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.
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.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Indian Empire
No public
servant was to receive any sort of emolument from any such source.
The police posted on duty at religious festivals with a view to the
peace and security of pilgrims and worshippers must be paid out of
general revenues. Indians should be left to themselves in all matters
relating to their temples, their worship, their festivals or their cere-
monial observances. The dispatch called for further information and
added :
We are holding up a standard to which you are ultimately to conform your
policy rather than laying down a rule to which you are instantly and without
respect of circumstances to conform. . . . Such explanations should be given to the
natives as shall satisfy them that so far from abandoning the principles of a just
toleration, the British Government is resolved to apply them with more scrupulous
accuracy than ever; and that this proceeding is in truth a recurrence to that state
of real neutrality from which we ought never to have departed. '
The dispatch, which had been long in incubation, was received by
the government of India without enthusiasm, and remained for some
time a dead letter. But regulations which insisted on the firing of
salutes, on official attendance and homage? at Hindu and Muham-
madan festivals, were resented not only by chaplains and missionaries
but by members of the Company's services, and a memorial which
received 200 signatures from official and non-official Europeans was
presented to the Madras Government through the bishop to be
forwarded to higher authority. The memorialists petitioned that the
instructions of 1833 should be carried out and were strongly supported
by Bishop Corrie, who thus incurred the displeasure of the local
government, but appealed to the governor-general. Strong feeling
was aroused both in India and England; and eventually on the
initiative of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, president of the Board of
Control, a dispatch was addressed by the directors to the government
of India dated 8 August, 1838, which insisted both that no more time
should be lost in obeying the instructions of 1833 and that arrange-
ments should be made
for relieving all our servants, whether Christians, Muhammadans or Hindus, from
the compulsory performance of acts which you may consider to be justly liable to
objection on the ground of religious scruples. 3
The government of India obeyed, and issued orders which put an end
to the attendance of troops or military bands at native religious
festivals or ceremonies and to all firing of salutes on such occasions.
Public officers were, as far as possible, to abstain from all connection
with the ceremonies of the Hindu and Muhammadan religions. But
1 Kaye, History of Christianity in India, p. 418.
2 Idem, p. 421 n. ; Peggs, op. cit. pp. 259-60.
3 Parl. Papers, 1839, xxxix, 189; Kaye, op. cit. pp. 428-9; also Tucker, op. cit.
pp. 353-69.
## p. 127 (#163) ############################################
SLAVERY
127
>
the administration of religious endowments was interwoven with the
revenue system of the country, and the tenants of landed estates which
belonged to religious establishments had always been accustomed to
look to the government as their working landlord and could not be
summarily handed over to unreliable substitutes. 1 New agencies of
a trustworthy nature were hard to find, and complaints were made
that, to the grave injury of the Hindu and Muhammadan religions,
obligations were being shuffled off which had always been considered
binding. It was not until the year 1863, when the government of
India had been transferred to the crown, that an act was passed
which relieved public servants from all duties which embraced the
superintending of lands assigned for pious uses or the management
in any form of religious establishments belonging to the Hindu or the
Muhammadan religions. The cry of “religion in danger” which
undoubtedly contributed to the outbreak of the Mutiny was partly
produced by a feeling that the ancient faiths of the country were losi
exclusive privileges. But it must be admitted that the Company's
conciliatory policy had been carried to extreme lengths and called
for modification.
In tolerating all Indian rites and customs the British Government
soon found itself confronted by difficult problems. One was not felt
to be pressing. Slavery had long been an established institution not
only in India but in our American colonies. Mr Moreland, in his
valuable studies of economic conditions under thc Moghul Empire,
accepts it as
a Hindu institution, though in Akbar's time at least it did not secure the approval
of all Hindus, and the text-writers refine and distinguish according to their practice
regarding its origin and incidents.
The Ain-i-Akbari shows that slavery was also recognised by Muham-
madan law. In the first year of Warren Hastings's rule in Bengal a
regulation was passed which condemned the families of convicted
dacoits (brigands) to be sold as slaves. The “Committee of Circuit”,
in proposing this legislation, observed:
The ideas of slavery borrowed from our American colonies, will make every
modification of it appear in the eyes of our countrymen in England a horrible evil.
But it is far otherwise in this country; here slaves are treated as the children of the
families to which they belong and often acquire a much happier state by their
slavery than they could have hoped for by the enjoyment of liberty. 5
But these hues are too roseate, for we find Sir William Jones remarking
to a Calcutta jury in 1785:
Hardly a man or woman exists in a corner of this populous town who hath not
at least one slave child either purchased at a trilling price or saved for a life that
1 Parl. Papers, 1841 (5), XVII, 741-51.
? Lyall, op. cit. (ed. 1884), p. 282.
* See Macaulay's speech on the Gates of Somnauth, Speeches on Politics and Literature
(Everyman's Library), especially pp. 204-5.
