Roop Kanwar

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Roop Kanwar (c. 1969 – 4 September 1987) was an 18-year old Rajput woman who committed sati on 4 September 1987 at Deorala village of Sikar district in Rajasthan, India. At the time of her death, she had been married for eight months to Maal Singh, who had died a day earlier at age 24^[1], and had no children. She went to her death in wedding robes. ^[2]

News reports of the incident present conflicting stories about the voluntariness of Kanwar's death. Many news reports say that she was forced to her death.^[3] However, other reports said that she wished to die, that her relatives were unable to persuade her otherwise, and that she went willingly to the pyre.^{[citation needed]} She is also said to have told her brother-in-law to light the pyre when she was ready. ^[4]

Several thousand people attended the sati event. After her death, Roop Kanwar was hailed as a sati mata -- a "sati" mother, or pure mother. The event quickly produced a public outcry in urban centres, pitting a modern Indian ideology against a traditional one. The incident led first to state level laws to prevent such incidents, then the central government's The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act.^[5] ^[6]

The original enquiries resulted in 45 people being charged with her murder; these were acquitted. A much-publicised later investigation led to the arrest of a large number of people from Deorala, said to have been present in the ceremony, or participants in it. Eventually, 11 people, including state politicians, were charged with glorification of sati. On January 31, 2004, a special court in Jaipur acquitted all of the 11 accused in the case, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove charges that they glorified sati. ^[7]