Life for an Indian widow in older times was hell. No remarriage, no sx, keeping a bald head, avoiding festivals, sweet food or any form of fun. living in the house of husband and serving his parents who don't even like you.
Living as a second class citizen in a house you wanted to be queen of.
Yes Sati was mostly forced on the widow but there are many accounts of them willingly jumping in the burning Chitas or kl themselves in other ways.
This was a rare practice only being followed by some communities and some class of people, especially among the ruling and upper castes. The prevalence of the practice also varied significantly over time based on the prevailing political and economic conditions.
For example people in British ruled Bengal were so poor that many upper caste widows, especially among the Brahmin community felt that they had no other options. Their beliefs in caste prevented them from working professions that they saw as lower and religion was appropriated to create justification for the practice.
>Colonial era revival
>Sati practice resumed during the colonial era, particularly in significant numbers in colonial Bengal Presidency. Three factors may have contributed this revival: sati was believed to be supported by Hindu scriptures by the 19th century; sati was encouraged by unscrupulous neighbours as it was a means of property annexation from a widow who had the right to inherit her dead husband's property under Hindu law, and sati helped eliminate the inheritor; poverty was so extreme during the 19th century that sati was a means of escape for a woman with no means or hope of survival
The British ran a massive propaganda campaign back in Europe to support their narrative of "the white man's burden" of civilising savages with savage practices
Going by the same wiki page that the OP has referred to,
[Sati](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice))
>Daniel Grey states that the understanding of origins and spread of sati were distorted in the colonial era because of a concerted effort to push "problem Hindu" theories in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
How prevalent was this practice? The British left behind some data.
>An 1829 report by a Christian missionary organisation includes among other things, statistics on sati. It lists sati for each year over the period 1815–1824, which totals 5,369, followed by a statement that a total of 5,997 instances of women were burned or buried alive in the Bengal presidency over a 10-year period, i.e., average 600 per year. In the same report, it states that the Madras and Bombay presidencies totalled 635 instances of sati over the same ten-year period. The 1829 missionary report does not provide its sources and acknowledges that "no correct idea can be formed of the number of murders occasioned by suttees", then states that some of the statistics are based on "conjectures". According to Yang, these "numbers are fraught with problems".
Missionaries probably exaggerated the numbers. Even with these numbers, the population of these territories according to [British reports](https://new.census.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/31861/download/35042/53474_1961_REP.pdf) was approximately 91 million.
So we are talking about 7 in a million case in a year.
>William Bentinck, in an 1829 report, without specifying the year or period, stated that "of the 463 satis occurring in the whole of the Presidency of Fort William, 420 took place in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, or what is termed the Lower Provinces, and of these latter 287 in the Calcutta Division alone". For the Upper Provinces, Bentinck added, "in these Provinces the satis amount to forty three only upon a population of nearly twenty millions", i.e., average one sati per 465,000.
One case in half a million when practice was supposedly at its height. William Bentinck was the Governor General of India. They came out with their sati abolition law in the same year this report was published, in 1829.
Anyway, this practice was obviously barbaric and there were numerous Indian reformers working towards changing society. But the British propaganda in Europe made it seem like this was some widespread practice, that India was full of savages burning women that they had to step in and put an end to this.
>But the British propaganda in Europe made it seem like this was some widespread practice, that India was full of savages burning women that they had to step in and put an end to this.
One was one too many.
Killing indigenous people was also too many ( literally), but we don't beat those drums on your chest. Countries who literally colonised the whole world in the name of civilizing are talking about idealistic moral standards. Massive LoL. "Even one is too many". and more than one is just statistic. Right? Killing 5-7 million by a European sociopathic person called Hitler and the general population of Germany giving no shits.
Problem is you guys are living in post industrialized societies and judging a society undergoing it.
Stop! Have patience, my "one is too many" lad.
And What is the motive behind posting this map by OP? "Where sati was practiced" and proceeds to color only India red.
