India Fire and Faith

The ancient Hindu rite of suttee, requiring a woman to immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband, was abolished in British India in 1829. But early this month, when her young husband died suddenly of gastroenteritis, Roop Kanwar, 18, a bride of just eight months, declared her intention to revive the grim custom. By that afternoon thousands of people had gathered to witness her immolation. After taking a ritual bath, the woman dressed once more in her bright red bridal finery. Sitting atop the funeral pyre with her husband's corpse, his head on her lap, she asked her teenage brother-in-law to light the fire. Within moments, as the crowd's cries reached a climax, she was consumed by flames.

The Indian press and public reacted in horror. Said the national daily Indian Express: "A barbarous and primitive act." Women's groups protested, and the Rajasthan high court banned further ceremonies at the site. But to some people, Kanwar had become a goddess. Pilgrims thronged to the village of Deorala, 47 miles northeast of Jaipur, to pay homage. Last week hundreds of thousands of people converged on the site for ceremonies marking the end of the 13-day mourning period. The pyre, which had been kept smoldering with ghee (clarified butter) and coconuts, was decorated with a flower-bedecked silk canopy. Kanwar's four brothers spread a stole embroidered with gold thread over the pyre. As Brahman priests chanted mantras, the stole was burned. The pyre was then extinguished with holy water from the Ganges and milk.

Despite the high-court ban on the ceremony, police, fearful of provoking a riot, did not interfere. They did, however, arrest Pushpendra Singh, the youth who lit the pyre, and four other in-laws, charging them with murder. The maximum penalty: life in prison. Authorities were investigating whether the bride's in-laws, who by tradition would have been required to care for her the rest of her life, had pressured her into the act. Kanwar's father, saying he believed that she acted under "divine orders," took consolation from the fact that his daughter had become a devi (goddess). A shrine commemorating the widow will be built at the suttee site. More than $160,000 has already been contributed by devotees.