DEATH BY FIRE Sati, Dowry Death and Female Infanticide in modern India

Hardback. The Indian village of Deorala in Rajasthan, the north-western Indian state that borders Pakistan, is neither remote nor feudal in the strictest sense. A tarmac road links the population of 10,000 to neighbouring villages and towns, there is running water and electricity, and the villagers have had television for over 20yrs. On September 5, 1987, Deorala found itself at the centre of a furore 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 buried alive on her husband's 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 sati - the self-immolation of a woman on her husband's funeral pyre - was outlawed by the British administration in India in 1829. Sati was widely believed to have died out. The fate of 18yr old Roop Kanwar changed that perception. The author explores the reality of life and death for women in modern India in a study which is both illuminating and terrifying. Starting with Roop Kanwar, the author enters the worlds of 3 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. With Afterword. 275pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in F. dw.