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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

ISSN 2278-9529

Critiquing the Politics of Outrage: Ashis Nandy and his Reading of Sati
Somraj Banerjee
Burdwan, West Bengal

ABSTRACT
Ashis Nandy formulates interesting discursive strategies to resist a formulaic reading
of cultures. In his critique of modernity, there is a relentless attempt at dismantling the
monolith of Eurocentric discourse which in the wake of colonial occupation monopolised the
idea of progress and the supplementary discourse of development. Such a discourse, as
Nandy observes, importunately demands a sweeping homogenization of cultures and
traditions in the light of European civilization. In order to be seen as developed and
progressive as opposed to being stunted and primitive, the pliant peoples of the world are
made to disregard and gradually marginalize native cultures, values, and unique demands of
local history, geography and tradition. Nandy observes that modern Indias responses to
myriad social issues are often mediated by colonial assumptions and understanding of reality.
However, the colonial, slavish assumptions are often expressed as responses of a liberal,
secular and modern mind. In his study of the quintessentially-Hindu rite, Sati, Ashis
Nandy has uncovered the convoluted nature of these assumptions which over the years have
tailored Indian responses to it. In this article I try to show how in Ashis Nandys reading of
Sati there is a constant attempt at denuding the crypto-colonial politics that permeates the
urban-middleclass interpretation of Sati and the concomitant rage generated by it amongst the
modern Indian literati. In this paper, I try to show how Nandys re-reading of the rite and his
deconstruction of urban-middleclass fury aimed at it, may be seen as a postcolonial critique
of Indian modernity and a textual/intellectual strategy formulated to decolonise the mind.
KEYWORDS: Sati, Postcolonial, Urban middle-class, Western Hegemony, Deorala, Roop
Kanwar
Sati, as a rite, has invited unreserved criticism from all quarters of the modern
world. It has been looked upon as an atavistic and barbaric Hindu tradition that sanctions
murder of women with impunity. Here, Nandy notes that the sharpness or vitriol which
largely tempers the outrage against Sati, is derived not as much from the death or the manner
of death of women, as it is from the element of religion that seems to dictate terms of this
essentially Hindu rite. Nandys basic argument is that the practice of Sati was neither a
tradition nor was it ever celebrated by the Hindu religious texts, which constitute the
gravamen of the religion.
Ashis Nandy observes that Sati was prevalent among the upper castes only and that it was
never a standard practice. He argues that had it been so, there would be no widows left in the
country. Second, and most importantly, the ancient Hindu texts did sanction widowremarriage. Had the texts celebrated Sati, there would be no need to talk about respectable
social rehabilitation of women after their attainment of widowhood. Therefore, in spite of
being an essentially Hindu rite, Sati could never have claimed divine provenance for itself.
Ashis Nandys comments in this regard are self-explanatory: Occasional sati is one thing,
but sati as a social custom or practice has never existed in India, except in times of major
social upheavals. Otherwise, widows would not have survived in the country. [1] Nandy
records that Sati saw a sharp decline in its popularity after the middle-ages and by the
seventeenth century it had almost become voluntary. However, towards the end of the
eighteenth century,Sati came to acquire the popularity of a legitimate orgy in Bengal. [2]

