Suttee & Social Reform

Social reform began to take place when Lord William Bentick appeared on the scene in 1828. At this time, the British Parliament maintained its right to legislate for India and to repeal Indian acts. Using this power Bentinck was determined to eradicate the practice of suttee (widow burning) and the murderous robbers called thugs.
Widow burning was a very old, but in no sense an essential part of Hinduism. At first, the Company was very reluctant to intervene because it felt that this fell under the category of native religious practice. (Perhaps this was because of the Portuguese unsuccessful attempts to convert the Indians by repressing native rituals.) Nevertheless, widow-burning clashed with western morality, and since the influence of Christian missionaries was strong they helped fight this matter. Finally, Bentick declared suttee illegal and punishable as homicide. The custom managed to continue, but it ceased to be common. The thugs were a little harder to identify since the men who took part in this criminal acting seemed to be law abiding peasants until they strangled and robbed their victims. But in the end, the thugs were systematically hunted down and destroyed. Here we see the British slowly taking over the customs of the Indians.