Elphinstone
was not aware of any order to prevent
1 Cf.
1 Cf.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Indian Empire
I, A, pp.
303-4, and 1834, XLIV, 171-211.
Also
Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 11, 227-9. Sir R. Burn writes: "The practice of taking a loan
and becoming practically adscriptus glebae' continued quite lately in Oudh”. Cf. Report,
Linlithgow Agricultural Commission, pp. 433-5.
3 Peggs, op. cit. p. 407 n. ; Ross, Cornwallis Correspondence, 1, 547.
Peggs, op. cit. pp. 423, 429.
Marshman, op. cit. p. 75.
1
1
## p. 129 (#165) ############################################
INFANTICIDE
129
manner at Sagor and other places for the supposed benefit of
survivors; but old men and women voluntarily threw away their lives
in this fashion, although the custom was little countenanced either
by the religious orders or by the great body of people who, on the
contrary, considered it a pious act to rescue and bring up a castaway
child. By Regulation vi of 1802 child sacrifice of this kind was
declared to be murder. 1
But when a practice of killing female children was discovered to be
widespread among varieties of Rajputs in different parts of the
country, a far more troublesome and elusive problem presented itself.
Jonathan Duncan, resident at Benares, when travelling on the frontier
of the Jaunpur district in 1789, discovered that murders of this kind
had long been systematically practised by a Rajput tribe called
Rajkumars through the simple method of causing mothers to refuse
nurture to some of their female children. The custom was freely
admitted in conversation and though general was not universal as
"paternal affection, or some other circumstances, had prevailed on
the fathers of Rajkumar families to bring up one or more of their
female issue"; but the instances where more than one daughter had
been spared were very rare, and only one village furnished a complete
exception to the general rule. The same practice prevailed, though
to a less degree, among a smaller tribe, also found within the province
of Benares, called Rajbanses. The motive of such crimes was desire
to shun the disgrace which must ensue from failure to provide
daughters with adequate marriage settlements. On 23 December,
1789, Duncan, writing that he had induced the Rajkumars to enter
into a covenant whereby they undertook to renounce “this horrid
practice”, forwarded a translation of the covenant which stated that
infanticide, although customary among the Rajkumars, was highly
sinful according to the “Bretim Bywunt Puran” and was held in
detestation by the British Government. The Rajkumars therefore
agreed not to commit any longer such detestable acts. Those who
committed them would be outcaste and would suffer the punish-
ments prescribed by the above-mentioned Purana and the Shastras.
Infanticide among the Rajkumars was declared to be murder by
Bengal Regulation xxi of 1795. Regulation 11 of 1804 extended this
declaration to the newly ceded provinces. But, in spite of covenants
and regulations, on 30 April, 1816, Shakespear, acting police super-
intendent of “the Western Provinces”, reported that Rajkumars were
still killing their female infants “to nearly the same degree as formerly,
though a greater degree of caution was preserved to prevent de-
tection". In the meantime Duncan, who had become governor of
Bombay, had learnt that the practice was very general among the
7
i Parl. Papers, 1824, XXIII, 137
* Parl. Papers, 1824, xxm, 7-8; Calcutta Review, 1844, I, 377; Kaye, British India, pp.
555-6; and Twining, Travels in India, p. 327.
9
CHI VI
## p. 130 (#166) ############################################
130
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
Jharija (Jadeja): Rajputs of Cutch and Kattiawar. The matter was
carefully investigated by Colonel Walker, political resident at
Baroda, who reported on 15 March, 1808, that throughout Cutch
there might be six or eight house wherein the masters of Jharija
families brought up their daughters; vtherwise female infanticide was
general among Jharijas not only in Cutch but throughout the province
of Gujarat. From the reports of natives best acquainted with the
country the number of Jharija families inhabiting Cutch and Kattia-
war was estimated at 125,000 and the number of female infants yearly
destroyed at 20,000. Colonel Walker also reported that infar. ticide
was practised among the Rahtor Rajputs of Jaipur and Jodhpur as
well as by Jats and Mewats. The practice had never been interfered
with by any previous government. From the Jharijas he succeeded
in obtaining a covenant whereby, like the Rajkumars, these people
pledged themselves to abandon such practices. Nine years later,
however, it was ascertained that the pledge had not been observed.
There could be no doubt that infanticide was still prevalent among
the Jharijas of Gujarat. In one taluka not one female child was to be
found among 400 families. 2
In spite of constant and varied efforts and activities which are
chronicled in the parliamentary papers of certain years, the preven-
tion of female infanticide among tribes and classes addicted to this
habit long baffled British officers and administrations, to the serious
concern of the court of directors. The difficulty, both in British
territory, and to a far greater degree in native states, was to bring
specific instances to light without espionage, or encroachment on
domestic privacy. In every case of infanticide the mother either
refused nurture to the child or rubbed the nipples of her breast with
opium. 8 The victim died in the home by order of the father, who was
apprehensive of being compelled later on to choose between the disa
grace of being unable to arrange her marriage and the ruinous expense
of accomplishing it satisfactorily.
“Although religion", says Tod, "nowhere authorizes this barbarity, the laws
which regulate marriage among the Rajputs powerfully promote infanticide. Not
only is intermarriage prohibited between families of the same clan (campa), but
between those of the same tribe (gota). . . . Many virtuous and humane princes have
endeavoured to mitigate an evil in the eradication of which every parental feeling
would co-operate. Sumptuary edicts alone can control it, and the Rajputs were
never sufficiently enamoured of despotism to permit it to rule within their private
dwellings. "5
Mountstuart Eiphinstone, when governor of Bombay, minuted on
9 January, 1821, that as long as the practice was congenial to the
general feeling of the classes concerned it could not be effectually
Imperial Gazetteer, xv, 166.
Parl. Papers, 1824, XXIII, 108-9.
3 Cf. Raikes, Notes on the North-Western Provinces of India, p. 12 n.
• Cf. Census of India 1901, 1, 425. See, too, Raikes, op. cit. pp. 8-9.
6 Tod, Rajasthan (ed. 1880), i, 547.
## p. 131 (#167) ############################################
INFANTICIDE
131
checked. Moreover we professed to have no concern with the civil
government and internal police of native states. We might be sure,
however, that a continuance of tranquillity and good order would
gradually cause the discontinuance of a practice repugnant to natural
instinct.
The policy, however, of the Company's governments was by no
means one of laissez-faire. From time to time the subject engaged the
particular attention of the directors. The parliamentary papers of
1843 show the vigorous nature of the preventive action taken in
British territory. In native states infanticide weakened before the
energetic and constant endeavours of military political officers such
as Wilkinson, Willoughby, Erskine, Jacob, Pottinger and Melville.
The record of their labours moved Alexander Duff, who was no
respecter of persons, to write in 1844:
If ever political agents, members of council, governors, governors-general and
courts of directors shall be arraigned at the bar of an impartial posterity, they may
rest assured that their best exculpatory evidence will be found, not in the brilliant
records of their civil diplomacy or military exploits, but in such humble, noiseless,
and unpretending volumes which, like the parliamentary papers on infanticide,
portray their strenuous and unwearicd exertions in the sacred cause of humanity.
Everywhere infanticide gradually yielded to the spread of Western
ideas; but even in 1870 the central government felt themselves com-
pelled to combat it by passing an act which enabled the application
of stringent rules for compulsory registration of births, and regular
verification of the existence of female children for some years after
birth, in places where such measures appeared desirable. We must
now turn to another custom, the suppression of which should for all
time redound to the credit of Lord William Bentinck. He struck the
final blow, but there were others who prepared the way.
Brahmanical tradition teaches that when children of high-caste
Hindus reach the age of eight to twelve, boys should go to a guru for
education and girls should marry. The duty of the latter is wifehood and
motherhood. Should a woman lose her husband, she is not permitted
to remarry although a widower may remarry at any time. A widow,
on the other hand, must lead a life of strict retirement. But throughout
India, before the year 1829, an alternative was open to her. She
might immolate herself on her husband's funeral pile and follow him
into a new life. She would then be called a sati, a faithful wife, and
would be honoured for her choice. The term sati or suttee has been
transferred by Europeans from the widow to the custom of burning
See report, 28 January, 1841, of the proceedings of Robert Montgomery, then district
magistrate of Allahabad, Hindu Infanticide, Accounts and papers, 1843, p. 59. See also Raikes,
op. cit. pp. 18-22.
2 Calcutta Review, 1844, 1, 435:
• Act VIII of 1870. * Cr. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, p. 102. Regulations
under Act VIII of 1870 were abolished in the United Provinces early in the present
century.
9-2
## p. 132 (#168) ############################################
132
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
her with her husband's corpse, a practice which comes down from
remote ages and was much in vogue under the Moghul Empire,
although certain emperors and “subahdars” took pains to see that
victims suffered only by their own free will. 1 Sati, however, was never
a universal custom in any caste, although the detailed returns which
were laid before parliament in the ten years which immediately
preceded its abolition show that it was practised in some degree by
lower as well as by higher castes. 2
When in 1772 Bengal came directly under British government,
Warren Hastings, who held in high respect all customs interwoven
with religion even if “injudicious or fanciful”,3 directed a body of
learned Brahmans gathered together from every part of the province
to prepare from the Shastras an authoritative manual of Hindu law.
