India: Idols Without Conscience
Right next to our college in India stood a temple dedicated to Rani Sati, a woman who committed sati—ritual self-immolation—sometime between the 13th and 17th centuries. The vagueness of the date is telling: Indians—like much of the Third World—did not historically maintain systematic records. The British compiled much of what is known about India’s past, including the lives of its so-called great kings. Civilizations such as Greece, Rome, and China preserved detailed historical records to extract moral lessons […]