ABSTRACT
On 4 December 1829 the British Government of India, under Governor General Lord William Bentinck, passed Regulation XVII, which formally prohibited sati in the Presidency of Bengal. Prior to 1829, British observers in Bengal overwhelmingly saw a widow’s volition, or lack thereof, as the defining feature of sati. In contemporary India, sati is widely considered to be deeply embedded within Rajput culture and it is Rajput groups that have come forward as the most vocal and vociferous defenders of the sati tradition. In such circumstances sati verged on socially sanctioned assassination. The perceived prominence of sati in Rajput society and culture necessitated a reconfiguration of colonial assumptions about the rite, as EIC officials in Rajputana tried to reconcile its prevalence in the princely states to which they were assigned with their preconceptions about what it meant to be a Rajput.
