BHARATVARSH

TRUTH ABOUT SATI PRATHA

Sati pratha was an act of self-immolation of a widow on her husband's pyre or in a separate pyre after the death of her husband.

When I say 'Sati Pratha', most of you will have a visual in the mind about people forcefully dragging a widowed woman and throwing her off to the pyre of her husband. Right ?

The ones who wrote our history based on the accounts of British and Christian Missionaries, taught us that all the widows were forced to do Sati. Right ?

But saying that every widow was forced to do Sati, is a very big claim. And such an assertion must be backed by data. Where is the data showing that all or most of the women did Sati ?

Data was collected by a great historian Meenakshi Jain in her book 'Sati : Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse'

And according to this data, the claims of historians or should I say Distorians are proved false.

So let us analyse the data of epigraphic and eyewitness accounts, given by Meenakshi Jain in her book. Let's do some maths 🌝

If we add up all the epigraphic and eyewitness accounts of Sati, from 1900 BCE to 1900 CE, there are only 500 recorded cases in the span of 4000 years. Of we take an average of this then 1 Sati happened everywhere 8 years.

Let us assume that 95% under reporting in the period of 500 BCE to 1900 BC, then we find out that -

• More than 90% cases happened after 1400CE.... The Delhi Sultanate and Mughal area... Understandable right ?

• Most of the cases were restricted to the northern and northwestern part of India.... Delhi Sultanate and Mughals... Remember ?

• The majority of women who committed Sati belonged to Kshatriya or royal class.... Because the lusty Delhi Sultanate and Mughals....

*Coughs* Haivaniyat ki hadd *coughs* Moving on...

Let us do a quick calculation to estimate the significance of Sati. We will try to estimate what percentage of widows actually committed sati, from 1400 CE to 1800 CE.

• In 1400 CE, India's population was around 98 million (9.8 Crores).

• By 1800 CE, the population increased to 189 million (18.9 Crores).

• The average annual population during this period was 144 million.

Assuming 4.5% crude death rate (CDR) in the earlier times, the average deaths per year were 4.5% of 144 million or 6.5 million (65 Lakhs).

It is assumed that 1/6th of those who died were men who left behind widows.

This translates to 10 lakh widows on average per year. Of these 10 lakh widows every year, only 20 committed self immolation.

Let me put it together -

It is obvious that even assuming 95% under-reporting, Sati-pratha was a very rare event, and only 1 out of 50,000 widows committed Sati (1 in 53,813 to be exact).

Even if we assume that 99% of Sati instances were unreported, or that only 1 out of 100 cases were recorded. Even then, not more than 1 out of 10,000 widows committed Sati assuming a CDR of 4.5%.

What does this mean ?

It means that whether all cases are reported, or there was 99% under reporting, SATI WAS A VERY RARE EVENT.

Now if you're unable to believe then let me ask you two logical questions. Sati was banned in the year 1829, so naturally self immolations would've been reduced after this.

In 1770, there was a famine in Bengal thanks to East India company's mismanagement. And 30 million were affected and 10 million died. So my question is that if we assume only 1 million not more, only 1 million were married men..... Did 1 million widowed women commit Sati ?

And my other question is did anyone in your family, just keep it your family, did anyone committed Sati ? Your great grandmothers or great great grandmothers.... Did they commit Sati ? Ask this to your parents or grandparents.

And if we take real life examples, we know that Kshatriyas and Royal class women committed Sati. And these women were obviously seen as the ideals that other women should follow. So if Sati was a mandatory tradition then for the commoners to follow it, this class must follow it.

But did Rajmata Nayiki devi do Sati ? No. Did Rani Laxmi Bai do Sati ? No. Did Rani Ahilya Bai Holkar do Sati ? No. Did Rani Tara Bai Bhosale do Sati ? No.

In fact Ahilya Bai was stopped by her father-in-law.

So what has been taught to us about the 'shameful' Sati pratha, contradicts with data and what actually happened in those times.

The truth is Sati was a choice and not something forced on women. You only think if all women committed Sati then there would've been no widows, dude Rani Laxmi Bai had an army of widows !

Actually what the pesky Britishers and sly Christian Missionaries did was they took one or two cases, and overly generalised it. Because they were here to rule the nation, and to do that they must destroy indigenous culture, and Sati pratha was their easy target.

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So keep in mind I am not promoting or defending Sati pratha, I have just tried to examine statistical data and historical evidence, with what has been taught to us about the demonised Sati pratha.

Hope this opened your eyes ❤️