Question

The custom of sati was one of the social evils of the time ".Do you agree? Justify your answer giving 2 reasons.(​

Answer 1

Answer:

The extent to which sati was practised in history is not known with clarity. However, during the early modern Mughal period, it was notably associated with elite Hindu Rajput clans in western India, marking one of the points of divergence between Hindu Rajputs and the Muslim Mughals, who banned the practice.[6] In the early 19th century, the East India Company, in the process of extending its rule to most of India, initially tolerated the practice; William Carey, a British Christian evangelist, noted 438 incidences within a 30-mile (48-km) radius of the capital Calcutta, in 1803, despite its ban within Calcutta.[7] Between 1815 and 1818, the number of incidents of sati in Bengal doubled from 378 to 839. Opposition to the practice of sati by British Christian evangelists, such as William Carey, and Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, ultimately led the British Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck to enact the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, declaring the practice of burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be punishable by the criminal courts.[8][9][10] These were followed up with other legislation, countering what the British perceived to be interrelated issues involving violence against Hindu women, including: Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, and Age of Consent Act, 1891.