Passages in this manual encourage sati; and other passages in Cole-
brooke's translation of the digest of Hindu law, which was compiled
under the superintendence of Sir William Jones, declare that the sati
enjoys delight with her husband for thirty-five million years and
expiates the sins of three generations on the paternal and maternal
side of her husband's family.
No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women at any time after the deaths
of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. If a woman in her
successive transmigrations declines doing so, she should not be exempt from shrinking
again to life in the body of some female animal. "
Such passages explain why in view of a clear promise to "preserve
the laws of the Shaster and the Coran, and to protect the natives of
India in the free exercise of their religion”, the government of Bengal
was slow to interfere with the celebration of a rite strongly opposed
to every humanitarian principle. But the Supreme Court refused to
tolerat it within the limits of their immediate jurisdiction; and
inhabitants of Calcutta who wished to perform it were compelled to
do so in the suburbs. It was prohibited by the Danes at Serampur,
by the Dutch at Chinsura, by the French at Chandernagore, but
residents of these places could do as they pleased outside settlement
boundaries. Sati was allowed in the Madras Presidency, but between
the years 1770 and 1780, at any rate,6 was not tolerated within the
scattered settlements which at that time were presided over by the
government of Bombay. It was practised by the Rajputs of Gujarat
and by the Marathas but was discouraged by Baji Rao, the last of
the Peshwas, who took upon himself the charge of supporting widows
who yielded to dissuasion.
i
1
1 Bernier, Travels (Constable and Smith), pp. 306-15; Foster, Early Travels in India,
p. 119; Thompson, Historical and Philosophical Enquiry.
2 Cf. Census of India, 1901, vol. I, paras. 703-9, vol. xvi, para. 111.
3 Gleig, Memoirs, 1, 403-4.
• Colebrooke, Digesi (1801), 11, 452.
6 Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 100.
6 Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1, 57, 11, 26.
>
## p. 133 (#169) ############################################
MEASURES AGAINST SATI
133
On the annexation of the Peshwa's dominions, Mountstuart
Elphinstone, in reply to a representation from Pottinger, collector of
Ahmadnagar, 1 that “the exercise of a very trifling degree of authority
would put a stop to this perversion of reason and humanity”, de-
clined on 18 August, 1818, to sanction the smallest interposition of
authority in a cause so clearly connected with the religious prejudices
of the Hindus. Brahmans, however, might be employed to dissuade
widows from sati, and when dissuasion was successful, subsistence
allowances might be granted to the widows. A Bombay regulation
even legalised sati, declaring that assistance at rites of self-immolation
was not murder. But the centre of British administration in India was
Calcutta; and the policy followed there must be clearly traced.
Sati in the capital presidency excited no particular protest until on
28 January, 1789, M. H. Brooke, collector of Shahabad, thus addressed
Lord Cornwallis:
Cases sometimes occur in which a collector, having no specific orders for the
guidance of his conduct, is necessitated to act from his own sense of what is right.
This assertion has this day been verified in an application from the relations and
friends of a Hindu woman for my sanction for the horrid ceremony of burning her
with her deceased husband. Being impressed with the belief that this savage custom
has been prohibited in and about Calcutta, and considering the same reasons for
its discontinuance would probably be valid throughout the whole extent of the
Company's authority, I positively refused my assent. The rites and superstitions of
the Hindu religion should be allowed with the most unqualified tolerance, but a
practice at which human nature shudders I cannot permit without particular
instructions. I beg therefore, my Lord, to be informed whether my conduct in this
instance meets with your approbation.
Brooke doubted whether any promise of religious toleration could
absolve the British Government from prohibiting a practice “at
which humanity shuddered”. But his main question was not an-
swered. He was merely informed that while his action was approved,
it must in future be confined to dissuasion and must not extend to
coercive measures or to “any exertion of official powers”. The public
prohibition of sati would probably increase Hindu veneration for it.
It was hoped that the practice would decay and disappear.
On 17 May, 1797, James Battray, magistrate of Midnapur, reported
that he had succeeded in preventing the sati of a child-widow aged
barely nine. But he feared that, sooner or later, it would be accom-
plished as her head had been filled with superstitious notions of
the propriety of the act. He was told to do his best to dissuade
her. Elphinstone's and Battray's letters show that on both occasions
magistrates were approached formally, and that their decisions were
obeyed. In spite of the Brahmans and the Shastras, there was, as is
apparent from much other evidence, a wide inclination to ask for and
accept the order of temporal authority. This vantage-ground was
definitely abandoned by the governments of Lord Cornwallis and
Sir John Shore.
1 Parl. Papers, 1821, xvm, 65.
## p. 134 (#170) ############################################
134
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
en-
In 1798 William Carey witnessed a sati in a Bengal district which
he vividly described in his diary. 1
We were near the village of Noya Serai. Being evening, we got out of the boat
to walk when we saw a number of people assembled on the riverside. I asked them
what they were met for, and they told me to burn the body of a dead man. I
quired if his wife would be burned with him; they answered Yes, and pointed to
the woman. She was standing by the pile which was made of large billets of wood,
about 2} feet high, 4 long and wide, and on the top of which lay the dead body
of her husband. Her nearest relations stood by her, and near her was a small basket
of sweetmeats. I asked them if this was the woman's choice, or if she were brought
to it by any improper influence. They answered that it was perfectly voluntary.
I talked till reasoning was of no use, and then began to exclaim with all my might
against what they were doing, telling them that it was a shocking murder. They
told me it was a great act of holiness, and added in a very surly manner, that if
I did not like to see it I might go further off. . . . I told them that I would not go,
that I was determined to stay and see the murder, and that I should certainly bear
witness of it at the tribunal of God. I exhorted the woman not to throw away her
life; to fear nothing, for no evil would follow her refusal to burn. But she in the
most calm manner mounted the pile, and danced on it with her hands extended as
if in the utmost tranquillity of spirit. Previous to her mounting the pile, the relation
whose office it was to set fire to the pile led her six times round it. . . . As she went
round she scattered the sweetmeat above-mentioned among the people, who
picked it up and ate it as a very holy thing. This being ended, and she having
mounted the pile, and danced as aforesaid (n. b. the dancing only appeared to be
to show us her contempt for death, and to prove that her ying was voluntary),
she lay down by the corpse, and put one arm under its neck and the other over it,
when a quantity of dry cocoa leaves and other su stances were heaped over them
to a considerable height, and then ghee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the
top. Two bamboos were then put over them and held fast down, and the fire put
to the pile, which immediately blazed very fiercely. . . . No sooner was the fire
kindled than all the people set up a great shout—“Harree Bol. Harree Bol". It
was impossible to have heard the woman had she groaned or even cried aloud, on
account of the mad noise of the people, and it was impossible for her to stir or
struggle on account of the bamboos which were held down on her like the levers
of a press. We made much objection to their way of using these bamboos, and
insisted that it was using force to prevent the woman from getting up when the
fire burned her. But they declared that it was only done to keep the pile from
falling down. We could not bear to see more, but left them, exclaiming loudly
against the murder, and full of horror at what we had seen. ?
The Serampur missionaries, after investigations which covered a
radius of ten miles from Calcutta, found that more than 300 satis had
taken place within six months,3 and Carey, after searching the Shas-
tras, decided that the practice was encouraged rather than enjoined.
He laid his findings before his friend Udny of the civil service, who
was then a member of Wellesley's council. On 4 January, 1805,
J. R. Elphinstone, magistrate of the Bihar (now Gaya) district,
reported to government that he had prevented the sati of a girl be-
longing to the Baniya (grain merchant) caste at the private request
of her friends. The victim bad been found by the police-inspector,
who arrived on the spot only just in time, in a state of stupefaction
or intoxication.
Elphinstone was not aware of any order to prevent
1 Cf. Twining, op. cit. pp. 462-8.
2 Walker, Life of Carey, pp. 245-6. Cl. Forbes, Ras Mala, 11, 434.
3 Marshman, op. cit. p. 99.
1
## p. 135 (#171) ############################################
HESITATION ABOUT SATI
135
such barbarous proceedings and asked for instructions. By order of
Lord Wellesley the letter was forwarded to the “Register” of the
court of nizamat adalat, which was held generally responsible for
the detection and prevention of crime within the presidency. The
governor-general requested that body to ascertain whether this un-
natural and inhuman custom could be abolished altogether. How
far was it really founded on religion? Surely at any rate something
could be done to prevent the drugging of victims and to rescue those
who from immaturity of years or other circumstances could not be
considered capable of judging for themselves. This letter is dated
5 February, 1805. The judges of the nizamat adalat on 5 June,
1805, forwarded the views of the pundits whom they were wont to
consult on questions of Hindu law. The latter advised that a woman
belonging to the four castes (Brahman, Khetri, Vaishya and Sudra)
might, except in particular cases, burn herself with her husband's
body and would by so doing contribute essentially to the future
happiness of both. The exceptions were women in a state of pregnancy
or menstruation, girls under the age of puberty, women with infant
children who could not provide for their support by other persons.
