Publisher: Aryan Books International, Pooja appartments, 4B Ansari road Delhi 110002 www.aryanbooks.co.in
About the book: Sati -- Evangelicals, Baptist missionaries, and the Changing colonial discourse :
Lord Bentinck’s Regulation XVII of 1829, which declared sati a criminal offence, marked the culmination of a sustained campaign against Hinduism by British Evangelicals and missionaries anxious to Anglicize and Christianize India. The attack on Hinduism was initiated by the Evangelist, Charles Grant, an employee of the East India Company and subsequently member of the Court of Directors. In 1792, he presented his famous treatise, Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain. A harsh evaluation of Hindu society, it challenged the then current Orientalist policy of respecting Indian laws, religion, and customs set in motion by the Governor General, Warren Hastings.Grant argued that the introduction of the language and religion of the conquerors would be “an obvious means of assimilating the conquered people to them.” He was joined in his endeavours by other Evangelicals, and Baptist missionaries, who began arriving surreptitiously in Bengal from 1793.
This is not a work on sati per se. It does not address, in any depth, issues of the possible origins of the rite; its voluntary or mandatory nature; the role, if any, of priests or family members; or any other aspect associated with the actual practice of widow immolation. Its primary focus is the colonial debate on sati, particularly the role of Evangelicals and Baptist missionaries. It argues that sati was an “exceptional act,” performed by a miniscule number of Hindu widows over the centuries. Its occurrence was, however, exaggerated in the nineteenth century by Evangelicals and Baptist missionaries eager to Anglicize and Christianize India.
Meenakshi Jain's Ram and Ayodhya, Delhi, Aryan Books International, 2013 is a masterpiece in presenting the political history of the ancient shrine of Shri Rama which continues to be unresolved cultural issue even 67 years after Bharat attained Independence in 1947. This superb rendering of a historical account of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya leads us to expect a magisterial account of the cultural phenomenon of Sati in ancient Bharat.
Scholars and researchers interested in the socio-cultural history of Bharat should get a copy of the new book on Sati by Meenakshi Jain.
I will post further on this important work after carefully reviewing the acccount on the colonial discourse on the social practice, which Meenakshi Jain notes was only an 'exceptional act' performed by a miniscule number of Hindu widows over the centuries. The moral of the story is: anecdotal evidences do not a history make.
The book can be expected to provide an insightful, well-documented narrative which should help in a balanced socio-political dialogue and deliberations by students of Bharatiya history. Certainly, coming from the pen of Meenakshi, the book should adorn every Library, every school and every home and be read by all students and citizens of the world so that the distorted profiling of India indulged in by some motivated people can be remedied and viewed in a balanced perspective of Bharatiya Samskriti (culture).
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
February 7, 2016
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