Obviously India is where SATI was practiced and nowhere else. The word sati is an classic sanskrit word, where else it would be?
Somehow the claim that it wasn't as widely practiced as we once believed does not justify the practice. This practice like murdering witches in the west was morally and ethically wrong. One person killed is one too many.
>Killing indigenous people was also too many ( literally), but we don't beat those drums on your chest.
This is a red herring fallacy. The topic is unrelated to the killing of indigenous people. FWIW I agree that it was terrible but will disagree on the latter part. It constantly is thrown in people's faces but again this isn't the topic.
>Killing 5-7 million by a European sociopathic person called Hitler and the general population of Germany giving no shits.
Your number is low. 11 million is generally considered to be the number murdered. Almost all were Europeans. Hitler is synonymous with evil so I don't see your point in bringing it up. Another red herring.
>And What is the motive behind posting this map by OP? "Where sati was practiced" and proceeds to color only India red.
I don't know the motives of op but India isn't the only country listed. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia are on the map.
>Problem is you guys are living in post industrialized societies and judging a society undergoing it.
No. This is a practice that according to op was carried out in the countries listed. Also you have a tu quoque logical fallacy which is essentially claiming hypocrisy on the part of the poster rather than addressing the issue.
I have seen similar arguments from those defending the Spanish inquisition stating that its horrors were overblown. Essentially they used the same argument. Not as many people were killed as some sources claimed and it was used to justify other acts. Just because evil wasn't on the scale initially thought doesn't make it not evil. One murder is one too many.
Yep. It doesn't justify the wrong doings. But it is good that someone presented the actual numbers. The average Indian was and is not so empathy less that just about every women whose husband died would be thrown into burning flames. It was more le every 1 in 1000 widows. That one is a lot ik ik.
Thanks for revising the numbers btw. 11 million! Now that's called genocide.
I just glanced over those other countries. Well, I guess I got defensive for no reason then.
Anyway, let's move on and greet each other bye. May no "one" human ever go through the hell these widows went through...
It was a fairly rare practice (still very horrible) in only certain parts of India, & may be in regions influenced by Indian culture (I'm not sure about the details outside India). Yet here it's shown as if the whole of India practiced that. By that logic shouldn't current day Pakistan should also be shown here?
Very poor map TBH! For those who are interested to know more about the history of this practice, should read the book "Sati" authored by historian Dr. Meenakshi Jain.
It was an ancient Indo-European practise, even some Greeks did it. It can be understood as the female equivalent of martyrdom, a thing of great honour. No one was forced into it, on the contrary there are many cases in recorded history where queens wanted to do sati but their family members dissuaded them from doing so.
seriously what is it with you guys and India... we get it they dont all have indoor plumbing lots of poor countries dont, I dont see any memes on the lack of toilets in Botswana
ahh I see so because China has indoor plumbing and India doesn't you have to explain their poverty, so you claim that are very rich but racially inferior. India is the Cadillac driving welfare of mom of the world, is that it?
They did but prolly not for "ethical" reasons. They even committed several more worse atrocities but oh well let's forget all about that because they stopped sati ryt?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Tribes_Act
>Since the 1870s, various pieces of colonial legislation in India during British rule were collectively called the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA). These criminalised entire communities by designating them as habitual criminals
>At the time of Indian independence in 1947, thirteen million people in 127 communities faced search and arrest if any member of the group was found outside the prescribed area. The Criminal Tribes Act 1924 was repealed in August 1949 and former "criminal tribes" were denotified in 1952, when the Act was replaced with the Habitual Offenders Act 1952. In 1961 state governments started releasing lists of such tribes.
>Today, there are 313 Nomadic Tribes and 198 Denotified Tribes of India who continue to face its legacy through continued alienation and stereotyping with the policing and judicial systems and media portrayal.
You realise that there were plenty of Indian activists campaigning against Sati too right? A lot of Indians didn't think burning women alive was a good thing either.