To drug or intoxicate a woman in order to induce her to burn herself
against her wish was contrary to law and usage. In sending on these
opinions the judges advised that while the custom could not be
abolished generally without greatly offending“religious prejudices":
it might be abolished immediately in some districts, where it had
almost fallen into disuse,' and checked or prevented in others on
lines indicated by the replies of the pundits. They recommended a
policy of mingled abolition and compromise. It is possible that
Wellesley would have declared for wholesale abolition, but he made
over charge of office on 31 July, 1805, and left India, taking with him
his valiant and strenuous spirit.
For seven years after his departure the reply of the nizamat adalat
was pigeon-holed in the government secretariat, although in 1807
Lord Minto observed that widow-burning was extremely prevalent,
especially in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. The sepoy mutiny at
Vellore in 1806 had opposed a new obstacle to the adoption of any
resolute policy by suggesting apprehension of danger from the army
should sati be forbidden. Then on 3 August, 1812, Wauchope,
magistrate of Bundelkhand, raised the old question once more in a
letter to the register of the nizamat adalat, and asked for instructions.
Forwarding this letter to the government the court requested orders
on their communication of June, 1805. After three months of cogita-
tion the governor-general in council replied in December that as
i Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 24-6.
Idem, p. 28.
Peggs, op. cit. p. 54.
• Wilberforce inclined to this view. See Deanville, Life of William Carey, p. 247.
* Lord Minto in India, p. 96.
## p. 136 (#172) ############################################
136
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
sati was encouraged by Hindu doctrine, it must be allowed in those
cases in which it was countenanced by religion and prevented when-
ever it was not. 1 The court's original suggestion, that in si ne districts
the sacrifice might be prevented immediately, was ignored. Magis-
trates and public officers were to prohibit compulsion, intoxication or
drugging of victims. They must forbid the sacrifice of girls under the
age of puberty and of pregnant females. The police must act on these
principles, obtaining as early notice as possible in every case. In 1813
these rules were circulated, and in 1815 they were supplemented by
instructions for the submission by district magistrates of annual reports
and returns of satis. In 1817 further orders were issued prohibiting
the burning of mothers who had infants at the breast or children under
four years, or under seven unless responsible persons would take
charge of the orphans. Brahman widows, in accordance with the
Shastras, could only become satis on the funeral pyres of their hus-
bands and not elsewhere. Relatives must invariably give notice to
the police of impending satis, or would become liable to fine and
imprisonment. Till then no such obligation had been imposed.
The rules of 1812, 1815 and 1817 were merely “circular orders'
issued by the government to its officers through the nizamat adalat;
they were thus devoid of legal sanction and conceded so much to the
custom at which they were aimed as to produce the impression “that
to a certain extent the practice of suttee was approved by the govern-
ment”. 2 Colebrooke, the Orientalist, was in 1812 one of Lord Minto's
councillors, and afterwards justified these orders by stating that any
attempt to repress the rite by legal enactment would have been re-
sisted. Perseverance in carrying it out would have become a point of
honour. After-events, however, hardly support this excuse. As the
fruits of timidity and irresolution became increasingly apparent, the
government's attitude was severely criticised both in missionary pub-
lications and in reports from its own officers. The interest of religious
and humanitarian societies in the United Kingdom was stimulated
by missionary pamphlets; and in course of time the contents of official
reports and returns penetrating to Westminster became generally
known. In 1813 Wilberforce reminded the Commons that humanity
consisted not in a squeamish ear, but in being forward and active in
relief. For years, however, governments in India were allowed full
discretion in dealing with sati. Expressing a lively faith in the re-
generating influence of widening knowledge, they clung tenaciously
to a threadbare and discredited policy. And while correspondence
went on the toll of victims mounted in Bengal. The frequency of sati
in the districts round Calcutta raised the figure for cases reported in
the chief presidency far above the numbers in Madras and Bombay.
i Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 29–30.
2 Statement of the Directors to the Privy Council, 1832. Peggs, op. cit. pp. 57, 59-60.
3 Colebrooke, Life of Colebrooke, p. 285.
## p. 137 (#173) ############################################
EWER'S REMONSTRANCES
137
2
It varied from 378 in 1815 to 839 in 1818, 654 in 1821, 557 in 1823,
639 in 1825, 517 in 1827 and 463 in 1828. On 3 December, 1824,
the chief sodge of the nizamat adalat at Calcutta observed that
many women were burnt without the knowledge of police officers,
"and in many instances the act was illegal from circumstances which
deprived it of the restricted sanction of the Shaster". 1 In 1819 the
adalat had observed that it is doubtful whether
the measures publicly adopted with the humane view of diminishing the number
of these sacrifices by pointing out the cases in which the Hindu law is considered
to permit them have not been attended with a contrary effect to the one intended.
A spirit of fanaticism may have been rather inflamed than repressed. ?
In this view the government concurred and contemplated the possi-
bility of cancelling the orders of 1812, but were subsequently cheered
by the fact that in 1821 five widows were saved from the flames by
the presence of the police and four were induced by persuasion to
draw back at the last moment, whereof one only "was not affected
by the instrumentality or assistance of the police”. The particulars of
the five rescues are significant. One widow, after ascending the pile
and feeling the flames, was saved by the presence of the police. The
second was rescued just before ascending the pile. The third, having
left the pile, was saved by the police against the will of her relatives.
The fourth came off the pile scorched and died two days afterwards.
The fifth descended from the lighted pile and was saved by the police. 3
The year 1821 was in this respect unusually successful. In 1827, on the
other hand, only one woman, a girl of sixteen, was rescued by police
intervention.
The central government not only kept the directors in touch with
their proceedings but regularly forwarded reports from numerous
judges and executive officers, some of whom were content to wait for
a change in the attitude of Hindus toward sati, while others criticised
the accepted policy in scathing terms, strongly advocating complete
prohibition as the only satisfactory expedient. One of the latter, who
well deserves to be remembered, is Walter Ewer, superintendent of
police, Lower Provinces, who on 18 November, 1818, addressed the
judicial secretary to the government. He began by urging that satis
were very seldom voluntary, for few widows would think of sacrificing
themselves unless overpowered by force or persuasion; very little of
either was needed to overcome the physical or mental powers of the
average victim. A widow who would turn with natural and instinctive
horror from the first hint of sharing her husband's funeral pile, would
be gradually brought to pronounce a reluctant consent“because dis-
tracted with grief at the event, without one friend to advise or protect
her, she is little prepared to oppose the surrounding crowd of hungry
Brahmans and interested relatives either by argument or force”.
1 Parl. Papers, 1825, XXIV, 147.
2 Idem, 1821, XVIII, 242.
• Idem, 1824, XXIII, 43.
• Idem, 1821, XVIII, 229.
>
## p. 138 (#174) ############################################
138
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
Accustomed to attach implicit belief to all the assertions of the former,
she dared not, if she was able to make herself heard, deny that by
becoming sati she would remain so many years in heaven, rescue her
husband from hell, and purify the family of her father, mother and
husband; while on the other hand, disgrace in this life, and continued
transmigration into the body of a female animal, would be the certain
consequences of refusal.
In this state of confusion, a few hours quickly pass and the widow is burnt before
she has time even to think on the subject. Should utter indifference for her husband
and superior sense enable her to preserve her judgment, and to resist the arguments
of those about her, it will avail her little,--the people will not on any account be
disappointed of their show; and the entire population of a village will turn out to
assist in dragging her to the banks of the river, and in keeping her down upon the
pile. Under these circumstances nine out of ten widows are burnt to death.
Ewer then urged that the sacrifice was more frequently designed to
secure the temporal welfare of the survivors than the spiritual benefit
of the widow or her husband. The son had no longer to maintain his
mother; the male relatives, as reversioners in default of male issue,
came in for the estate which the widow would have held for life; the
Brahmans were paid for their services, and were interested in main-
taining their religion; the crowd attended the show with the savage
merriment exhibited by an English crowd at a boxing match or a
bull-bait. Sati was indeed recommended by the Shastras, but was
not hinted at by Manu, or other high authorities which prescribed
the duties of a widow. The recommendation, too, where found in the
Shastras, was addressed to the widow and not to her relatives. It was
no part of their duties to persuade or force her in the matter. The
unhappy victims themselves were uneducated and unacquainted with
the Shastras. What the government was really doing was authorising
the sacrifice of widows by their relatives. The custom, too, might almost
be called local. In the years 1815-17, 864 satis had been performed
in five districts of Bengal--Burdwan, Hughli, the Jungle Mahals,
Nuddea and the suburbs of Calcutta, while in the same period only
663 took place throughout the rest of the empire including the holy
city of Benares, in which only forty-one sacrifices of that nature were
performed, although its population was almost exclusively Hindu,
and it was a place where every meritorious act was of double value.
Regarding standing orders Éwer wrote:
It appears to me that if the practice is allowed to exist at all, the less notice we
take of it the better, because the apparent object of the interference of the police is
to compel the people to observe the rules of their own Shasters (which of themselves
they will not obey) by ascertaining particular circumstances of the condition of
the widow.
The police enquiries, he added, opened the wic'est door to extortions.
