Bride Burning in India

Bride burning in the Hindu religion is a hideous custom enforced by the Brahmin priests to eradicate non-Brahmin women, in order to destroy the non-Brahmin races. Other methods used are wife-burning, sati or widow-burning, jauhar, and witch burning. Most of these murders are passed off or regarded as kitchen fires and are never brought to justice. This is a result of the low status of women in India who are viewed more as personnel property that can be disposed of at anytime.

About eighty percent of India is Hindus. Bride-burning is a result of the Vedic decrees enforcing of dowry, which is the extortion of large quantities of wealth by the groom’s family from the bride’s family. The Veda is a collection of the oldest of Hindu spiritual text which are interpreted by the Brahmin priests. When the bride’s family cannot pay the amount commanded by the in-laws, the bride is often then burned alive as a consequence. Sometimes the in-laws demand more dowry than the agreement made at the time of marriage. When the deadline the family specifies runs out the bride is burned in a horrific way. Often the bride is mutilated by having her genitalia cut off; sometimes the bride is boiled alive or has large objects drove into her privates in order to stimulate internal bleeding.

The custom of dowry has divine sanction since the Ramayana says that Sita brought a huge dowry for Rama. The Ramayana has been among the most important literary and oral texts of South Asia. This heroic poem provides insights into many aspects of Indian culture and continues to influence the politics, religion, and art of modern India. Worse though is the custom of eating the flesh of the burnt bride according to the Veda “purushamedha” which means human sacrifice. After the bride has been burnt alive her body is then cooked and consumed by the religious Hindu family of the groom. Not only has the family destroyed the evidence of the crime, the religious Hindus also gain spiritual credit for performing the holy purushamedha.

A Hindu wife can be burned at any time for the most insignificant of circumstances. For example a Hindu husband can accuse his wife of infidelity at any time. If this happens the wife can protest her innocence to the council of village elders who then order a test by fire. The accused wife would then be required to pass through a open flame. Not only death but any signs of burns would signify that she is guilty and would then have to face the penalty for infidelity. Which is she must be devoured publicly by dogs. This custom comes from the Ramayana when Sita, Rama’s wife, was required by Rama the “ideal husband” of the Hindus to pass through the fire test, after she returned from Sri Lanka just because her husband suspected her of infidelity. The Ramayana claims Sita wasn’t burned alive but was swallowed up by the earth.

Jauhar is the practice of mass burning of all the wives and daughters in an entire town or district to prevent them from being taken by their enemies. Most women were forced by their husbands to do this, but sometimes women practice this themselves encouraged by the elders. The belief of Vedism and Vaishnavism turns its followers into hardened sadists. The unforgiving discrimination of women by Brahmins is more apparent in the rites before Jauhar. The Brahmins cut off the genitals of women and chop their ears and noses off following the command of Hindu philosophers Kautilya and Manuite. During Jauhar, women are boiled alive, some sawed into two, and others eaten by dogs. All this is done for the purpose of preventing the women from falling into the hands of the enemy. Jauhar was especially prevalent in Rajasthan region of India. The people were forced to burn their women instead of just killing them because of the sex starved Hindu warriors. The warriors would then use the dead bodies to use the bodies in necrophilia in order to satisfy their sexual desires, even today districts in Rajasthan lack women because of the Vedic eradication of female infants, as the Rajasthan proverb goes, “a dead woman is better than none”.

Widow burning or Sati is a Hindu custom in which the widow is burnt to ashes on top