Contentious Traditions : Debate on Sati in Colonial India

This text analyzes the debate on "sati", or widow burning, in colonial India.

Though its prohibition in 1829 was heralded as a key step forward for women's emancipation in modern India, Lata Mani argues that the women were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state. The text radically revises colonialist as well as nationalist historiography on the social reform of women's status in the colonial period and explores the complex and contradictory character of missionary writings on India.