THE STATES

An act of desperation

In a village in Uttar Pradesh, a widow ends her life on her husband's funeral pyre, raising disturbing questions about the status of women, particularly widows, in society.

V. VENKATESAN
in Satpurva
VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
in Lucknow

THE road to Satpurva hamlet, 10 km from Charkari in Mahoba district in southern Uttar Pradesh, is unmotorable. However, tyre tracks of vehicles that braved the dusty road point the way to the village of some 20 Dalit families, which seems virtually untou ched by development. Satpurva became the focus of attention last fortnight following an incident in which a 55-year-old woman reportedly immolated herself on the funeral pyre of her husband.

The incident, as narrated by villagers, occurred on November 11, the day Mani Ram Shah, 60, a Dalit resident of Satpurva, died of tuberculosis. After the cremation, his son Sishpal, 22, and a few other relatives went to a nearby pond for a ritual bath. A t that time, Charan Shah, the widow, is believed to have left home and headed for the cremation ground, where she jumped into the pyre and was burnt to death. There are conflicting reports about whether Charan Shah's actions went entirely unnoticed, but it is almost certain that hardly any attempt was made to rescue her from the pyre.

Charan Shah's wilful taking of her own life, and specifically her decision to end her life on her husband's burning pyre - which evoked images of the outlawed medieval custom of sati - whipped up a storm. However, there was little or no evidence that the customary rituals associated with sati had been observed in this case. And although there appears to have been an ex-post-facto attempt by some persons in Satpurva and neighbouring villages to glorify Charan Shah's tragic death and to weave mythi c tales of miracle cures of those who "worshipped" at the "sati sthal", the police appear to have concluded after inquiries that Charan Shah did not, in fact, commit sati. These findings have been corroborated by the report of a fact-finding team of lead ers and activists of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA). The National Commission for Women also deputed a fact-finding team to Satpurva.

Immediately after Charan Shah's suicide, the police interrogated Sishpal and Charan Shah's brother Malkhan Singh in order to ascertain whether the widow's immediate family members knew of her intention to end her life, in the manner in which she did so. Mahoba Superintendent of Police L. Ravi Kumar, however, said the two were blameless. Sishpal said that he would have informed the police had he known that his mother was contemplating suicide.

The police, who received news of Charan Shah's death only 12 hours after it happened, did not register a first information report(FIR) on the incident, arguing that there was no evidence of sati or of abetment to suicide. In fact, the police claimed, at least two women, both in their fifties, had seen Charan Shah heading for the cremation ground and had attempted to give chase. Attempts by police officials to reconstruct the events of November 11 have been hampered by the conflicting versions given by v illagers. While some people claimed that there was no reason to suspect that Charan Shah contemplated suicide, a few others said that she had indeed expressed a desire to die along with her husband. "In such circumstances, whom can we find guilty?" a pol ice official asked.

Ravi Kumar said that there were several reasons why the claim that Charan Shah had committed sati did not ring true. One, unlike the sati incident at Deorala in Rajasthan on September 4, 1987 involving Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old widow, Charan Shah did n ot proclaim her intention to commit sati, as is dictated by medieval social custom. Second, she did not observe the rites associated with sati and did not wear a bridal dress. (Her relatives claim that she asked for a new dress, but that they did not giv e it.) Third, no musical instruments were played and no bhajans to "sati ma" were sung when Charan Shah took her life.

(In Roop Kanwar's case, the residents of Deorala actively participated in the sati rituals; dressed in bridal finery, Roop Kanwar, who belonged to a middle-class Rajput family, sat on her husband's pyre, which was then lit by her brother-in-law, Pushpend ra Singh, a minor. Of the 38 persons who were brought to trial in the case on the charges of murder and glorification of sati, 32 were acquitted in 1996. The Rajasthan Police went in appeal before the High Court, but that case is yet to come up for heari ng. Two of the accused are absconding, and the four others, whose case was to appear before the juvenile court, are out on bail.)

LOCATED amid picturesque hills, Satpurva in Charkari tehsil was populated mainly by agricultural labourers until about 15 years ago, when some Dalits were given land to till, under the Cooperative Society Act. Today there are about 20 Dalit families, of whom some are land-owners, some are farm labourers, and others are manual labourers. The village has no electricity and no proper roads.

