The New Constellation and the French Revolution

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Ken, I can't argue with you about what has been said in classroom
discussion about the acceptability of sati (the most common defensive
response I have come across is to compare it to European witchcraft
burnings, but if you insist students urge tolerance on the grounds of
religious pluralism, what can I say?). I  must ask you however to at least
give me the authors for the essays in which sati is unchallenged because it
is just another religious institution. The most widely cited work on sati
in the American academy is by the feminist and apparently thoroughly
secular Lata Mani, and this is certainly not what she is saying. Mani (upon
whom Spivak and others drew) included a careful critique of the way
patriarchy used religious texts to justify its atrocities. Before her
terrible car accident from which she is slowly recovering, I heard Mani
give a brilliant critique of the use of scriptural authority in the
destruction of the Babri Masjid. So I must ask you whom are you citing as
evidence of tolerance for the religious justification of sati? Do you
frequent Bal Thackery's Shiv Sena web site now that he has been officially
shut up by Mumbai authorities?

RNB


> Sati might not be the best example... but even some of
>the articles I've read about it are unwilling to challenge the
>"religious" institution (at least the religious justification)
>(yet, the political dogmatic is different, esp. with
>regards to property, honour etc) behind it - saying that we
>must locate common ground elsewhere - such as pain.  But
>this is nonsense!  Do we have to wait until we see pain on
>someone's face before we find this "common ground."  Why
>can't religious beliefs (specifically religious rituals) be
>challenged head on?  I'm just frustrated I guess.