Subtitle: Sati, Dowry Death, and Female Infanticide in Modern India
Author: Mala Sen
Subject: Women's Studies/Asian Studies
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-3102-0
Pages: 288 pp.
Description: A gripping exploration of the practice of Sati in present-day India.
The Indian village of Deorala in Rajasthan, the northwestern Indian state that borders Pakistan, is neither remote nor feudal in the strictest sense. A tarmac road links the population of 10,000 to neighboring villages and towns, there is running water and electricity, and the villagers have had television for more than twenty years. On September 4, 1987, Deorala found itself in the center of a furor that awoke age-old conflicts in Indian society. Before a crowd of several thousand people, mostly men, a young woman dressed in her bridal finery was burned alive on her husbands funeral pyre. The apparent revival of an ancient tradition opened old wounds in Indian society and focused world attention on the status and treatment of women in modern India.
The ancient practice of satithe self-immolation of a woman on her husbands funeral pyrewas outlawed by the British administration in India in 1829, and sati was widely believed to have died out. The fate of 18-year-old Roop Kanwar changed that perception. Mala Sen explores the reality of life and death for women in modern India in a study that is both illuminating and terrifying. The book is part journey through the India that the author knows and loves, and part exploration of the enigma that India still remains in the minds of many. Starting with Kanwar, Sen enters the worlds of three women: a goddess, a burned bride, and a woman accused of killing her daughter, and shows how, in this society in which ancient and modern apparently co-exist comfortably, there is increasingly cause for real alarm. She creates an image of a state in which political turmoil is constantly at the surface, and in which the role of women is constantly being redefined.
Mala Sen is a writer and journalist based in London. Her first book, Indias Bandit Queen, about the outlaw Phoolan Devi, has been translated into ten languages and formed the basis of the controversial film of the same name.
Praise for the new book by the author of Indias Bandit Queen
"Sen tries to understand satis place in Indian culture rather than simply condemn it and also writes in detail about Indian attitudes to women, their social standing and the practice of killing baby girls so that poverty-stricken parents do not have the financial worry of providing a dowry. A fascinating journey in the broadest sense through a particular landscape of modern India." Publishing News
"Death by Fire is dedicated to all the women of India, who continue to struggle for social change and justice despite the odds ranged against them. It is a very fine tribute, and will be valued too in this country, where male violence against women is far from unknown."Dublin Sunday Tribune
"This litany of horror stories makes grim reading yet it is made bearable by Mala Sens sympathetic presence in the text. . . . Her tenacity and exhaustion, combined with her frank admiration for the campaigners she meets, are as affecting as any amount of conventional political analysis. The result is that rare thing, a narrative that is at once horrifying and quietly inspirational."London Financial Times
"Sens personal account takes us behind the familiar headlines. . . . this book should be read if only because it interrupts the usual traffic in tales of persecution by tradition."New Statesman
"Sens grippingly honest book . . . takes a stark look at aspects of India that were until recently taboo. Engrossing, horrifying and beautifully written."The Mail on Sunday
