Suttee Boom

Siva, the many-ratured and versatile god of destruction, is doing a land-office business in Jodhpur these days. Ever since the Hindu widow Sugan Kunwar Singh flung herself sacrificially--and illegally--into the flames of her husband's funeral pyre last October (TIME, Nov. 1), Jodhpur has been on a religious binge. Self-styled holy men from miles around have swarmed into town to cash in on the popular fervor. Hawkers in the city's crowded bazaar are peddling ballads and poems extolling the virtues of suttee, the accepted name for the widow's sacrifice. In Jodhpur's homes, emotional wives worship before cheap lithographs showing a noble Sugan Kunwar, cradling the head of her dead husband in her lap as flames consume them both.

Jodhpur's cops, under the agitated command of Police Superintendent Sobhagmal Surana, have been on constant guard at the city's cremation grounds to prevent further acts of suttee. The priest who had charge of the original Singh funeral is in jail awaiting trial for making a pyre built for two. But every day and night, crowds of worshipers throng the death site with offerings that range from coconuts to gold plate, and from all sides the halt, the near hopeless and the blind hobble into the city, seeking miracles and willing to pay the holy men generously for bringing them about.

Last week, as Superintendent Surana was discussing his many problems with Rajasthan's chief provincial minister, a cop interrupted their talk to whisper an urgent message in his ear. Hastily excusing himself, Surana raced with his cops to the nearby village of Lahardi, arriving just in time to halt another and even grislier religious ritual. Instead of attending a government-sponsored rally in honor of the dignity of manual labor, as they were supposed to, the peasants of Lahardi had flocked en masse to a hillock to watch a holy man being buried alive.

"Disturb us and you will be turned to ashes!" cried the officiating sadhu, a holy man, as Surana's men forced their way through the ring of rubbernecks. The cops attacked a pile of cement slabs with pickaxes and dragged a young Hindu out of a freshly dug grave. A 25-year-old laborer who had become the sadhus' "disciple" only two months before, he was barely alive. But dead or alive, his act of faith would have made the hill a profitable shrine for his masters who would later pass the hat to pilgrims coming there to seek divine grace. After rescuing the victim, the police raced on to a nearby temple to round up some of the other sadhus who had joined in the ceremony. As the cops arrived, the holy men were busy conducting a service in honor of their profitable goddess.

"The time has come," sighed weary Superintendent Surana, "to launch a forceful campaign against superstition."

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