The Fiction of Voluntary Sacrifice: Caste Patriarchy, Women’s Agency, and the Legal Abolition of Sati in Manoj Mitta’s Caste Pride

Abstract

This article analyses the abolition process and the ideological consequences of Sati, drawing on Manoj Mitta’s Caste Pride: Battles for Equality in Hindu India. In conjunction with Lata Mani’s feminist historiography and Uma Chakravarti’s formulation of Brahmanical patriarchy, Mitta’s legal history reveals how Sati was upheld by the caste system, patrilineal succession, widowhood, male-dominated priesthood, and family honour. The article argues that the practice survived because of the ‘voluntary sacrifice’ of a widow, which drew no attention to the underlying causes, such as bereavement, financial constraints, ritualised control, restrictions on remarriage, or social pressures. Regulation XVII of 1829 was revolutionary because it proclaimed Sati unlawful, deemed any aid given to a widow as culpable homicide, and shifted the onus of responsibility from the deceased to the living. However, the discussion revolved mainly around male reformers, officials, priests, soldiers, lawyers, and judges; women, on the other hand, were the subject of the discussion. Bentinck’s later repealer, the ‘miraculous combustion’ plea in twentieth-century courts, and the renewed criminaliSation of Sati and its glorification in 1987, illustrate that legal abolition failed to suppress the practice. The article differentiates between legal and substantive emancipation. It claims that women’s liberation needs not only to survive but thrive on social, economic, and interpretative freedom.