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

ISSN 2278-9529

Nandy here calls for a special attention to the spatiotemporal dimension of this historical fact.
He examines the role, if any, that the geographical space and the particular time in history
might have had in augmenting the popularity of this rite. What is striking is the fact that
Bengal in the early years of the Raj happened to be one of those places where women
enjoyed greater economic privileges than in any other part of the country. Bengals proximity
to the British brought about palpable cultural transformation in the province. Moreover, the
elitist class or the bhadroloke samaj of Bengal around this time of history came closest to
the coloniser. So much so, that the Bengali poets in the early stages of this cultural
transformation found no inconsistency in singing the praises of Bengal and Britannia at the
same time. [3] It was the same elitist class that soon got imbued with a deeply
commercialized and monetised view of life and in the mad rush to maintain the tinsel glow of
high class in a restructured depersonalised colonial world, formulated dark strategies,
reoriented traditional values and doctored holy texts only to meet its narrow ends. It is indeed
true that the Brahmins of Bengal did claim to have discovered religious sanction for burning
women as Sati but we must not lose sight of the fact that the Bengali Brahmans, unlike
Brahmans in some other parts of India, were not merely religious leaders and interpreters of
texts, traditions and rites but major landholders and financiers who were increasingly coopted by the colonial system. [4] Gradual commercialisation was of course accompanied by
gradual deculturation that led this section of the Bengal-society to fashion new ways of
holding on to its cherished forms of expensive western lifestyle in a highly competitive
world. This almost necessitated a systematic elimination of the most vulnerable but
nonetheless, valid claimants of property, which naturally exposed women to the pathological
designs of pelf-hungry men. But visceral greed was soon adorned with high-flying
nationalistic and religious rhetoric and camouflaged-death was marketed as Hindu religious
tradition. Sudipta Kaviraj rightly observes how Under a thin disguise of worshipping
Bengal, the Bengali elite worshipped themselves in splendid isolation from all other Indians,
in cosy proximity to their British benefactors. [5] Thus, it becomes very clear from Nandys
arguments that it was distortion and manipulation of religion, triggered by crass commercial
considerations, which granted the practice of Sati a hallowed space within the broad
religious discourse of Hinduism. Modernity, mediated and espoused by colonial worldview,
however, ironed out the distorted fissures and hidden agendas and made it look like a
standard Hindu practice ratified by the divine scriptures of Hinduism. Ashis Nandy has also
observed that as a policy of social non-intervention in the early years of colonial
occupation, the British did not vocally criticise or ban the practise of Sati which seemed for
many a direct endorsement of the practice. [6] Here, Nandy uncharacteristically seems
lenient to the British, willing to give the Raj a benefit of doubt. But silence can often be as
political as speech. My contention is that while the stoicism displayed by the Raj in this
matter may not be a direct endorsement of the practice but it was certainly a wellconsidered, politically motivated choice aimed at justifying the professed colonial project of
civilising the world as part of the White Mans Burden. Allowance of latitude to the
practise, enabled Sati to flourish which in turn fed the constructed image of a gruesome land
of cultural anarchy and barbarism urgently in need of the civilizing touch of colonialism.
This was a perfect colonisers ploy to vindicate its forceful occupation of a land. Therefore,
the proscription of Sati by the British (an interference in social customs by political
authority without historical precedent in India [7]), although largely precipitated by the
relentless effort put by the Reformists (with Rammohan Roy at its forefront), was at a certain
level seen as a victory of Western Civilisation and its grand narratives of Secularism and
Modernity over Eastern barbarism.
Ashis Nandys reading of Sati stands out as a counter-narrative to the secularist and
modernist reading of Sati that largely demonises Indian tradition and culture in general and

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

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Hinduism in particular. Ashis Nandy, therefore, convincingly argues that by vitiating a

culture with mercantile values, modernism/colonialism played a pivotal role in popularising
the practice of Sati. However, such a holistic understanding of history, as Nandy sees it,
seems to have eluded the popular understanding of, and response to the practice of Sati.
This became all the more evident in the immediate aftermath of the infamous twentieth
century incident of Sati that took place in a small village called Deorala, in the state of
Rajasthan on September 4, 1987. It was the case of a seventeen year old girl-Roop Kanwar
who committed Sati after the death of her husband-Maal Singh. This immediately drew
unmitigated blows of castigation from almost the entire middle/upper classes of the country.
Nandy engages with this incident in his essay Sati in Kali Yuga where he is concerned not
with the empirical reality of the sati at Deorala but with the certitudes of middle-class
commentators on that reality. [8] Nandy further observes that In the last fifty years...there
have been about 47 satis in India. Whereas, in the case of bride-burning or dowry deaths, at
one time, the going rate was something like 150 deaths in Delhi every year. Now it is a little
less, but it is, even now, certainly more than 47 per year. But these deaths do not attract a
fraction of the attention a single sati gets, because they seem to be the result of greed and
pathology in the modernized, urban, middle class. Whereas sati, despite all the talk of it being
pure and simple murder, is seen as a religious ritual practised by superstitious, backward,
rustic Indians. [9]
Nandy, here, strongly objects to selective outrage that marks the
response of the westernised elite. Nandy, however, does not belittle Roops tragic end or,
discount the possibility of direct or indirect collusion of both sides of Roops family in her
death. He believes that no philosophy or institution can be immune to the buffeting tides of
greed and pathology of mind in any age. Swami Vivekanandas illuminating observation on
social maladies is relevant enough to be quoted here: The truth is that in this country parents
and relatives can ruthlessly sacrifice the best interests of their children and others for their
own selfish ends to save themselves by compromise to society.... [10] He further observes
that while Sati as a ghatana (event) may be condemned for the violent death that it
gratuitously precipitates but the same vitriol cannot be applied to interpret the philosophy of
Sati which symbolized the reaffirmation of the purity, self-sacrifice, power, and dignity of
women and the superiority of the feminine principle in the cosmos. [11] Nandy substantiates
his point by arguing that Rabindranath Tagore who was one of the fiercest critics of Sati as a
practice in historical times was, however, deeply respectful of Sati in mythical times which
essentially exuded a reverential attitude to women. He offers instances of great Indian
thinkers (like Rammohun Roy who ridiculed Krshna for killing Putana, Tagore who
criticized the way Sumitra was treated in the Ramayana, or, Madhusudan Dutt who made
Rama the villain of his epic [12]) who viciously attacked aspects of tradition that did not fit
in with their concept of yugadharma, ethics appropriate to their age and were still listened to
with reverence only because they understood and respected the values enshrined in
tradition.... [13] Nandy finds the criticism of Sati entirely legitimate when done from within
the native Indian culture which is unmistakably respectful of the rich Indian traditionreligious or, otherwise. Critiquing Sati by seeking cultural asylum from the patronising
colonialist discourse that celebrates the grand western ideas such as Science, Rationality,
Development, Nation-State, as pointed out by Ziauddin Sardar [14], seems to Nandy
inauthentic, motivated and even at times, mischievous. Speaking about an essentially Indian
rite in dismissive terms from within the premise of an adopted and largely brutalizing culture
only befits Those decultured, ill-informed Indians who (unlike rooted Indian thinkers) view
classical or mythological instances of sati as instances of the degradation of women.... [15]
While such an adopted, second-hand discourse feigns to hold cudgels for the wellbeing of
India and her culture, it essentially advances the colonialist cause by perpetuating the
diabolical myth of the Modern Civilized West and the primitive, barbaric East. Such a

