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Sati or suicide, a controversy is born

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

A major controversy has erupted over the suicide of a 60-year-old Dalit woman, who jumped into the funeral pyre of her husband in Satpura village of Mahoba district, about 200 km from Lucknow on Thursday.

While the state administration and police are denying that it was an incident of sati, local villagers are thronging the funeral site and some are even offering prayers.

UP's Principal Home Secretary V K Mittal told rediff.com: "The incident has been unnecessarily blown out of proportion. Prima facie it is a small case of suicide."

Mittal pointed out that sati was generally preceded by certain rituals which were not even attempted in this case.

"The victim Charanshah's husband had passed away on Thursday. After lighting the funeral pyre, the eldest son of the deceased and other family members walked over to the neighbouring canal for the customary bath. This was when the woman came running from her house and threw herself onto the pyre," he said.

Mittal said by the time someone raised an alarm and the family members rushed back from their bath, the woman was in flames. No post-mortem could be carried out as her body was completely burnt, he pointed out.

The local police registered a case of suicide.

"The swelling crowds at the funeral site are posing a serious problem for the local administration," admitted L Ravi Shankar, the district police chief, over the telephone.

However with a view to preventing any direct confrontation between a charged police force and the gullible public, a police cordon has been thrown around the funeral site, he said. According to reports, people continued to converge there from neighbouring villages and even the Mahoba town, which is 20 km away.

The district police chief said it was not easy for the cops to reason out with the people that their coming to the site made no sense. He said some people were out to exploit the sentiments of the illiterate village-folk by publicising the incident as sati.

Meanwhile, Prof S N Mishra, a former head of Lucknow University's Ancient Indian History Department also held the view that the Mahoba incident could not be termed as sati.

Quoting from ancient Hindu scriptures, he said: ''Sati was performed by widows by sitting on their husband's funeral pyre in their full bridal make-up." It was also preceded by religious prayers and fanfare with other married women of the locality generally joining in to chant hyms, he added.

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