From pyre to ashes

FOR Roop Kamal, life in the last one week has been 8216;8216;very regular8217;8217;. The 29-year-old has spent hours with her two childr...

FOR Roop Kamal, life in the last one week has been 8216;8216;very regular8217;8217;. The 29-year-old has spent hours with her two children, cooked meals for her family and done her share of work as an anganwadi worker in Deorala village.

While a long-pending judgement in one of the most controversial sati cases in the recent history of the desert state slowly stirred up the past in Jaipur, two hours away in Deorala the Roop Kanwar case was not even mentioned once.

8216;8216;It happened so long ago,8217;8217; says Kamal, who also happens to be Roop Kanwar8217;s sister-in-law. 8216;8216;Nobody talks about it anymore, not in the house and not in the village. Nobody is keeping a track of the court proceedings. Even the site where the incident took place is deserted, like it has always been since a police post was set-up there.8217;8217;

In the non-descript village where Rajasthan8217;s 8216;8216;feudal history8217;8217; was stoked alive on the pyre of Mal Singh, when Roop Kanwar allegedly committed sati, September 1987 has been blocked out of public memory. Accordingly, last week, when a special court in Jaipur buried four cases related to the glorification of sati after the infamous Deorala incident, the village was oblivious to the storm it had kicked up.

8216;8216;It really doesn8217;t matter here anymore,8217;8217; says Ashok Joshi, manager of the Shekhawati Aanchalik Gramin Bank in Deorala. 8216;8216;And ever since I have been here, I have never seen anyone pray at the site or glorify the act in any manner. It is like a bad phase which nobody wants to be reminded of.8217;8217;

Deorala may be trying to bury the past, but ever since the judgement was delivered, the matter has hit the headlines in Jaipur again. Sixteen people were charged with holding meetings and shouting slogans glorifying the sati act in Jaipur, Neem Ka Thana and Kotputli. Four died before the judgement was pronounced.

Irrespective, activists are protesting the judgement and the 8216;8216;fifth dead accused8217;8217; has turned up alive, claiming his share of publicity in the case.

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8220;Last week when a special court in Jaipur buried
four cases of glorification of sati after the Deorala incident, the village was oblivious to the storm it had kicked up8221;

Sixteen years after young Roop Kanwar allegedly committed sati on her husband8217;s pyre, the controversy surrounding her death is still being debated in the courts of Jaipur. The case against Kanwar8217;s in-laws has gone into appeal after they were acquitted by a lower court and last week judge Shiv Singh Chauhan delivered his judgement in four cases related to the glorification of the event.

As predicted by most, all 11 accused were released by the court, which basically stated that it had never been proved that sati had in fact taken place in September 1987 and hence there was no glorification.

Among the people who walked out smiling from Chauhan8217;s courtroom were BJP MLA Rajendra Rathod, vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat8217;s nephew Pratap Singh Khachariawas and a host of other Rajput leaders.

Even before the protests against this judgement could begin, Indra Kumar Tiwari surfaced in the Pink city, livid that he had been presumed dead and the judgement didn8217;t include his name. Tiwari will now go through the entire process again.

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But women activists don8217;t just want Tiwari to undergo trial again, they want everyone to put on the stands again. Alleging that the judgement was 8216;8216;politically motivated and unconstitutional8217;8217;, the Mahila Atyachar Virodhi Jan Aandolan is asking the government to appeal against the judgement and also constitute a committee to handle all other sati related cases.

8216;8216;In all other cases, including the ones which went up to the Supreme Court, there was never any question raised on the facts of the incident,8217;8217; explains agitated activist kavita Srivastav. 8216;8216;Glorification of sati does not have to be related to any incident, it is against the law anyway.8217;8217;

Srivastav and her band of activists are demanding that the Vasundahra Raje government appeal against the judgement in the Rajasthan high court and also that action is taken against prosecution witnesses who turned hostile during the trial.

The Raje government hasn8217;t reacted yet. With one of their own MLAs in the dock, they are taking their time. 8216;8216;We will read the case file and then take a decision,8217;8217; says education minister Ghanshyam Tiwari.

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A handful of effigy burning activists are determined not to let things go by. Ignoring the tight spot the Raje government is in with regard to the case, they are determined to get to Raje and appeal to her 8216;8216;female senses8217;8217;.

It took 16 years for the matter to reach this stage, it might just take many more for the matter to be finally settled.