Even if such interference in some cases induced compliance with the
1 Cf. Bernier, op. cit. pp. 313-15 (ed. Constable).
1
## p. 139 (#175) ############################################
AMHERST'S HESITATION
139
rules of the Shastra, the oincial attendance of the daroga stamped
every regular sati with the sanction of government; and authorising
a practice was not the way to effect its gradual abolition. Whenever
“illegal” satis had been prevented by the police, no feeling of dis-
satisfaction had been excited. He believed that the custom might be
totally prohibited without exciting any serious or general dissatis-
faction.
Ewer's views received a trenchant endorsement from Courtney
Smith of the nizamat adalat, who on 2 August, 1821,' recorded in
a judgment that the government, in modifying sati by their circular
orders, had thrown the ideas of the Hindus on the subject into complete
confusion. They knew not what was allowed and what was interdicted,
and would only believe that we abhorred sati when we prohibited it
in toto “by an absolute and peremptory law”. They had no idea nat
we might not do so with perfect safety. In forwarding to government
the returns of 1819–20 Smith urged that the toleration of sati was a
reproach to British rule, and that its abolition would be attended by
no danger. It could be abolished by a short regulation somewhat in
the style of the regulation of 1802 against the sacrifice of children at
Sagor. To interfere with a vigorous hand for the protection of the
weak against the strong was one of the most imperious and paramount
duties of every civilised state, from which it could not shrink without
a manifest diminution of its dignity and an essential degradation of
its character among nations.
Similar protests came from other officers and from other parts of
India. On 14 September, 1813, Lushington, a Madras magistrate,
informed his government that except to a few necessitous Brahmans
who “received a nefarious reward for presiding at this infernal rite",
a
the prohibition of sati would give “universal satisfaction".
It is not surprising that, although such representations as these were
accompanied by others of a soothing nature, the directors were ill at
ease. On 17 June, 1823, they thus addressed the government of
India:
You are aware that the attention of parliament and the public has lately been
called to the subject. It appears that ihe practice varics very much in different
parts of India both as to the extent to which it prevails and the enthusiasm by
which it is upheld. . . . It is upon intelligible grounds that you have adopted the
rules which permit the sacrilice when clearly voluntary and conformable to the
Hindu religion. But to us it appears very doubtful (and we are confirmed in this
doubt by responsible authorities) whether the measures which have been taken in
pursuance of this principle have not tended rather to increase than to diminish
the practice. It is morcover with much reluctance that we can consent to make the
British Government, by specific permission of the suttee, an ostensiblc party to the
sacrifice; we are averse also to ihe practice of making British courts expounders
and vindicators of the Hindu religion when it leads to acts which not less as legis-
lators than as Christians we abominate.
i Parl. Papers, 1823, xvn, 67.
2 Idem, p. 63.
## p. 140 (#176) ############################################
140
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
They would not then press this reasoning, but the matter must be
further considered. They would co-operate in any measures which
“your superior means of estimating consequences may suggest”. 1
But the government over which Lord Amherst presided was
"unwilling to abandon the hope that the abolition of suttee might
at some future period be found safe and expedient”. They based this
hope on the fact that they had remarked already "that the more
general dissemination of knowledge among the better informed Hindus
themselves might be expected to prepare gradually the minds of the
natives for such a measure". 2
The allusion here is clearly to the campaign against sati led by the
Brahman reformer Ram Mohan Roy, mentioned in the last chapter.
When in 1818 some Hindus had petitioned against the orders which
the government had issued restricting the practice of sati, Ram
Mohan Roy had produced a counter-petition which contained these
passages :
Your petitioners are fully aware, from their own knowledge or from the authority
of creditable eye-witnesses, that cases have frequently occurred when women have
been induced by the persuasion of their next heirs, interested in their destruction,
to burn themselves at the funeral pile of their husbands: that others who have been
induced by fear to retract a resolution, rashly expressed in the first moments of
grief, of burning with their deceased husbands have been forced down upon the
pile and there bound with ropes and green bamboos until consumed with the
fames; that some after flying from the flames have been carried back by their
relatives and burnt to death. All these instances, your petitioners frankly admit,
are murders according to every Shaster as well as to the commonsense of all nations.
Ram Mohan Roy, at grave personal risk, endeavoured to stop satis
by tracts and other methods of dissuasion. He obtained support from
some of his fellow-countrymen, but was bitterly opposed by the
orthodox school under Raja Radha Kanta Deb. 3 So fierce were the
feelings aroused that for a time the reformer went about in fear of his
life and had to be protected by a guard. 4
In July, 1828, Amherst was succeeded by Lord William Bentinck,
a reformer by temperament, who had been governor of Madras
when the Vellore mutiny occurred and had now been instructed by
the directors to consider definite measures for the immediate or
gradual abolition of sati. After careful enquiry, within a year of
taking office, he decided to put an end to the practice in British
territory without delay, against the advice not only of Horace Hayman
Wilson, the leading Orientalist of the day, but also of Ram Mohan
Roy. With some qualms and careful explanations he recorded his
determination in an elaborate minute which he placed before his
1 Parl, Papers, 1824, XXIII, 44-5.
° Idem, 1825, XXIV, 153-4.
3 Peggs, op. cit. p. 89.
4 Parl. Papers, 1825, xxiv, 11; O'Malley, op. cit. pp. 342-3; Dutt, Literature of Bengal,
pp. 143, 147.
5 Cf. Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 172-3.
6 Statement of the directors to the Privy Council (unpublished).
## p. 141 (#177) ############################################
BENTINCK'S ACTION
141
>
council. He had elicited the views of fifty-three officers, mostly
military, of whom twenty-four were in favour of immediate abolition,
and fifteen principal civil servants, of whom eight held the same view;í
he had also received two reports of the nizamat adalat with the
unanimous opinions of the judges in favour of abolition, and returns
of satis in 1827–8 exhibiting some decline of numbers.
“If this diminution”, he wrote, "could be ascribed to any change of opinion
upon the question, or the progress of civilisation or education, the fact would be
most satisfactory, and to disturb this sure though slow process of self-correction
would be most impolitic and unwise. But I think it may be safely affirmed that
though in Calcutta truth may be said to have made a considerable advance among
the higher orders, yet in respect to the population at large no change whatever has
taken place, and from these causes at least no hope of abandonment of the rite
can be rationally entertained. ”
H. H. Wilson, then secretary of the Hindu college (Vidyalaya),
considers it a dangerous evasion of the rcal difficulties to attempt to prove that
satis are not "essentially a part of the Hindu religion”. I entirely agree with him.
The question is not what the rite is but what it is supposed to be, and I have no
doubt that the conscientious belief of every order of Hindus with few exceptions,
regard it as sacred.
Bentinck went on to observe that both Wilson and Ram Mohan Roy
considered that abolition would cause general distrust and dissatis-
faction. They considered that the practice might be gradually sup-
pressed by increasing checks. By far the greater number of satis,
however, occurred among the unmartial inhabitants of Bengal and
after enquiry he had concluded that abolition would cause no trouble
in the army. He observed that the judges of the nizamat adalat
were unanimously in favour of it, and laid before his council the draft
of the necessary regulation, concluding with the following sentences:
The primary object of my heart is the benefit of the Hindus. I know nothing so
important to the improvement of their future conditions as the establishment of
a purer morality, whatever their belief, and a more just conception of the will of
God. The first step to this better understanding will be the dissolution of religious
belief and practice from blood and murder. I disown in these remarks or in this
measure any view whatever to conversion to our own faith. I write and feel a
legislator for the Hindu, and as, I believe, many enlightened Hindus think and
feel. Descending from these higher considerations, it cannot be a dishonest ambi-
tion that the government of which I form a part should have the credit of an act
which is to wash out a foul stain on British rule, and to stay a sacrifice of humanity
and justice to a doubtful expediency; and finally I may be permitted to feel deeply
anxious that our course shall be in accordance with the noble example set to us by
the British Government at home, and that the adaptation, when practicable to
the circumstances of this vast Indian population, of the same enlightened prin-
ciples, may promote there as well as here the general prosperity, and may exalt
the character of the nation.
Charles Metcalfe, the most prominent of the governor-general's
councillors, while noting his concurrence, observed that he was not
without apprehension that the measure might possibly bc “used by
i Statement of the directors to the Privy Council.
## p. 142 (#178) ############################################
142
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
the disaffected and designing to inflame the passions of the multitude
and produce a religious excitement”, the consequences of which,
once set in action, could not quickly be foreseen. But if the measure
were not made “an engine to produce insurrection” in the early
period of its operation, it would not cause danger later on. His fears
or doubts were as to the immediate future and were not sufficiently
strong to dissuade him from joining heartily “in the suppression of
the horrible custom by which so many lives are cruelly sacrificed”. 1
On 4 December, 1829, sati was declared by Regulation xvii to be
illegal in the Bengal Presidency and punishable by the criminal courts.
Persons assisting a voluntary sacrifice would be decmed guilty of
culpable homicide; but those convicted of using violence or compul-
sion or assisting in burning or burying a Hindu widow in a state of
stupefaction or in circumstances impeding the exercise of her free
will, would be liable to sentence of death. A similar regulation was
passed in Madras on 2 February, 1830.
Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 11, 227-9. Sir R. Burn writes: "The practice of taking a loan
and becoming practically adscriptus glebae' continued quite lately in Oudh”. Cf. Report,
Linlithgow Agricultural Commission, pp. 433-5.
3 Peggs, op. cit. p. 407 n. ; Ross, Cornwallis Correspondence, 1, 547.
Peggs, op. cit. pp. 423, 429.
Marshman, op. cit. p. 75.
1
1
## p. 129 (#165) ############################################
INFANTICIDE
129
manner at Sagor and other places for the supposed benefit of
survivors; but old men and women voluntarily threw away their lives
in this fashion, although the custom was little countenanced either
by the religious orders or by the great body of people who, on the
contrary, considered it a pious act to rescue and bring up a castaway
child. By Regulation vi of 1802 child sacrifice of this kind was
declared to be murder. 1
But when a practice of killing female children was discovered to be
widespread among varieties of Rajputs in different parts of the
country, a far more troublesome and elusive problem presented itself.
Jonathan Duncan, resident at Benares, when travelling on the frontier
of the Jaunpur district in 1789, discovered that murders of this kind
had long been systematically practised by a Rajput tribe called
Rajkumars through the simple method of causing mothers to refuse
nurture to some of their female children. The custom was freely
admitted in conversation and though general was not universal as
"paternal affection, or some other circumstances, had prevailed on
the fathers of Rajkumar families to bring up one or more of their
female issue"; but the instances where more than one daughter had
been spared were very rare, and only one village furnished a complete
exception to the general rule. The same practice prevailed, though
to a less degree, among a smaller tribe, also found within the province
of Benares, called Rajbanses. The motive of such crimes was desire
to shun the disgrace which must ensue from failure to provide
daughters with adequate marriage settlements. On 23 December,
1789, Duncan, writing that he had induced the Rajkumars to enter
into a covenant whereby they undertook to renounce “this horrid
practice”, forwarded a translation of the covenant which stated that
infanticide, although customary among the Rajkumars, was highly
sinful according to the “Bretim Bywunt Puran” and was held in
detestation by the British Government. The Rajkumars therefore
agreed not to commit any longer such detestable acts. Those who
committed them would be outcaste and would suffer the punish-
ments prescribed by the above-mentioned Purana and the Shastras.
Infanticide among the Rajkumars was declared to be murder by
Bengal Regulation xxi of 1795. Regulation 11 of 1804 extended this
declaration to the newly ceded provinces. But, in spite of covenants
and regulations, on 30 April, 1816, Shakespear, acting police super-
intendent of “the Western Provinces”, reported that Rajkumars were
still killing their female infants “to nearly the same degree as formerly,
though a greater degree of caution was preserved to prevent de-
tection". In the meantime Duncan, who had become governor of
Bombay, had learnt that the practice was very general among the
7
i Parl. Papers, 1824, XXIII, 137
* Parl. Papers, 1824, xxm, 7-8; Calcutta Review, 1844, I, 377; Kaye, British India, pp.
555-6; and Twining, Travels in India, p. 327.
9
CHI VI
## p. 130 (#166) ############################################
130
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
Jharija (Jadeja): Rajputs of Cutch and Kattiawar. The matter was
carefully investigated by Colonel Walker, political resident at
Baroda, who reported on 15 March, 1808, that throughout Cutch
there might be six or eight house wherein the masters of Jharija
families brought up their daughters; vtherwise female infanticide was
general among Jharijas not only in Cutch but throughout the province
of Gujarat. From the reports of natives best acquainted with the
country the number of Jharija families inhabiting Cutch and Kattia-
war was estimated at 125,000 and the number of female infants yearly
destroyed at 20,000. Colonel Walker also reported that infar. ticide
was practised among the Rahtor Rajputs of Jaipur and Jodhpur as
well as by Jats and Mewats. The practice had never been interfered
with by any previous government. From the Jharijas he succeeded
in obtaining a covenant whereby, like the Rajkumars, these people
pledged themselves to abandon such practices. Nine years later,
however, it was ascertained that the pledge had not been observed.
There could be no doubt that infanticide was still prevalent among
the Jharijas of Gujarat. In one taluka not one female child was to be
found among 400 families. 2
In spite of constant and varied efforts and activities which are
chronicled in the parliamentary papers of certain years, the preven-
tion of female infanticide among tribes and classes addicted to this
habit long baffled British officers and administrations, to the serious
concern of the court of directors. The difficulty, both in British
territory, and to a far greater degree in native states, was to bring
specific instances to light without espionage, or encroachment on
domestic privacy. In every case of infanticide the mother either
refused nurture to the child or rubbed the nipples of her breast with
opium. 8 The victim died in the home by order of the father, who was
apprehensive of being compelled later on to choose between the disa
grace of being unable to arrange her marriage and the ruinous expense
of accomplishing it satisfactorily.
“Although religion", says Tod, "nowhere authorizes this barbarity, the laws
which regulate marriage among the Rajputs powerfully promote infanticide. Not
only is intermarriage prohibited between families of the same clan (campa), but
between those of the same tribe (gota). . . . Many virtuous and humane princes have
endeavoured to mitigate an evil in the eradication of which every parental feeling
would co-operate. Sumptuary edicts alone can control it, and the Rajputs were
never sufficiently enamoured of despotism to permit it to rule within their private
dwellings. "5
Mountstuart Eiphinstone, when governor of Bombay, minuted on
9 January, 1821, that as long as the practice was congenial to the
general feeling of the classes concerned it could not be effectually
Imperial Gazetteer, xv, 166.
Parl. Papers, 1824, XXIII, 108-9.
3 Cf. Raikes, Notes on the North-Western Provinces of India, p. 12 n.
• Cf. Census of India 1901, 1, 425. See, too, Raikes, op. cit. pp. 8-9.
6 Tod, Rajasthan (ed. 1880), i, 547.
## p. 131 (#167) ############################################
INFANTICIDE
131
checked. Moreover we professed to have no concern with the civil
government and internal police of native states. We might be sure,
however, that a continuance of tranquillity and good order would
gradually cause the discontinuance of a practice repugnant to natural
instinct.
The policy, however, of the Company's governments was by no
means one of laissez-faire. From time to time the subject engaged the
particular attention of the directors. The parliamentary papers of
1843 show the vigorous nature of the preventive action taken in
British territory. In native states infanticide weakened before the
energetic and constant endeavours of military political officers such
as Wilkinson, Willoughby, Erskine, Jacob, Pottinger and Melville.
The record of their labours moved Alexander Duff, who was no
respecter of persons, to write in 1844:
If ever political agents, members of council, governors, governors-general and
courts of directors shall be arraigned at the bar of an impartial posterity, they may
rest assured that their best exculpatory evidence will be found, not in the brilliant
records of their civil diplomacy or military exploits, but in such humble, noiseless,
and unpretending volumes which, like the parliamentary papers on infanticide,
portray their strenuous and unwearicd exertions in the sacred cause of humanity.
Everywhere infanticide gradually yielded to the spread of Western
ideas; but even in 1870 the central government felt themselves com-
pelled to combat it by passing an act which enabled the application
of stringent rules for compulsory registration of births, and regular
verification of the existence of female children for some years after
birth, in places where such measures appeared desirable. We must
now turn to another custom, the suppression of which should for all
time redound to the credit of Lord William Bentinck. He struck the
final blow, but there were others who prepared the way.
Brahmanical tradition teaches that when children of high-caste
Hindus reach the age of eight to twelve, boys should go to a guru for
education and girls should marry. The duty of the latter is wifehood and
motherhood. Should a woman lose her husband, she is not permitted
to remarry although a widower may remarry at any time. A widow,
on the other hand, must lead a life of strict retirement. But throughout
India, before the year 1829, an alternative was open to her. She
might immolate herself on her husband's funeral pile and follow him
into a new life. She would then be called a sati, a faithful wife, and
would be honoured for her choice. The term sati or suttee has been
transferred by Europeans from the widow to the custom of burning
See report, 28 January, 1841, of the proceedings of Robert Montgomery, then district
magistrate of Allahabad, Hindu Infanticide, Accounts and papers, 1843, p. 59. See also Raikes,
op. cit. pp. 18-22.
2 Calcutta Review, 1844, 1, 435:
• Act VIII of 1870. * Cr. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, p. 102. Regulations
under Act VIII of 1870 were abolished in the United Provinces early in the present
century.
9-2
## p. 132 (#168) ############################################
132
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
her with her husband's corpse, a practice which comes down from
remote ages and was much in vogue under the Moghul Empire,
although certain emperors and “subahdars” took pains to see that
victims suffered only by their own free will. 1 Sati, however, was never
a universal custom in any caste, although the detailed returns which
were laid before parliament in the ten years which immediately
preceded its abolition show that it was practised in some degree by
lower as well as by higher castes. 2
When in 1772 Bengal came directly under British government,
Warren Hastings, who held in high respect all customs interwoven
with religion even if “injudicious or fanciful”,3 directed a body of
learned Brahmans gathered together from every part of the province
to prepare from the Shastras an authoritative manual of Hindu law.
