Upholding sati temples in anti-sati law!

NEW DELHI: Reconciling the regressive with the progressive can be tricky. And the law ministry is finding just how much as it redrafts amendments to the anti-sati law incorporating Mines Minister Sis Ram Ola's defence of old sati temples while keeping the sentiment of the legislation intact.

Officials in the ministry say they are at their wit's end. "We do not know how to incorporate a retrograde provision along with a slew of what are essentially progressive amendments to the anti-sati law," an official said.

Explaining their predicament further, he added: "The minister from Rajasthan essentially wants that only the sati temple built after 1987 in the wake of  the Roop Kunwar episode in the state should be subjected to the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.

"But the fact remains that even the original 1987 law, enacted in the wake of the Roop Kunwar incident, empowers the state government and district magistrates to demolish sati temples and other structures, which seeks to glorify the sati tradition," the officials said.

Section 7 (1) of the 1987 anti-sati law empowers the state government to 'remove' old sati temples, and section 7 (2) of the Act vests this power with the district magistrate, pointed out law ministry officials.

"With such provisions already existing in the law, it would simply be a retrograde legislative step to change these provisions to grant immunity to the old sati temples in the state," ministry officials said.

The minister was quoted last week as saying: "As far as sati temples go, how can one stop the 500-year-old tradition of worshipping at these temples?"

Referring to the 1987 Roop Kanwar incident in Deorala in Rajasthan as the turning point, Ola said: "Only the arrangements after 1987 should be stopped. Even the group of ministers recommended the same."

Besides Ola, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, an eminent lawyer, also objected to the proposed amendments to the anti-sati law but on grounds that the police too - not just the district magistrate - be made accountable for any incident of a woman dying on her husband's pyre.

The objections to the proposed amendments to the anti-sati law prompted the cabinet last week to ask the law ministry to redraft the bill.

Law ministry officials say they have no reservation in incorporating Sibal's suggestion.

The women and child development ministry had sent a series of amendments to the law for the cabinet to consider. These included using the term 'sati murder' instead of sati incidents, and seeking to treat the woman who is forced to die along with her husband as a victim of crime.

The prevailing ant-sati law treats a woman who might survive the bid to be made a sati as an accomplice in the crime. Section 3 of the Act provides for a year's jail sentence to a woman attempting suicide on her dead husband's pyre.

The proposed amendments also fix culpability of the crime on the village headman and panchayat functionaries, in whose area the sati has been committed. It seeks to hold the priest, who performs the rituals, responsible too.

According to the law now, punishment for glorification of sati ranges from a minimum one year's jail to a maximum of seven years in prison. The new amendments seek to enhance the jail term from a minimum of three years to a maximum of 10 years.