Sati

On 4 September 1987, eighteen-year-old Roop Kanwar of Sikar, Rajasthan, immolated herself on her dead husband’s pyre, becoming a Sati—a custom banned by the British colonial government in 1829. It shocked the nation and the government rewrote the Sati law the same year, making provisions for punishment by death or life imprisonment for those abetting it. Perceptive artists like Latika Katt too responded in the lexicon they know best. This papier-mâché and plywood work is an emotive tribute to countless widows who may have been forced to perform Sati in the past. The funeral pyre in the centre of a red ground evokes blood, or murder, as self-immolation must not have been a wilful choice for many.