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

ISSN 2278-9529

secularised western discourse in its professed attempt to purge the native culture of its evils
and degrading attributes radically alters and eventually mutates the native culture altogether
thereby, replacing it with an apparently more kosher, scientific, but imported culture. In its
zealous attempt to expunge the perceived evils from the native tradition, it expunges the
entire native tradition thereby throwing the baby, as it were, out with the bathwater. This, as
Nandy observes, is intentional and a smart political move made by a deeply imperialistic
discourse, that is gradually and inexorably encroaching on our ancient civilisation and
culture. This becomes a seamless process once a psychological construct, that fosters a
powerful self-flagellating sense of inadequacy is propped up. Nandy challenges the validity
of this construct and pooh-poohs its apparent invincibility by dismissing the Eurocentric
discourse of progress and modernity. He emphatically calls into question the Wests selfgiven right to define. He persuasively argues that such a social discourse which lamely offers
West the right to describe and define is just an extension of western hegemony. Such a
discourse fosters a reductionist approach and impels one to make qualitative assessments of
cultures, histories and societies of the ex-colonised in light of the ideals held high by the
colonising cultures of the world. He discards the western definition of modernity and its
easy equation with everything good and positive. Nandys alternative model of the good and
the positive that informs his writing radically alters the truistic assumptions about the third
world and its diverse cultural traditions. It engineers a thoroughgoing hierarchical-adjustment
of thoughts and assumptions about modernity.
Ashis Nandy does not engage with just the history of Sati but also the history of the responses
to Sati. He shows how the popular response to it has always been heavily tempered by the
colonialist assumptions of modernity and how such a response is found grossly inadequate
when set against the indigenous parameters of virtue offered by the subject civilization.
Nandy has argued that of the two aspects of colonialism, physical and intellectual, the
intellectual has been more damaging, because the demise of colonialism has not meant the
end of the colonialism of mind. [16] Nandy contends that it is the same colonialism of
mind that has shaped the stock elitist responses to Sati.
Thus, Ashis Nandys reading of Sati may justly be seen as a postcolonial critique of
modernity which not only reshuffles institutionalized assumptions about modernity but also
realigns cultural priorities thereby exacting a paradigm shift in response to this
quintessentially Hindu rite.
Works Cited:
[1] Nandy, Ashis.2006. Talking india: ashis nandy in conversation with ramin jahanbegloo,
OUP, New Delhi, 49.
[2] Nandy, Ashis.1980. At the edge of psychology, OUP, New Delhi, 4.
[3] Kaviraj, Sudipta.2010. Nationalism. In: Nirja Gopal Jayal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Eds.),
The oxford companion to politics in india, OUP, New Delhi, 322.
[4] Nandy, Ashis.1980. At the edge of psychology, OUP, New Delhi, 6-7.
[5] Kaviraj, Sudipta.2010. Nationalism. In: Nirja Gopal Jayal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Eds.),
The oxford companion to politics in india, OUP, New Delhi, 322.
[6] Nandy, Ashis.1980. At the edge of psychology, OUP, New Delhi, 4.
[7] Khilnani, Sunil.2004. The idea of india, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 24.
[8] Nandy, Ashis.1995. The savage freud, OUP, New Delhi, 36.
[9] Nandy, Ashis.2006. Talking india: ashis nandy in conversation with ramin jahanbegloo,
OUP, New Delhi, 49.
[10] Vivekananda, Swami.1989. the complete works of swami vivekananda vol.4, Advaita
Ashrama, Kolkata, 491.
[11] Nandy, Ashis.1995. The savage freud, OUP, New Delhi, 39.

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

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[12] ibid, 43
[13] ibid
[14] Sardar, Ziauddin.1998. Introduction. In: Ashis Nandy s Return from exile, OUP, New
Delhi, 2.
[15] Nandy, Ashis.1995. The savage freud, OUP, New Delhi, 39.
[16] Ahmad, Imtiaz.2007.Introduction. In: Ashis Nandys A very popular exile, OUP, New
Delhi, 6.

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