Suttee/Sati

In one of the Flashman novels (Flashman and the Mountain of Light), there is an account of a suttee ritual by the protagonist in his own inimitable way:

Quote:

Like much beastliness in the world, suttee is inspired by religion, which means there's no sense or reason to it - I've yet to meet an Indian who couls tell me why it's done, even, except that it's a hallowed ritual, like posting a sentry to mind the Duke of Wellington's horse fifty years after the old fellow had kicked the bucket. That, at least, was honest incompetence; if you want my opinion of widow-burning, the main reason for it is that provides the sort of show the mobs revels in, especially if the victims are young and personable as they were in Jawaheer's case. I wouldn't have missed it myself, for it's a fascinating horror - and I noticed, in my years in India, that the breast-beating Christians who denounced it were always first at the ringside. No, my objection to it is on practical, not moral grounds; it's a shameful waste of good womanhood, an all the worse because the stupid bitches are all for it. They've been brought up to believe it's meet and right to be broiled along with the head of the house, you see - why, Alick Gardner told me of one funeral in Lahore where some poor lass of nine was excused burning as being too young, and the silly chit threw herself off a high building. They burned her corpse anyway. That's what comes of religion and keeping women in ignorance.The most educated (and devout) Indian female I ever knew, Rani Lakshmibai, thought suttee beneath contempt; when I asked her why, as a widow, she hadn't hopped on the old man's pyre herself, she looked at me in disbelief and asked, "Do you think I'm a fool?" She wasn't, but her Punjabi sisters knew no better.

He then goes on to describe the burning of the body of Jawaheer Singh's body along with two living wives and three Kashmiri slaves.



But what surprises me about this is that this episode takes place in the Sarkar-e-Khalsa - the Sikh Empire, and Jawaheer Singh was the brother of the last wife of the first emperor of the Sikh Empire. He was also prime minister when he was assassinated by his own troops.



I had thought that suttee was exclusively a Hindu practice, and an online Sikh encyclopedia I have consulted has said that Sikhism has always been opposed to it. However, in the notes, George MacDonald Fraser assures the reader "Confirmation of the details of this deplorable episode is to be found in Carmichael Smyth".



So, just who practiced suttee, and who apart from those culturally intolerant Muslims of the Mughal Empire, and those culturally intolerant breast-beating Christians, opposed it?

via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=271641&goto=newpost