Roop Kanwar

Roopkuvarba Kanwar (c. 1969 – 4 September 1987) was a Rajput woman who was burned alive at Deorala village of Sikar district in Rajasthan, India. At the time, she was 18 years old and had been married for eight months to Maal Singh Shekhawat, who had died a day earlier at age 24,[1] and had no children.

Roopkuvarba Kanwar
Born	c. 1969
Died	4 September 1987 (aged 18) Deorala, Sikar district, Rajasthan, India
Cause of death	Burned to death
Nationality	Indian
Known for	Sati
Spouse(s)	Maal Singh

Immolation

Several thousand people attended. After her death, Roop Kanwar was hailed as a sati mata – a sati mother, or pure mother. The event quickly produced a public outcry in urban centres. The incident led first to state level laws to prevent such incidents, then the central government's Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act.[2]

News reports

News reports of the incident present conflicting stories about the degree to which Kanwar's death was voluntary. Some news reports claim Kanwar was forced to her death by other attendees present.[1] At the same time, there are contradictory reports which claim that Roop Kanwar told her brother-in-law to light the pyre when she was ready. Some reports state that Roop was told she must do Sati to bring honor to the family, and she ran away and hid in a barn, but was found and beaten, drugged. Her male in-laws half dragged her towards the funeral pyre and eye-witnesses testified that she was heavily bruised and bleeding and frothing from the mouth. These witnesses said she was thrown on her husbands dead body and heavy logs placed on her such that she could not move and the funeral pyre was lit.[3]

Chargesheet

The original inquiries resulted in 45 people being charged with her murder; these people were acquitted. A much-publicized later investigation led to the arrest of a large number of people from Deorala, said to have been present in the ceremony, or participants in it.

Eventually, 11 people, including state politicians, were charged with glorification of sati. On 31 January 2004 a special court in Jaipur acquitted all of the 11 accused in the case.[4]

References

1. "The New York Times, 1987". 20 September 1987. Retrieved 31 May 2008.
2. "The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987". Archived from the original on 21 November 2006. Retrieved 24 December 2006.
3. "Hinduism Today, 1987". Retrieved 9 July 2007.
4. "Frontline, 2004". Retrieved 9 July 2007.

Further reading

• Kannabiran, Kalpana (2004). "Voices of Dissent: Gender and Changing Social Values in Hinduism". In Rinehart, Robin (ed.). Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice. ABC-CLIO. pp. 284–285. ISBN 978-1576079058.