“They pointed out that huge amounts of money had been made following the murder of Roop Kanwar by those who turned the sati into a commecrial spectacle involving hundreds of thousands of people; that Roop Kanwar was an educated girl, not a simple embodiment of rural femininity (a fact that pro-sati lobbyists used to argue that it was a "free choice"); and that the leaders of the pro-sati movement "constitute a powerful regional elite" who had much to gain from constructing sati anew as emblematic of their "tradition". Thus, what was essentially a women's rights issue had been disorted into an issue of "tradition" versus "modernity", a struggle of the religious majority against an irreligious minority.”