Passages in this manual encourage sati; and other passages in Cole-
brooke's translation of the digest of Hindu law, which was compiled
under the superintendence of Sir William Jones, declare that the sati
enjoys delight with her husband for thirty-five million years and
expiates the sins of three generations on the paternal and maternal
side of her husband's family.
No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women at any time after the deaths
of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. If a woman in her
successive transmigrations declines doing so, she should not be exempt from shrinking
again to life in the body of some female animal. "
Such passages explain why in view of a clear promise to "preserve
the laws of the Shaster and the Coran, and to protect the natives of
India in the free exercise of their religion”, the government of Bengal
was slow to interfere with the celebration of a rite strongly opposed
to every humanitarian principle. But the Supreme Court refused to
tolerat it within the limits of their immediate jurisdiction; and
inhabitants of Calcutta who wished to perform it were compelled to
do so in the suburbs. It was prohibited by the Danes at Serampur,
by the Dutch at Chinsura, by the French at Chandernagore, but
residents of these places could do as they pleased outside settlement
boundaries. Sati was allowed in the Madras Presidency, but between
the years 1770 and 1780, at any rate,6 was not tolerated within the
scattered settlements which at that time were presided over by the
government of Bombay. It was practised by the Rajputs of Gujarat
and by the Marathas but was discouraged by Baji Rao, the last of
the Peshwas, who took upon himself the charge of supporting widows
who yielded to dissuasion.
i
1
1 Bernier, Travels (Constable and Smith), pp. 306-15; Foster, Early Travels in India,
p. 119; Thompson, Historical and Philosophical Enquiry.
2 Cf. Census of India, 1901, vol. I, paras. 703-9, vol. xvi, para. 111.
3 Gleig, Memoirs, 1, 403-4.
• Colebrooke, Digesi (1801), 11, 452.
6 Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 100.
6 Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1, 57, 11, 26.
>
## p. 133 (#169) ############################################
MEASURES AGAINST SATI
133
On the annexation of the Peshwa's dominions, Mountstuart
Elphinstone, in reply to a representation from Pottinger, collector of
Ahmadnagar, 1 that “the exercise of a very trifling degree of authority
would put a stop to this perversion of reason and humanity”, de-
clined on 18 August, 1818, to sanction the smallest interposition of
authority in a cause so clearly connected with the religious prejudices
of the Hindus. Brahmans, however, might be employed to dissuade
widows from sati, and when dissuasion was successful, subsistence
allowances might be granted to the widows. A Bombay regulation
even legalised sati, declaring that assistance at rites of self-immolation
was not murder. But the centre of British administration in India was
Calcutta; and the policy followed there must be clearly traced.
Sati in the capital presidency excited no particular protest until on
28 January, 1789, M. H. Brooke, collector of Shahabad, thus addressed
Lord Cornwallis:
Cases sometimes occur in which a collector, having no specific orders for the
guidance of his conduct, is necessitated to act from his own sense of what is right.
This assertion has this day been verified in an application from the relations and
friends of a Hindu woman for my sanction for the horrid ceremony of burning her
with her deceased husband. Being impressed with the belief that this savage custom
has been prohibited in and about Calcutta, and considering the same reasons for
its discontinuance would probably be valid throughout the whole extent of the
Company's authority, I positively refused my assent. The rites and superstitions of
the Hindu religion should be allowed with the most unqualified tolerance, but a
practice at which human nature shudders I cannot permit without particular
instructions. I beg therefore, my Lord, to be informed whether my conduct in this
instance meets with your approbation.
Brooke doubted whether any promise of religious toleration could
absolve the British Government from prohibiting a practice “at
which humanity shuddered”. But his main question was not an-
swered. He was merely informed that while his action was approved,
it must in future be confined to dissuasion and must not extend to
coercive measures or to “any exertion of official powers”. The public
prohibition of sati would probably increase Hindu veneration for it.
It was hoped that the practice would decay and disappear.
On 17 May, 1797, James Battray, magistrate of Midnapur, reported
that he had succeeded in preventing the sati of a child-widow aged
barely nine. But he feared that, sooner or later, it would be accom-
plished as her head had been filled with superstitious notions of
the propriety of the act. He was told to do his best to dissuade
her. Elphinstone's and Battray's letters show that on both occasions
magistrates were approached formally, and that their decisions were
obeyed. In spite of the Brahmans and the Shastras, there was, as is
apparent from much other evidence, a wide inclination to ask for and
accept the order of temporal authority. This vantage-ground was
definitely abandoned by the governments of Lord Cornwallis and
Sir John Shore.
1 Parl. Papers, 1821, xvm, 65.
## p. 134 (#170) ############################################
134
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
en-
In 1798 William Carey witnessed a sati in a Bengal district which
he vividly described in his diary. 1
We were near the village of Noya Serai. Being evening, we got out of the boat
to walk when we saw a number of people assembled on the riverside. I asked them
what they were met for, and they told me to burn the body of a dead man. I
quired if his wife would be burned with him; they answered Yes, and pointed to
the woman. She was standing by the pile which was made of large billets of wood,
about 2} feet high, 4 long and wide, and on the top of which lay the dead body
of her husband. Her nearest relations stood by her, and near her was a small basket
of sweetmeats. I asked them if this was the woman's choice, or if she were brought
to it by any improper influence. They answered that it was perfectly voluntary.
I talked till reasoning was of no use, and then began to exclaim with all my might
against what they were doing, telling them that it was a shocking murder. They
told me it was a great act of holiness, and added in a very surly manner, that if
I did not like to see it I might go further off. . . . I told them that I would not go,
that I was determined to stay and see the murder, and that I should certainly bear
witness of it at the tribunal of God. I exhorted the woman not to throw away her
life; to fear nothing, for no evil would follow her refusal to burn. But she in the
most calm manner mounted the pile, and danced on it with her hands extended as
if in the utmost tranquillity of spirit. Previous to her mounting the pile, the relation
whose office it was to set fire to the pile led her six times round it. . . . As she went
round she scattered the sweetmeat above-mentioned among the people, who
picked it up and ate it as a very holy thing. This being ended, and she having
mounted the pile, and danced as aforesaid (n. b. the dancing only appeared to be
to show us her contempt for death, and to prove that her ying was voluntary),
she lay down by the corpse, and put one arm under its neck and the other over it,
when a quantity of dry cocoa leaves and other su stances were heaped over them
to a considerable height, and then ghee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the
top. Two bamboos were then put over them and held fast down, and the fire put
to the pile, which immediately blazed very fiercely. . . . No sooner was the fire
kindled than all the people set up a great shout—“Harree Bol. Harree Bol". It
was impossible to have heard the woman had she groaned or even cried aloud, on
account of the mad noise of the people, and it was impossible for her to stir or
struggle on account of the bamboos which were held down on her like the levers
of a press. We made much objection to their way of using these bamboos, and
insisted that it was using force to prevent the woman from getting up when the
fire burned her. But they declared that it was only done to keep the pile from
falling down. We could not bear to see more, but left them, exclaiming loudly
against the murder, and full of horror at what we had seen. ?
The Serampur missionaries, after investigations which covered a
radius of ten miles from Calcutta, found that more than 300 satis had
taken place within six months,3 and Carey, after searching the Shas-
tras, decided that the practice was encouraged rather than enjoined.
He laid his findings before his friend Udny of the civil service, who
was then a member of Wellesley's council. On 4 January, 1805,
J. R. Elphinstone, magistrate of the Bihar (now Gaya) district,
reported to government that he had prevented the sati of a girl be-
longing to the Baniya (grain merchant) caste at the private request
of her friends. The victim bad been found by the police-inspector,
who arrived on the spot only just in time, in a state of stupefaction
or intoxication.
Elphinstone was not aware of any order to prevent
1 Cf. Twining, op. cit. pp. 462-8.
2 Walker, Life of Carey, pp. 245-6. Cl. Forbes, Ras Mala, 11, 434.
3 Marshman, op. cit. p. 99.
1
## p. 135 (#171) ############################################
HESITATION ABOUT SATI
135
such barbarous proceedings and asked for instructions. By order of
Lord Wellesley the letter was forwarded to the “Register” of the
court of nizamat adalat, which was held generally responsible for
the detection and prevention of crime within the presidency. The
governor-general requested that body to ascertain whether this un-
natural and inhuman custom could be abolished altogether. How
far was it really founded on religion? Surely at any rate something
could be done to prevent the drugging of victims and to rescue those
who from immaturity of years or other circumstances could not be
considered capable of judging for themselves. This letter is dated
5 February, 1805. The judges of the nizamat adalat on 5 June,
1805, forwarded the views of the pundits whom they were wont to
consult on questions of Hindu law. The latter advised that a woman
belonging to the four castes (Brahman, Khetri, Vaishya and Sudra)
might, except in particular cases, burn herself with her husband's
body and would by so doing contribute essentially to the future
happiness of both. The exceptions were women in a state of pregnancy
or menstruation, girls under the age of puberty, women with infant
children who could not provide for their support by other persons.
