Woman’s Death on Husband’s Pyre Inspires Hindus

Following an ancient Hindu rite, Charan Shah stepped onto her husband’s funeral pyre. She knelt at the foot of his burning body, touched her forehead to the fiery embers and remained motionless until she was dead.

Weeks later, police still guard the spot where the 55-year-old widow committed ritual suicide, preventing her neighbors from worshiping at the site and erecting a temple in her honor.

Friends say Charan Shah committed “sati,” a Hindu rite of self-sacrifice meant to ensure a smooth afterlife for her husband and herself and to bestow good fortune on her children and future generations.

Police refuse to acknowledge it as sati, a practice that has been outlawed since 1829, and list it as a suicide. If the case had been ruled sati, every witness could be charged with culpable homicide.

Women’s groups say no matter what it is called, the incident shows the desperation of widows in tradition-bound rural areas who often are shunned and degraded by their husbands’ families.

Across this backwater of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest and one of its poorest states, small shrines dedicated to women who committed sati dot the hard, dry landscape.

Since 1930 there have been eight reported cases from the district around Satpura, a village about 180 miles east of New Delhi.

Such women are revered for their fidelity to their husbands and to tradition, and often are worshiped themselves as goddesses.

In Hindu mythology, Sati was the wife of the god Shiva. She jumped onto a ceremonial fire after an argument with her estranged father, who had insulted her husband.

Authorities say Charan Shah had given no indication she would kill herself after her husband, Man Shah, died from the tuberculosis that had afflicted him for 30 years.

On the afternoon of Nov. 13, witnesses say, about 25 mourners completed the cremation rites for Man Shah and walked a few hundred yards to a stream for a ritual wash.

It was then that the widow, who had remained at home with the other women, walked to the cremation site in a dry field and knelt on the burning pyre, witnesses say. No one was close enough to stop her, but a shepherd on a nearby hillock saw her and shouted to the others.

The mourners watched mesmerized, then folded their hands in worship.

“She was sitting still, as if in meditation,” said Gobind, a villager. “Charan Shah one day will be worshiped under a temple,” he added in hushed tones.

After word of Charan Shah’s self-immolation, hundreds of people came to the burned patch of ground to pray. Police sent patrols to the village to discourage the worship.

“We were compelled to take action, as a peculiar frenzy was building up. People from all over the district were flocking to offer prayers at the sati spot,” said police Inspector K.R. Dohre.

Police say they consider the case a suicide because Charan Shah’s death lacked the elaborate ritual of a traditional sati, in which the widow dresses in her bridal finery and sings prayers and hymns before sacrificing herself. People come to seek the widow’s blessings.

But villagers say that if she had gone through the ritual, the police would have heard of it and intervened.

“It definitely is a case of sati, not suicide,” her son, Sishupal, said in an interview.

The last reported case of sati with full ritual was in 1987. It created such an uproar that Parliament enacted another law making the failure to prevent sati a crime. Today a police officer is always posted at the site, in the western state of Rajasthan, to prevent worship there.

Traditions hold strong in rural India, which shows little development from medieval times. Satpura lacks electricity, piped water or paved roads, and the nearest hospital is 35 miles away.

Some women speak of Charan Shah with reverence and even envy at the divinity they believe she gained. “We wish we, too, could be as pure as these sati women,” said Prabha Devi.

“Sati is indeed a noble act, and only those women who have been very true to their husbands can perform it,” said Vijay Shankar Tewari, a teacher from Satimohalla, a town whose name is drawn from Sati.

“Nothing can be a better form of death for a woman,” said Ram Nath Das, an octogenarian Hindu priest.

Not everyone agrees, however, as even here ideas of women’s dignity are challenging ancient tradition.

Karhori Yadav, a milkman, said: “Nowhere in the scriptures would you find orders for a man to immolate himself at his wife’s funeral pyre.”