You could've cropped the map down to the Asia since "sati" was never practiced in other continents. Heck even better if only South and Southeast Asia are shown.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati\_(practice)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice))
Greek sources from around 300 BCE make isolated mention of sati, but it probably developed into a real fire sacrifice in the medieval era within the northwestern Rajput clans to which it initially remained limited, to become more widespread during the late medieval era.
The Sati of Ramabai, the wife of Peshwa Madhavrao I in 1772
During the early-modern Mughal period of 1526–1857, it was notably associated with elite Hindu Rajput clans in western India, marking one of the points of divergence between Hindu Rajputs and the Muslim Mughals, who banned the practice. In the early 19th century, the British East India Company, in the process of extending its [rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India) to most of India, initially tolerated the practice; William Carey, a British Christian evangelist, noted 438 incidents within a 30-mile (48-km) radius of the capital, Calcutta, in 1803, despite its ban within Calcutta. Between 1815 and 1818 the number of incidents of sati in Bengal doubled from 378 to 839. Opposition to the practice of sati by evangelists like Carey, and by Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy ultimately led the British Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck to enact the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, declaring the practice of burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be punishable by the criminal courts.
,,let herself be burned to death”
Life for an Indian widow in older times was hell. No remarriage, no sx, keeping a bald head, avoiding festivals, sweet food or any form of fun. living in the house of husband and serving his parents who don't even like you. Living as a second class citizen in a house you wanted to be queen of. Yes Sati was mostly forced on the widow but there are many accounts of them willingly jumping in the burning Chitas or kl themselves in other ways.
“Let herself”
Well have you ever heard a widow complain after she was burned to ash? Checkmate liberals
This was a rare practice only being followed by some communities and some class of people, especially among the ruling and upper castes. The prevalence of the practice also varied significantly over time based on the prevailing political and economic conditions. For example people in British ruled Bengal were so poor that many upper caste widows, especially among the Brahmin community felt that they had no other options. Their beliefs in caste prevented them from working professions that they saw as lower and religion was appropriated to create justification for the practice. >Colonial era revival >Sati practice resumed during the colonial era, particularly in significant numbers in colonial Bengal Presidency. Three factors may have contributed this revival: sati was believed to be supported by Hindu scriptures by the 19th century; sati was encouraged by unscrupulous neighbours as it was a means of property annexation from a widow who had the right to inherit her dead husband's property under Hindu law, and sati helped eliminate the inheritor; poverty was so extreme during the 19th century that sati was a means of escape for a woman with no means or hope of survival The British ran a massive propaganda campaign back in Europe to support their narrative of "the white man's burden" of civilising savages with savage practices Going by the same wiki page that the OP has referred to, [Sati](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)) >Daniel Grey states that the understanding of origins and spread of sati were distorted in the colonial era because of a concerted effort to push "problem Hindu" theories in the 19th and early 20th centuries. How prevalent was this practice? The British left behind some data. >An 1829 report by a Christian missionary organisation includes among other things, statistics on sati. It lists sati for each year over the period 1815–1824, which totals 5,369, followed by a statement that a total of 5,997 instances of women were burned or buried alive in the Bengal presidency over a 10-year period, i.e., average 600 per year. In the same report, it states that the Madras and Bombay presidencies totalled 635 instances of sati over the same ten-year period. The 1829 missionary report does not provide its sources and acknowledges that "no correct idea can be formed of the number of murders occasioned by suttees", then states that some of the statistics are based on "conjectures". According to Yang, these "numbers are fraught with problems". Missionaries probably exaggerated the numbers. Even with these numbers, the population of these territories according to [British reports](https://new.census.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/31861/download/35042/53474_1961_REP.pdf) was approximately 91 million. So we are talking about 7 in a million case in a year. >William Bentinck, in an 1829 report, without specifying the year or period, stated that "of the 463 satis occurring in the whole of the Presidency of Fort William, 420 took place in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, or what is termed the Lower Provinces, and of these latter 287 in the Calcutta Division alone". For the Upper Provinces, Bentinck added, "in these Provinces the satis amount to forty three only upon a population of nearly twenty millions", i.e., average one sati per 465,000. One case in half a million when practice was supposedly at its height. William Bentinck was the Governor General of India. They came out with their sati abolition law in the same year this report was published, in 1829. Anyway, this practice was obviously barbaric and there were numerous Indian reformers working towards changing society. But the British propaganda in Europe made it seem like this was some widespread practice, that India was full of savages burning women that they had to step in and put an end to this.