To drug or intoxicate a woman in order to induce her to burn herself
against her wish was contrary to law and usage. In sending on these
opinions the judges advised that while the custom could not be
abolished generally without greatly offending“religious prejudices":
it might be abolished immediately in some districts, where it had
almost fallen into disuse,' and checked or prevented in others on
lines indicated by the replies of the pundits. They recommended a
policy of mingled abolition and compromise. It is possible that
Wellesley would have declared for wholesale abolition, but he made
over charge of office on 31 July, 1805, and left India, taking with him
his valiant and strenuous spirit.
For seven years after his departure the reply of the nizamat adalat
was pigeon-holed in the government secretariat, although in 1807
Lord Minto observed that widow-burning was extremely prevalent,
especially in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. The sepoy mutiny at
Vellore in 1806 had opposed a new obstacle to the adoption of any
resolute policy by suggesting apprehension of danger from the army
should sati be forbidden. Then on 3 August, 1812, Wauchope,
magistrate of Bundelkhand, raised the old question once more in a
letter to the register of the nizamat adalat, and asked for instructions.
Forwarding this letter to the government the court requested orders
on their communication of June, 1805. After three months of cogita-
tion the governor-general in council replied in December that as
i Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 24-6.
Idem, p. 28.
Peggs, op. cit. p. 54.
• Wilberforce inclined to this view. See Deanville, Life of William Carey, p. 247.
* Lord Minto in India, p. 96.
## p. 136 (#172) ############################################
136
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
sati was encouraged by Hindu doctrine, it must be allowed in those
cases in which it was countenanced by religion and prevented when-
ever it was not. 1 The court's original suggestion, that in si ne districts
the sacrifice might be prevented immediately, was ignored. Magis-
trates and public officers were to prohibit compulsion, intoxication or
drugging of victims. They must forbid the sacrifice of girls under the
age of puberty and of pregnant females. The police must act on these
principles, obtaining as early notice as possible in every case. In 1813
these rules were circulated, and in 1815 they were supplemented by
instructions for the submission by district magistrates of annual reports
and returns of satis. In 1817 further orders were issued prohibiting
the burning of mothers who had infants at the breast or children under
four years, or under seven unless responsible persons would take
charge of the orphans. Brahman widows, in accordance with the
Shastras, could only become satis on the funeral pyres of their hus-
bands and not elsewhere. Relatives must invariably give notice to
the police of impending satis, or would become liable to fine and
imprisonment. Till then no such obligation had been imposed.
The rules of 1812, 1815 and 1817 were merely “circular orders'
issued by the government to its officers through the nizamat adalat;
they were thus devoid of legal sanction and conceded so much to the
custom at which they were aimed as to produce the impression “that
to a certain extent the practice of suttee was approved by the govern-
ment”. 2 Colebrooke, the Orientalist, was in 1812 one of Lord Minto's
councillors, and afterwards justified these orders by stating that any
attempt to repress the rite by legal enactment would have been re-
sisted. Perseverance in carrying it out would have become a point of
honour. After-events, however, hardly support this excuse. As the
fruits of timidity and irresolution became increasingly apparent, the
government's attitude was severely criticised both in missionary pub-
lications and in reports from its own officers. The interest of religious
and humanitarian societies in the United Kingdom was stimulated
by missionary pamphlets; and in course of time the contents of official
reports and returns penetrating to Westminster became generally
known. In 1813 Wilberforce reminded the Commons that humanity
consisted not in a squeamish ear, but in being forward and active in
relief. For years, however, governments in India were allowed full
discretion in dealing with sati. Expressing a lively faith in the re-
generating influence of widening knowledge, they clung tenaciously
to a threadbare and discredited policy. And while correspondence
went on the toll of victims mounted in Bengal. The frequency of sati
in the districts round Calcutta raised the figure for cases reported in
the chief presidency far above the numbers in Madras and Bombay.
i Parl. Papers, 1821, XVIII, 29–30.
2 Statement of the Directors to the Privy Council, 1832. Peggs, op. cit. pp. 57, 59-60.
3 Colebrooke, Life of Colebrooke, p. 285.
## p. 137 (#173) ############################################
EWER'S REMONSTRANCES
137
2
It varied from 378 in 1815 to 839 in 1818, 654 in 1821, 557 in 1823,
639 in 1825, 517 in 1827 and 463 in 1828. On 3 December, 1824,
the chief sodge of the nizamat adalat at Calcutta observed that
many women were burnt without the knowledge of police officers,
"and in many instances the act was illegal from circumstances which
deprived it of the restricted sanction of the Shaster". 1 In 1819 the
adalat had observed that it is doubtful whether
the measures publicly adopted with the humane view of diminishing the number
of these sacrifices by pointing out the cases in which the Hindu law is considered
to permit them have not been attended with a contrary effect to the one intended.
A spirit of fanaticism may have been rather inflamed than repressed. ?
In this view the government concurred and contemplated the possi-
bility of cancelling the orders of 1812, but were subsequently cheered
by the fact that in 1821 five widows were saved from the flames by
the presence of the police and four were induced by persuasion to
draw back at the last moment, whereof one only "was not affected
by the instrumentality or assistance of the police”. The particulars of
the five rescues are significant. One widow, after ascending the pile
and feeling the flames, was saved by the presence of the police. The
second was rescued just before ascending the pile. The third, having
left the pile, was saved by the police against the will of her relatives.
The fourth came off the pile scorched and died two days afterwards.
The fifth descended from the lighted pile and was saved by the police. 3
The year 1821 was in this respect unusually successful. In 1827, on the
other hand, only one woman, a girl of sixteen, was rescued by police
intervention.
The central government not only kept the directors in touch with
their proceedings but regularly forwarded reports from numerous
judges and executive officers, some of whom were content to wait for
a change in the attitude of Hindus toward sati, while others criticised
the accepted policy in scathing terms, strongly advocating complete
prohibition as the only satisfactory expedient. One of the latter, who
well deserves to be remembered, is Walter Ewer, superintendent of
police, Lower Provinces, who on 18 November, 1818, addressed the
judicial secretary to the government. He began by urging that satis
were very seldom voluntary, for few widows would think of sacrificing
themselves unless overpowered by force or persuasion; very little of
either was needed to overcome the physical or mental powers of the
average victim. A widow who would turn with natural and instinctive
horror from the first hint of sharing her husband's funeral pile, would
be gradually brought to pronounce a reluctant consent“because dis-
tracted with grief at the event, without one friend to advise or protect
her, she is little prepared to oppose the surrounding crowd of hungry
Brahmans and interested relatives either by argument or force”.
1 Parl. Papers, 1825, XXIV, 147.
2 Idem, 1821, XVIII, 242.
• Idem, 1824, XXIII, 43.
• Idem, 1821, XVIII, 229.
>
## p. 138 (#174) ############################################
138
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
Accustomed to attach implicit belief to all the assertions of the former,
she dared not, if she was able to make herself heard, deny that by
becoming sati she would remain so many years in heaven, rescue her
husband from hell, and purify the family of her father, mother and
husband; while on the other hand, disgrace in this life, and continued
transmigration into the body of a female animal, would be the certain
consequences of refusal.
In this state of confusion, a few hours quickly pass and the widow is burnt before
she has time even to think on the subject. Should utter indifference for her husband
and superior sense enable her to preserve her judgment, and to resist the arguments
of those about her, it will avail her little,--the people will not on any account be
disappointed of their show; and the entire population of a village will turn out to
assist in dragging her to the banks of the river, and in keeping her down upon the
pile. Under these circumstances nine out of ten widows are burnt to death.
Ewer then urged that the sacrifice was more frequently designed to
secure the temporal welfare of the survivors than the spiritual benefit
of the widow or her husband. The son had no longer to maintain his
mother; the male relatives, as reversioners in default of male issue,
came in for the estate which the widow would have held for life; the
Brahmans were paid for their services, and were interested in main-
taining their religion; the crowd attended the show with the savage
merriment exhibited by an English crowd at a boxing match or a
bull-bait. Sati was indeed recommended by the Shastras, but was
not hinted at by Manu, or other high authorities which prescribed
the duties of a widow. The recommendation, too, where found in the
Shastras, was addressed to the widow and not to her relatives. It was
no part of their duties to persuade or force her in the matter. The
unhappy victims themselves were uneducated and unacquainted with
the Shastras. What the government was really doing was authorising
the sacrifice of widows by their relatives. The custom, too, might almost
be called local. In the years 1815-17, 864 satis had been performed
in five districts of Bengal--Burdwan, Hughli, the Jungle Mahals,
Nuddea and the suburbs of Calcutta, while in the same period only
663 took place throughout the rest of the empire including the holy
city of Benares, in which only forty-one sacrifices of that nature were
performed, although its population was almost exclusively Hindu,
and it was a place where every meritorious act was of double value.
Regarding standing orders Éwer wrote:
It appears to me that if the practice is allowed to exist at all, the less notice we
take of it the better, because the apparent object of the interference of the police is
to compel the people to observe the rules of their own Shasters (which of themselves
they will not obey) by ascertaining particular circumstances of the condition of
the widow.
The police enquiries, he added, opened the wic'est door to extortions.
