Bentinck Bans Sati

December 4, 1829

Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General of India, signed Regulation XVII, making the burning of Hindu widows on their husbands' funeral pyres a culpable homicide. Ram Mohan Roy, the Bengali reformer, had campaigned for years. The ban was enforced unevenly, but it was the first large colonial intervention in Indian religious custom.