Moreland, India at the death of Akbar, p. 91. Cf. also From Akbar lo Aurangzeb.
O'Malley, History of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, p. 359. Cf. Peggs, op. cit. pp. 366-8.
## p. 128 (#164) ############################################
128
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
a
seldom fails of being miserable. Many of you, I presume, have seen large boats
filled with such children coming down the river for open sale at Calcutta. Nor
can you be ignorant that most of them were stolen from their parents or bought for
perhaps a measure of rice, in time of scarcity.
The truth is that the treatment of slaves, domestic and agricultural,
varied in different parts of the country;a in most provinces, however,
it was common for very needy members of the humbler classes to sell
themselves or their children into slavery in order to obtain a bare
subsistence. But purchasers would often restore such children to their
parents in better times. The abolition of the slave-trade by the British
parliament in 1807 marked the beginning of a new era. In 1789 the
government of Lord Cornwallis had forbidden by proclamation the
collection of children and adults for the purpose of exporting them as
slaves to different parts of India or elsewhere, a practice in which
“many natives and some Europeans" had been involved. In 1811
the importation of slaves from any other country into India was
forbidden. Vigorous efforts were made to suppress the trade that had
grown up. * In 1832 the purchase and sale of slaves brought from
one district to another was made a penal offence. The charter act
of 1833 required the governor-general in council to take steps for
extinguishing slavery as soon as emancipation should be safe and
practicable. India Act V of 1843 prohibited the legal recognition of
slavery; and keeping of or trafficking in slaves became a criminal
offence under the Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860.
The abolition of slavery came gradually, pushed on by humanitarian
movements in England; but it appears that at no stage was emanci-
pation opposed by any section of Indian society, although it was
accompanied by no payment of compensation to slave-owners. We
pass on to two remarkable customs of another kind which from the
outset were strongly opposed to Western ideas of humanity and
civilisation. One was sanctioned by use and wont among a powerful
caste. It was from its nature elusive, practised in domestic privacy
and therefore most difficult to stop. But it was not authorised by
religion. The other was practised in public and was protected both
by religious tradition and by priestly authority.
In the year 1802 Lord Wellesley's government, after requesting
William Carey5 to investigate the nature of such religious sanction as
existed for throwing Hindu children, in fulfilment of vows, into the
sea at Sagor Island to be drowned or devoured by sharks, decided
to put a stop to the practice. Not only were children sacrificed in this
1 O'Malley, op. cit. p. 359.
Parl. Papers, 1831-2, ix, App. 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.
servant was to receive any sort of emolument from any such source.
The police posted on duty at religious festivals with a view to the
peace and security of pilgrims and worshippers must be paid out of
general revenues. Indians should be left to themselves in all matters
relating to their temples, their worship, their festivals or their cere-
monial observances. The dispatch called for further information and
added :
We are holding up a standard to which you are ultimately to conform your
policy rather than laying down a rule to which you are instantly and without
respect of circumstances to conform. . . . Such explanations should be given to the
natives as shall satisfy them that so far from abandoning the principles of a just
toleration, the British Government is resolved to apply them with more scrupulous
accuracy than ever; and that this proceeding is in truth a recurrence to that state
of real neutrality from which we ought never to have departed. '
The dispatch, which had been long in incubation, was received by
the government of India without enthusiasm, and remained for some
time a dead letter. But regulations which insisted on the firing of
salutes, on official attendance and homage? at Hindu and Muham-
madan festivals, were resented not only by chaplains and missionaries
but by members of the Company's services, and a memorial which
received 200 signatures from official and non-official Europeans was
presented to the Madras Government through the bishop to be
forwarded to higher authority. The memorialists petitioned that the
instructions of 1833 should be carried out and were strongly supported
by Bishop Corrie, who thus incurred the displeasure of the local
government, but appealed to the governor-general. Strong feeling
was aroused both in India and England; and eventually on the
initiative of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, president of the Board of
Control, a dispatch was addressed by the directors to the government
of India dated 8 August, 1838, which insisted both that no more time
should be lost in obeying the instructions of 1833 and that arrange-
ments should be made
for relieving all our servants, whether Christians, Muhammadans or Hindus, from
the compulsory performance of acts which you may consider to be justly liable to
objection on the ground of religious scruples. 3
The government of India obeyed, and issued orders which put an end
to the attendance of troops or military bands at native religious
festivals or ceremonies and to all firing of salutes on such occasions.
Public officers were, as far as possible, to abstain from all connection
with the ceremonies of the Hindu and Muhammadan religions. But
1 Kaye, History of Christianity in India, p. 418.
2 Idem, p. 421 n. ; Peggs, op. cit. pp. 259-60.
3 Parl. Papers, 1839, xxxix, 189; Kaye, op. cit. pp. 428-9; also Tucker, op. cit.
pp. 353-69.
