The ancient practice of sati, the self-immolation of a woman on her husband’s funeral pyre, was outlawed by the British administration in India in 1829. The practice was believed to have died out, but the fate of Roop Kanwar, an eighteen-year-old Rajasthani woman who was burned on her husband’s funeral pyre in 1987, changed that perception. Mala Sen, author of the acclaimed biography of Phoolan Devi, India’s notorious Bandit Queen, explores the reality of ...
