u/telaughingbuddha

Now Roop Kanwar’s story has returned to headlines in India after a court acquitted eight men accused of glorifying her death, in the last of the remaining cases in the grisly saga.

A teenaged widow was burned on her husband's funeral pyre under the Hindu practice of sati 37 years ago.

🫠The Sati Dharma Raksha Samiti was an organization formed in Rajasthan, India, following the 1987 death of 18-year-old Roop Kanwar, who was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. The group was established to defend, celebrate, and valorize the practice of sati and protect those accused of glorifying the ritual.

After the Indian government enacted the strict Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, which criminalized both the act and its glorification, the committee dropped the word "sati" from its public name to navigate the new legal penalties.

🫣The new name adopted by the organization is the 🐴Dharma Raksha Samiti.🔥

The horror literally kept happening after that. In 1999, a woman named Charan Shah was immolated in UP. In 2002, another woman named Kuttu Bai was burned alive in MP while a massive crowd of thousands literally blocked the police from saving her. It even happened as recently as 2006 with a woman named Janakrani.

Many indian kings banned the sati practice, even invader dynasties, but with limited success.

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Collegium is often cited as the most undemocratic setup in our democracy due to a lack of transparency, self-appointment by judges, and the absence of public accountability.

'Njanum appanum, appantae sahodhari subhadhrayum' style recruitment and promotions.

How did it start?

1. Under original Articles 124 and 217, the President of India appointed judges after "consultation" with the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and other high judicial authorities.

2. The collegium system is a collegium where incumbent judges of the Supreme Court of India appoint judges to the Judiciary of India. It originated from three Supreme Court judgments (rendered in 1981, 1993, and 1998), collectively known as the Three Judges Cases.

S.P. Gupta v. Union of India (1981), universally known as the First Judges Case.

It was a highly controversial battle over political control of the courts, triggered by the government’s attempt to influence the judiciary after the Emergency.

The Supreme Court decided that the central government had the final say in appointing and transferring high court and supreme court judges.

But it gave birth to PILs.

The Second Judges Case (1993) and the rise of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) fundamentally reshaped the Indian judiciary by stripping the executive of appointment powers and expanding access to justice.

Birth of the Collegium System: The court created a specific mechanism for appointments, ruling that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) must form a collective opinion alongside two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court.

The Third Judges Case (1998): The system was fine-tuned five years later through a Presidential Reference. The apex court expanded the collegium to include the CJI and four senior-most judges, establishing the five-member panel used today.

3. Over the course of the three cases, the court evolved the principle of judicial independence to mean that no other branch of the state, including the legislature and the executive, would have any say in the appointment of judges. The court then created the collegium system, which has been in use since the judgment in the second Judges Case was issued in 1993.

I don't think urban Hindus would war over the authenticity of puranas.

Many parts of 'holy scriptures' are copies of copies of copies, interlinked, with common roots...