There is no recorded evidence that sati is practised or has social sanction among Dalits in the Bundelkhand region. However, some residents of Satpurva claimed, without adducing any evidence, that there had indeed been a few incidents of sati in the regi on, but that they had gone unreported. Among the villagers, currently prevailing attitudes towards sati are regressive, to say the least. Many of them seemed to consider a woman committing sati worthy of deification. They appeared to be unaware that the practice of sati had been outlawed, and that even glorification of sati would invite punishment. The few who did know about the illegality of the practice seemed to place a premium on the supremacy of faith and custom over man-made laws.

On the afternoon of November 14, when this correspondent visited the cremation site, an advocate practising at the Mahoba district court had come there with his daughter to have a "darshan" of "sati". He had walked a considerable distance to the site, an d seemed to consider that the journey was worth the trouble. Asked if he did not consider his action unlawful, he admitted that it was and added that he would not advise other widows to emulate Charan Shah. Even so, he added, "sati" had enormous powers, and there was nothing wrong in worshipping Charan Shah. "Sati enters only a few widows, and only a sati could help a widow embrace death in this fashion," the advocate said. He claimed that about 30,000 people had come to the site the day after Charan Sh ah ended her life, and that in later days many more would have come had the police not used force.

R.V. MOORTHY
The police keep a vigil at the site where Charan Shah ended her life on her husband's funeral pyre, in Satpurva village in Mahoba district. The police have taken action to prevent any attempt to glorify
Charan Shah's death or worship at the cremat ion site.

THE police have acted to prevent any attempt at glorification of Charan Shah's death and worship at the cremation site - a barren stretch of land, with only the ashen remnants of the pyre to mark the spot. A police outpost has been set up in Satpurva, an d movement of vehicles to the village is restricted. The police warned that any politician who visited the area with the intention of glorifying the death would invite penal action.

On the afternoon of November 14, a few policemen were present at the site, evidently to prevent villagers from erecting any structures at the site or offering worship. Even so, there was a clutch of curious persons from nearby villages, who had come to h ave a "darshan" of the "sati sthal", even if only from a distance. They were promptly shooed away by the police.

Ravi Kumar said that media coverage of the aftermath of Charan Shah's death had been less than professional, and in some cases downright dishonest. In particular, he alleged that a team from a television channel had filmed themselves offering donations a t the site and had reported that throngs of people were making donations to "sati". Contrary to media reports, there are no shops selling coconuts and agarbatis. A month-long mela, called Charkari Mela or Goverdan Mela, had begun near Satpurva from Novem ber 9, and many people from nearby villages come to attend it. A few of them visited the cremation site out of curiosity.

IN Lucknow, the government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party responded to the incident with a sense of trepidation, fully aware that it could blow up and become a cause of major embarrassment. Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta told Frontline that C haran Shah's death was a tragic case of suicide. The Government, he said, could do little by itself to change the perception among a section of people that she had committed sati. Only by raising social awareness could such beliefs be changed, and that w as not something the government could do merely through administrative measures, he said.

A section of officials in the State Home Ministry initially appeared to discount the report that Charan Shah's death was a case of suicide, not sati, and that none of the rituals associated with sati had been observed. They suggested that an independent inquiry into the incident be instituted by the State Home Department, but this idea appears to have been shelved.

THE semantic tug-of-war over whether Charan Shah's death was a case of suicide or sati ignores other social factors that underlie the tragedy. Charan Shah's decision to end her life was motivated by several factors: she had lost the eldest of her three s ons some years ago; her second son, who was employed as a casual labourer in Delhi, had been away from the family for years; she had been nursing her ailing husband for years. To a poverty-stricken 55-year-old Dalit woman in an underdeveloped region, lif e as a widow in a patriarchal, gender-insensitive social structure had little to offer, and even death perhaps seemed a deliverance. Only by addressing everyday issues related to the status of women, such as disparities in access to health care, educatio n, employment, share of familial property and so on, can a woman's sense of self-worth in society be enhanced to a level where she no longer feels compelled to resort to acts of self-destruction in the way Charan Shah did.