## p. 127 (#163) ############################################
SLAVERY
127
>
the administration of religious endowments was interwoven with the
revenue system of the country, and the tenants of landed estates which
belonged to religious establishments had always been accustomed to
look to the government as their working landlord and could not be
summarily handed over to unreliable substitutes. 1 New agencies of
a trustworthy nature were hard to find, and complaints were made
that, to the grave injury of the Hindu and Muhammadan religions,
obligations were being shuffled off which had always been considered
binding. It was not until the year 1863, when the government of
India had been transferred to the crown, that an act was passed
which relieved public servants from all duties which embraced the
superintending of lands assigned for pious uses or the management
in any form of religious establishments belonging to the Hindu or the
Muhammadan religions. The cry of “religion in danger” which
undoubtedly contributed to the outbreak of the Mutiny was partly
produced by a feeling that the ancient faiths of the country were losi
exclusive privileges. But it must be admitted that the Company's
conciliatory policy had been carried to extreme lengths and called
for modification.
In tolerating all Indian rites and customs the British Government
soon found itself confronted by difficult problems. One was not felt
to be pressing. Slavery had long been an established institution not
only in India but in our American colonies. Mr Moreland, in his
valuable studies of economic conditions under thc Moghul Empire,
accepts it as
a Hindu institution, though in Akbar's time at least it did not secure the approval
of all Hindus, and the text-writers refine and distinguish according to their practice
regarding its origin and incidents.
The Ain-i-Akbari shows that slavery was also recognised by Muham-
madan law. In the first year of Warren Hastings's rule in Bengal a
regulation was passed which condemned the families of convicted
dacoits (brigands) to be sold as slaves. The “Committee of Circuit”,
in proposing this legislation, observed:
The ideas of slavery borrowed from our American colonies, will make every
modification of it appear in the eyes of our countrymen in England a horrible evil.
But it is far otherwise in this country; here slaves are treated as the children of the
families to which they belong and often acquire a much happier state by their
slavery than they could have hoped for by the enjoyment of liberty. 5
But these hues are too roseate, for we find Sir William Jones remarking
to a Calcutta jury in 1785:
Hardly a man or woman exists in a corner of this populous town who hath not
at least one slave child either purchased at a trilling price or saved for a life that
1 Parl. Papers, 1841 (5), XVII, 741-51.
? Lyall, op. cit. (ed. 1884), p. 282.
* See Macaulay's speech on the Gates of Somnauth, Speeches on Politics and Literature
(Everyman's Library), especially pp. 204-5.
Moreland, India at the death of Akbar, p. 91. Cf. also From Akbar lo Aurangzeb.
O'Malley, History of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, p. 359. Cf. Peggs, op. cit. pp. 366-8.
## p. 128 (#164) ############################################
128
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
a
seldom fails of being miserable. Many of you, I presume, have seen large boats
filled with such children coming down the river for open sale at Calcutta. Nor
can you be ignorant that most of them were stolen from their parents or bought for
perhaps a measure of rice, in time of scarcity.
The truth is that the treatment of slaves, domestic and agricultural,
varied in different parts of the country;a in most provinces, however,
it was common for very needy members of the humbler classes to sell
themselves or their children into slavery in order to obtain a bare
subsistence. But purchasers would often restore such children to their
parents in better times. The abolition of the slave-trade by the British
parliament in 1807 marked the beginning of a new era. In 1789 the
government of Lord Cornwallis had forbidden by proclamation the
collection of children and adults for the purpose of exporting them as
slaves to different parts of India or elsewhere, a practice in which
“many natives and some Europeans" had been involved. In 1811
the importation of slaves from any other country into India was
forbidden. Vigorous efforts were made to suppress the trade that had
grown up. * In 1832 the purchase and sale of slaves brought from
one district to another was made a penal offence. The charter act
of 1833 required the governor-general in council to take steps for
extinguishing slavery as soon as emancipation should be safe and
practicable. India Act V of 1843 prohibited the legal recognition of
slavery; and keeping of or trafficking in slaves became a criminal
offence under the Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860.
The abolition of slavery came gradually, pushed on by humanitarian
movements in England; but it appears that at no stage was emanci-
pation opposed by any section of Indian society, although it was
accompanied by no payment of compensation to slave-owners. We
pass on to two remarkable customs of another kind which from the
outset were strongly opposed to Western ideas of humanity and
civilisation. One was sanctioned by use and wont among a powerful
caste. It was from its nature elusive, practised in domestic privacy
and therefore most difficult to stop. But it was not authorised by
religion. The other was practised in public and was protected both
by religious tradition and by priestly authority.
In the year 1802 Lord Wellesley's government, after requesting
William Carey5 to investigate the nature of such religious sanction as
existed for throwing Hindu children, in fulfilment of vows, into the
sea at Sagor Island to be drowned or devoured by sharks, decided
to put a stop to the practice. Not only were children sacrificed in this
1 O'Malley, op. cit. p. 359.
Parl. Papers, 1831-2, ix, App. 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.
