OneWorld.net (U.S.)

On May 25, 2005 daily newspapers in Banda district carried reports on an incident of sati in Bahundari village of Jaspura Block in Banda. According to the reports, 75 year-old Ramkunwari had committed sati after the death of her husband Jageshwar Prasad Tiwari on May 7, 2005.

The police at Jaspura thana was aware of the incident but had not reported it. A local Samajavadi Party leader Jamuna Prasad Bose (ex Cabinet minister) visited Bahundari on May 24th. He offered prayers at the site of the incident and promised to raise a sati chabutara. This event was reported in all local dailies in Banda and the entire Bundelkhand region.

The media persons spoke to Jamuna Prasad Bose. He said that the administration should not prevent people from offering prayers at Bahundari as Ramkunwari was a genuine sati. He also said that the administration should not penalize the family members as nobody had forced Ramkunwari to commit sati.

However, a first-hand account received from the representatives of Nirantar, (a Delhi-based Centre for Gender and Education), Khabar Lahariya (a rural newspaper published by women in Chitrakoot), and Vanangana (a women's organisation based in Banda and Chitrakoot), who visited the village, tells a different story.

According to their report, Bahundari is at a distance of 45 kms from Banda. The village has a mixed population (Yadavs, Brahmins, Dalits, Sahus) of nearly 60 families.

The Tiwaris are upper caste Brahmins who are economically well off. Their house is located at the centre of the village, and is the largest house in the village. They have land and orchards and some people in the village are employed on this land as labourers.

Jagdish Tiwari and Ramkunwari leave behind three sons. The oldest son works at the central secretariat in Delhi. The second son is also a government employee and the youngest spent most of his time in Bahundari with his parents. All three sons are married.

The site of the incident is a mango orchard belonging to the Tiwari family, nearly one Kilometre away from the main village. There is an uneven, dusty track that leads to the orchards. A newly raised chabutara (a raised square platform) marked the site, along with offerings of incense sticks and prasad. Media teams, both print and electronic, had already arrived at the site.

Sequence of Events According to the of the locals, Jagdish Prasad Tiwari was nearly 80 years old. He was unwell and had been hospitalised at Banda. He passed away on May 7, 2005. His family members brought his body to Bahundari where he was cremated at 6 pm. His three sons and other relatives were present at the cremation, which took place at the family's orchard.

One man, who usually spent the night near this orchard, said he did not come towards the Tiwari orchard after dark that evening as there was a pyre burning. Instead, he decided to stay a little away. At around 8 pm he saw some people come towards the pyre. He lit his torch to see if they were thieves but saw family members and two men who told him that they had come to find Ramkunwari and that everything was fine. He only learnt about the incident the following morning, when people started offering prayers on learning that Ram Kunwari had burnt herself on her husband's pyre and had committed sati . People from the neighbouring villages also came to pray at the site. The family got the chabutara raised after the thirteenth day of the death of Jageshwar and Ramkunwari.

At a small shop in the village was a woman who is a resident of Bahundari. She heard that Ramkunwari had asked to be left alone after observing all the rituals related to her husband's death. Although the women found this odd, they complied as they thought that that she could be in a state of shock after her husband's death. At 10 pm Ramkunwari's daughter in law went to give her some milk and found her missing. She raised an alarm after which people went out looking for her. On reaching the orchard they saw her walking stick next to the funeral pyre and immediately realized that she had immolated herself on her husband's pyre.

Observations The visiting team felt that it was not possible for Ramkunwari to have gone missing from the house for long. It was a busy household with family members and relatives who had come for the cremation. In such a household the centre of activity is generally around the wife of the deceased man. How could people then not notice Ramkunwari's absence for nearly two hours?

An old woman, Ramkunwari's vision was weak; on the night of her death, she had left her glasses behind at home. Very often family members had to lift her in order to help her drink water. It is not clear how a woman as old and incapacitated as Ramkunwari could have walked a distance of one kilometre in the dark of night. It would also be nearly impossible for a woman of her age to climb on to the funeral pyre on her own.

After the visit to Bahundari the team felt that people in the village were not forthcoming about the incident due to fear and the likelihood of being penalised by the police and the administration. Most people refused to talk to them; those who did said that they were not present in the village on the day of the incident.

The team had been working on issues of violence against women in the community. In no other case had they noted such a uniform response across the castes and classes of the community. It almost appeared as if there was an understanding between all the people in the village to narrate the same sequence of events. It seemed that the caste dynamics in the village needed to be examined further.

The Banda District Magistrate Dhiraj Sahu said that it was a case of suicide and it was only some media people who had blown the story out of proportion by labeling it as sati. Even if the family and the administration considered this to be a case of suicide, there was no record or report in the police station regarding Ramkunwari's death. From a statement of an old man in Bahundari, it was also obvious that the police had been informed and had been visiting the village since May 8, yet they claimed to have no knowledge of the incident until much later.

Many questions remain. The air of mystery that shrouds the death, murder or suicide, of Ramkunwari, the furtive acts of worship accepting and glorifying it as sati, the position and status of the family in the village itself, the fact that the sons are employed in government institutions in the city, and last but not least, the attitude of the administration and the guardians of law and order - the police.

When are we going to stop looking at these as isolated incidents? Women's groups have been protesting against the practice for a long time. Even a law banning the practice and glorification of sati has not helped. Strangely, society looks on helpless, as the practice continues unabated! In this world of strategic acumen, how come nobody has come up with a strategy to eliminate sati? And last but not least, what are the implications of this incident for the larger development scenario in the so-called gender and rights framework?

For more information on protest action by women's groups and civil society, contact Nirantar.