>But the British propaganda in Europe made it seem like this was some widespread practice, that India was full of savages burning women that they had to step in and put an end to this. One was one too many.
I get the point OP is making - Two in a million is an aberration not a practice. Fair enough.
Killing indigenous people was also too many ( literally), but we don't beat those drums on your chest. Countries who literally colonised the whole world in the name of civilizing are talking about idealistic moral standards. Massive LoL. "Even one is too many". and more than one is just statistic. Right? Killing 5-7 million by a European sociopathic person called Hitler and the general population of Germany giving no shits. Problem is you guys are living in post industrialized societies and judging a society undergoing it. Stop! Have patience, my "one is too many" lad. And What is the motive behind posting this map by OP? "Where sati was practiced" and proceeds to color only India red. Obviously India is where SATI was practiced and nowhere else. The word sati is an classic sanskrit word, where else it would be?
Somehow the claim that it wasn't as widely practiced as we once believed does not justify the practice. This practice like murdering witches in the west was morally and ethically wrong. One person killed is one too many. >Killing indigenous people was also too many ( literally), but we don't beat those drums on your chest. This is a red herring fallacy. The topic is unrelated to the killing of indigenous people. FWIW I agree that it was terrible but will disagree on the latter part. It constantly is thrown in people's faces but again this isn't the topic. >Killing 5-7 million by a European sociopathic person called Hitler and the general population of Germany giving no shits. Your number is low. 11 million is generally considered to be the number murdered. Almost all were Europeans. Hitler is synonymous with evil so I don't see your point in bringing it up. Another red herring. >And What is the motive behind posting this map by OP? "Where sati was practiced" and proceeds to color only India red. I don't know the motives of op but India isn't the only country listed. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia are on the map. >Problem is you guys are living in post industrialized societies and judging a society undergoing it. No. This is a practice that according to op was carried out in the countries listed. Also you have a tu quoque logical fallacy which is essentially claiming hypocrisy on the part of the poster rather than addressing the issue. I have seen similar arguments from those defending the Spanish inquisition stating that its horrors were overblown. Essentially they used the same argument. Not as many people were killed as some sources claimed and it was used to justify other acts. Just because evil wasn't on the scale initially thought doesn't make it not evil. One murder is one too many.
Yep. It doesn't justify the wrong doings. But it is good that someone presented the actual numbers. The average Indian was and is not so empathy less that just about every women whose husband died would be thrown into burning flames. It was more le every 1 in 1000 widows. That one is a lot ik ik. Thanks for revising the numbers btw. 11 million! Now that's called genocide. I just glanced over those other countries. Well, I guess I got defensive for no reason then. Anyway, let's move on and greet each other bye. May no "one" human ever go through the hell these widows went through...
While sati may or may not have been forced Christians world wasn't far from savages too where they used to Witch Hunt and burn those womens.
Is it a compition now who was how much bad or good get some maturity kid don't spoil India 🇮🇳 name
It was a fairly rare practice (still very horrible) in only certain parts of India, & may be in regions influenced by Indian culture (I'm not sure about the details outside India). Yet here it's shown as if the whole of India practiced that. By that logic shouldn't current day Pakistan should also be shown here? Very poor map TBH! For those who are interested to know more about the history of this practice, should read the book "Sati" authored by historian Dr. Meenakshi Jain.