Even if such interference in some cases induced compliance with the
1 Cf. Bernier, op. cit. pp. 313-15 (ed. Constable).
1
## p. 139 (#175) ############################################
AMHERST'S HESITATION
139
rules of the Shastra, the oincial attendance of the daroga stamped
every regular sati with the sanction of government; and authorising
a practice was not the way to effect its gradual abolition. Whenever
“illegal” satis had been prevented by the police, no feeling of dis-
satisfaction had been excited. He believed that the custom might be
totally prohibited without exciting any serious or general dissatis-
faction.
Ewer's views received a trenchant endorsement from Courtney
Smith of the nizamat adalat, who on 2 August, 1821,' recorded in
a judgment that the government, in modifying sati by their circular
orders, had thrown the ideas of the Hindus on the subject into complete
confusion. They knew not what was allowed and what was interdicted,
and would only believe that we abhorred sati when we prohibited it
in toto “by an absolute and peremptory law”. They had no idea nat
we might not do so with perfect safety. In forwarding to government
the returns of 1819–20 Smith urged that the toleration of sati was a
reproach to British rule, and that its abolition would be attended by
no danger. It could be abolished by a short regulation somewhat in
the style of the regulation of 1802 against the sacrifice of children at
Sagor. To interfere with a vigorous hand for the protection of the
weak against the strong was one of the most imperious and paramount
duties of every civilised state, from which it could not shrink without
a manifest diminution of its dignity and an essential degradation of
its character among nations.
Similar protests came from other officers and from other parts of
India. On 14 September, 1813, Lushington, a Madras magistrate,
informed his government that except to a few necessitous Brahmans
who “received a nefarious reward for presiding at this infernal rite",
a
the prohibition of sati would give “universal satisfaction".
It is not surprising that, although such representations as these were
accompanied by others of a soothing nature, the directors were ill at
ease. On 17 June, 1823, they thus addressed the government of
India:
You are aware that the attention of parliament and the public has lately been
called to the subject. It appears that ihe practice varics very much in different
parts of India both as to the extent to which it prevails and the enthusiasm by
which it is upheld. . . . It is upon intelligible grounds that you have adopted the
rules which permit the sacrilice when clearly voluntary and conformable to the
Hindu religion. But to us it appears very doubtful (and we are confirmed in this
doubt by responsible authorities) whether the measures which have been taken in
pursuance of this principle have not tended rather to increase than to diminish
the practice. It is morcover with much reluctance that we can consent to make the
British Government, by specific permission of the suttee, an ostensiblc party to the
sacrifice; we are averse also to ihe practice of making British courts expounders
and vindicators of the Hindu religion when it leads to acts which not less as legis-
lators than as Christians we abominate.
i Parl. Papers, 1823, xvn, 67.
2 Idem, p. 63.
## p. 140 (#176) ############################################
140
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
They would not then press this reasoning, but the matter must be
further considered. They would co-operate in any measures which
“your superior means of estimating consequences may suggest”. 1
But the government over which Lord Amherst presided was
"unwilling to abandon the hope that the abolition of suttee might
at some future period be found safe and expedient”. They based this
hope on the fact that they had remarked already "that the more
general dissemination of knowledge among the better informed Hindus
themselves might be expected to prepare gradually the minds of the
natives for such a measure". 2
The allusion here is clearly to the campaign against sati led by the
Brahman reformer Ram Mohan Roy, mentioned in the last chapter.
When in 1818 some Hindus had petitioned against the orders which
the government had issued restricting the practice of sati, Ram
Mohan Roy had produced a counter-petition which contained these
passages :
Your petitioners are fully aware, from their own knowledge or from the authority
of creditable eye-witnesses, that cases have frequently occurred when women have
been induced by the persuasion of their next heirs, interested in their destruction,
to burn themselves at the funeral pile of their husbands: that others who have been
induced by fear to retract a resolution, rashly expressed in the first moments of
grief, of burning with their deceased husbands have been forced down upon the
pile and there bound with ropes and green bamboos until consumed with the
fames; that some after flying from the flames have been carried back by their
relatives and burnt to death. All these instances, your petitioners frankly admit,
are murders according to every Shaster as well as to the commonsense of all nations.
Ram Mohan Roy, at grave personal risk, endeavoured to stop satis
by tracts and other methods of dissuasion. He obtained support from
some of his fellow-countrymen, but was bitterly opposed by the
orthodox school under Raja Radha Kanta Deb. 3 So fierce were the
feelings aroused that for a time the reformer went about in fear of his
life and had to be protected by a guard. 4
In July, 1828, Amherst was succeeded by Lord William Bentinck,
a reformer by temperament, who had been governor of Madras
when the Vellore mutiny occurred and had now been instructed by
the directors to consider definite measures for the immediate or
gradual abolition of sati. After careful enquiry, within a year of
taking office, he decided to put an end to the practice in British
territory without delay, against the advice not only of Horace Hayman
Wilson, the leading Orientalist of the day, but also of Ram Mohan
Roy. With some qualms and careful explanations he recorded his
determination in an elaborate minute which he placed before his
1 Parl, Papers, 1824, XXIII, 44-5.
° Idem, 1825, XXIV, 153-4.
3 Peggs, op. cit. p. 89.
4 Parl. Papers, 1825, xxiv, 11; O'Malley, op. cit. pp. 342-3; Dutt, Literature of Bengal,
pp. 143, 147.
5 Cf. Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 172-3.
6 Statement of the directors to the Privy Council (unpublished).
## p. 141 (#177) ############################################
BENTINCK'S ACTION
141
>
council. He had elicited the views of fifty-three officers, mostly
military, of whom twenty-four were in favour of immediate abolition,
and fifteen principal civil servants, of whom eight held the same view;í
he had also received two reports of the nizamat adalat with the
unanimous opinions of the judges in favour of abolition, and returns
of satis in 1827–8 exhibiting some decline of numbers.
“If this diminution”, he wrote, "could be ascribed to any change of opinion
upon the question, or the progress of civilisation or education, the fact would be
most satisfactory, and to disturb this sure though slow process of self-correction
would be most impolitic and unwise. But I think it may be safely affirmed that
though in Calcutta truth may be said to have made a considerable advance among
the higher orders, yet in respect to the population at large no change whatever has
taken place, and from these causes at least no hope of abandonment of the rite
can be rationally entertained. ”
H. H. Wilson, then secretary of the Hindu college (Vidyalaya),
considers it a dangerous evasion of the rcal difficulties to attempt to prove that
satis are not "essentially a part of the Hindu religion”. I entirely agree with him.
The question is not what the rite is but what it is supposed to be, and I have no
doubt that the conscientious belief of every order of Hindus with few exceptions,
regard it as sacred.
Bentinck went on to observe that both Wilson and Ram Mohan Roy
considered that abolition would cause general distrust and dissatis-
faction. They considered that the practice might be gradually sup-
pressed by increasing checks. By far the greater number of satis,
however, occurred among the unmartial inhabitants of Bengal and
after enquiry he had concluded that abolition would cause no trouble
in the army. He observed that the judges of the nizamat adalat
were unanimously in favour of it, and laid before his council the draft
of the necessary regulation, concluding with the following sentences:
The primary object of my heart is the benefit of the Hindus. I know nothing so
important to the improvement of their future conditions as the establishment of
a purer morality, whatever their belief, and a more just conception of the will of
God. The first step to this better understanding will be the dissolution of religious
belief and practice from blood and murder. I disown in these remarks or in this
measure any view whatever to conversion to our own faith. I write and feel a
legislator for the Hindu, and as, I believe, many enlightened Hindus think and
feel. Descending from these higher considerations, it cannot be a dishonest ambi-
tion that the government of which I form a part should have the credit of an act
which is to wash out a foul stain on British rule, and to stay a sacrifice of humanity
and justice to a doubtful expediency; and finally I may be permitted to feel deeply
anxious that our course shall be in accordance with the noble example set to us by
the British Government at home, and that the adaptation, when practicable to
the circumstances of this vast Indian population, of the same enlightened prin-
ciples, may promote there as well as here the general prosperity, and may exalt
the character of the nation.
Charles Metcalfe, the most prominent of the governor-general's
councillors, while noting his concurrence, observed that he was not
without apprehension that the measure might possibly bc “used by
i Statement of the directors to the Privy Council.
## p. 142 (#178) ############################################
142
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
the disaffected and designing to inflame the passions of the multitude
and produce a religious excitement”, the consequences of which,
once set in action, could not quickly be foreseen. But if the measure
were not made “an engine to produce insurrection” in the early
period of its operation, it would not cause danger later on. His fears
or doubts were as to the immediate future and were not sufficiently
strong to dissuade him from joining heartily “in the suppression of
the horrible custom by which so many lives are cruelly sacrificed”. 1
On 4 December, 1829, sati was declared by Regulation xvii to be
illegal in the Bengal Presidency and punishable by the criminal courts.
Persons assisting a voluntary sacrifice would be decmed guilty of
culpable homicide; but those convicted of using violence or compul-
sion or assisting in burning or burying a Hindu widow in a state of
stupefaction or in circumstances impeding the exercise of her free
will, would be liable to sentence of death. A similar regulation was
passed in Madras on 2 February, 1830.
