Thread by @satoverma

The assumption that Dayabhaga was the dominant authority of Hindu law in Bengal
related to succession prior to British takeover of Bengal is simply untrue. Until Colebrooke translated the text to English in 1810, the reference of Dayabhaga in British works is rare.

https://twitter.com/Changeling_auf/status/1718117197955125627

The oldest reference of Dayabhaga in the British work is from 1786 when William Jones mentioned about it. Dayabhaga became the default authority on inheritance in the courts established by the British in the 19th century. Yet, lawyers and judges often disagreed.

So, if Dayabhaga were the responsible text for Sati in Bengal which was banned by the saviour of heathens, the very British saviours were the ones responsible for making this text more authoritative. See how Ashutosh Mukherjee disagreed with it in one of his verdicts.

Even if one accepts the argument that Dayabhaga was responsible for the forced Sati, that argument is untenable. Widows get property rights under Dayabhaga only when the husband dies without a male successor. And her property right as a widow is limited.

As per Dayabhaga, the widow was not entitled to gift, sell or mortgage her husband's property. She could use 1/4th of it to marry off her unmarried daughters. So what happens to this property? Her daughters would inherit it once she dies.

If she doesn't have any daughters, only then the rights of other relatives to inherit it comes. To summarize, if you forced a woman to commit Sati to appropriate the property of her husband as a relative, you could benefit only if she didn't have a son or daughter.

What could have been the percentage of such deaths in the overall population? You then have to also consider the fact that not everyone's relatives would force the widow to commit Sati. We get a very small number even in the worst case scenario.

Also, the ones who never read the original text of Jimtuvahana (not the translated version by Colbrooke because he mutilated this text by introducing articles and clauses while it's a digest written in prose) assume that he was some sort of reformer on women's property rights.

In reality, for his every single conclusion or stance, Jimtuvahana cites the authoritative Smriti/Sutra texts related to the topic. He also takes up the references contrary to his stance and tries to either harmonize or explain away the difference.

Nor he was the founder of Bengal school of law. This is another outdated hypothesis which is current amongst the uninformed people.