven.  People DID this,  both
    male and female.  Mahatma Gandhi often fasted for a long period and could
    easily have died.  Many  Buddhist monks did immolate  themselves during
    the Vietnam war  as protest.  So  it is a  misunderstanding of Sati  to
    think of it as just a form of sexism.  It is more complex.

         By  contrast,  among  Catholics,  though  martyrdom  is  accepted,
    suicide is a sin and if  you have committed suicide then you  cannot be
    buried in consecrated ground.   Sometimes families will hide  a suicide
    for this reason.   The taboo against  the taking of  human life extends
    also to situations where a baby born with AIDs or other severe  illness
    MUST be kept alive,  at great cost in  terms of suffering for  the baby
    and cost to society of  supporting this practice and thereby  depriving
    other, healthy babies of help that they might get.  I am sure that many
    have seen the  amount of trouble  that Dr. Kevorkian  has got into  for
    helping terminally ill people commit  suicide.  On the other hand,  the
    West thinks nothing  of bombing Baghadad  or terminating any  number of
    perfectly  healthy  pregnancies,  even  in  the second trimester for no
    other reason than that the mother wishes this.

         I don't want to condemn the  West and say that we are  just great.
    The picture is more complex.  But  it IS true that America has  not yet
    figured out  what human  life is,  when it  must be  saved and  when it
    should not be.  The practice of self-immolation by widows seems to be a
    pointless idea and I am glad it is illegal.  But there is something odd
    when a single substantiated case of Sati receives so much attention and
    the  thousands  of  men  forcibly  sterilised  during the emergency are
    hardly ever mentioned.   Just as Indians  sometimes put a  low value on
    female life,  so Americans  often place  a low  value on  male life and
    happiness.  Both are wrong.

         Rohit Parikh
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian