Daughters of the Pyre: Sati Abolition -- Rights, Responsibilities, and a Reluctant Reform in Colonial India.

The article examines the 1829 abolition of Sati, the practice of self-immolation of Hindu widows on their husbands' funeral pyres, as a reluctant reform balancing the Crown's responsibility to uphold human rights as part of its aim of political consolidation. It uses Sati abolition to analyze who decides individual rights and how governments and civil societies negotiate the parameters of shared responsibilities to protect them. It discusses the importance of the abolition to women's rights.