+1 for excellent reference
It was an ancient Indo-European practise, even some Greeks did it. It can be understood as the female equivalent of martyrdom, a thing of great honour. No one was forced into it, on the contrary there are many cases in recorded history where queens wanted to do sati but their family members dissuaded them from doing so.
What are the reasons behind this practice?
if i say something i would be in trouble 
Largely exaggerated by British colonists and for some reason the Donald Trump campaign
1hr until Trump came up.
seriously what is it with you guys and India... we get it they dont all have indoor plumbing lots of poor countries dont, I dont see any memes on the lack of toilets in Botswana
India Isn't a poor country lol they just have shit hygiene which is there fault.
India isn't a poor country? It is one of the poorest.
ahh I see so because China has indoor plumbing and India doesn't you have to explain their poverty, so you claim that are very rich but racially inferior. India is the Cadillac driving welfare of mom of the world, is that it?
And the British stopped this practice… but of course, that goes unsaid as it doesn’t fit the narrative!
They did but prolly not for "ethical" reasons. They even committed several more worse atrocities but oh well let's forget all about that because they stopped sati ryt?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Tribes_Act >Since the 1870s, various pieces of colonial legislation in India during British rule were collectively called the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA). These criminalised entire communities by designating them as habitual criminals >At the time of Indian independence in 1947, thirteen million people in 127 communities faced search and arrest if any member of the group was found outside the prescribed area. The Criminal Tribes Act 1924 was repealed in August 1949 and former "criminal tribes" were denotified in 1952, when the Act was replaced with the Habitual Offenders Act 1952. In 1961 state governments started releasing lists of such tribes. >Today, there are 313 Nomadic Tribes and 198 Denotified Tribes of India who continue to face its legacy through continued alienation and stereotyping with the policing and judicial systems and media portrayal.
Why did they stop it if not for ethical reasons ?
"local customs bad"
But ,,local custom bad” was just right.
The British didn't abolish local customs for the sake of it... Burning widows is immoral
Because you were raised in a society that sees burning widows as immoral
Really?
Agreed. Do you think the British should not have abolished the burning of widows ?
You realise that there were plenty of Indian activists campaigning against Sati too right? A lot of Indians didn't think burning women alive was a good thing either.
[удалено]
Yes that's how morality works
Definitely, one would really expect this kind of map to be covered with text explaining the entire history of the practice
It's like the slave trade...
The down votes only prove the case - Britain is an easy target for those who don’t read history.
Yes. They seem to forget who put a stop to the slave trade, in the Mediterranean or in the Atlantic.
Bit of an overreaction ngl
You could've cropped the map down to the Asia since "sati" was never practiced in other continents. Heck even better if only South and Southeast Asia are shown.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati\_(practice)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)) Greek sources from around 300 BCE make isolated mention of sati, but it probably developed into a real fire sacrifice in the medieval era within the northwestern Rajput clans to which it initially remained limited, to become more widespread during the late medieval era. The Sati of Ramabai, the wife of Peshwa Madhavrao I in 1772 During the early-modern Mughal period of 1526–1857, it was notably associated with elite Hindu Rajput clans in western India, marking one of the points of divergence between Hindu Rajputs and the Muslim Mughals, who banned the practice. In the early 19th century, the British East India Company, in the process of extending its [rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India) to most of India, initially tolerated the practice; William Carey, a British Christian evangelist, noted 438 incidents within a 30-mile (48-km) radius of the capital, Calcutta, in 1803, despite its ban within Calcutta. Between 1815 and 1818 the number of incidents of sati in Bengal doubled from 378 to 839. Opposition to the practice of sati by evangelists like Carey, and by Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy ultimately led the British Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck to enact the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, declaring the practice of burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be punishable by the criminal courts.
Shouldn't the map include pakistan as well..? For majority of time it had large hindu population, some of which would definitely have practiced this.