Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

A cartoon published in 1815 shows Brahmins bribing the Governor General of Bengal and the Bishop of Calcutta to allow the continuance of ‘suttee’: the self-immolation of widows on the pyres of their husbands. British officials, nervous of doing damage to their business interests by offending against Indian custom, were reluctant to ban suttee until it could be proven that the practise was not, after all, a universally accepted feature of the ‘Hindoo religion’. (Wellcome Collection)