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Changing the Subject of Sati
Author(s) -
Das Acevedo Deepa
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12354
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , counterintuitive , politics , sociology , personhood , democracy , political science , law , social science , epistemology , philosophy , library science , computer science
Charan Shah's 1999 death was widely considered to be the first sati, or widow immolation, to have occurred in India in over twenty years. Media coverage of the event focused on procedural minutiae—her sari, her demeanor—and ultimately, several progressive commentators came to the counterintuitive conclusion that the ritually anomalous nature of Charan's death confirmed its voluntary, secular, and noncriminal nature. This article argues that the “unlabeling” of Charan's death, like those of other women between 1999 and 2006, reflects a tension between the nonindividuated, impervious model of personhood exemplified by sati and the particularized citizen‐subject of liberal‐democratic politics in India.