Status of Widows
of
Vrindavan and Varanasi
A Comparative Study

By
The Guild of Service

Supported By
National Commission For Women

Research Analysis

Dr. V. Mohini Giri
Ms. Meera Khanna

Research Guidance

Dr. Mala Bhandari

Research Team

Ms. Preetika Pandey
Ms. Jayalaksmi Aiyer
Ms. Bhavna Kansal
Mr. Sailesh Masih
Mr.Vishnu Mohan Rao
Ms. Mariam Ponnachan

PROLOGUE

Since the past several years the Guild of Service has been trying to pinpoint various reasons for the large-scale migration of widows from Bengal. Bengal which worships mother goddess has turned such a blind eye to glaring inequalities; on the one hand, worshipping the mother and on the other hand the callous manner in which Bengal has treated unfortunate mothers who become widows is horrifying.

"Nine years after Roop Kanwar was burnt on her husband's funeral pyre, a trial court in Neem Ka Thana acquitted all the accused". The Indian express of Sunday, October 13, 1996. The practice of Sati, of a woman burning herself on her husband's funeral pyre, is considered an outdated and evil practice, which is forbidden by law. But what about the living widows? Are they better off?

The state of widowhood is a great calamity in a patriarchal and traditional society like India and patriarchy has played the biggest role in the total marginalization of widows.

Table 1.1: Depicting The Effect of Patriarchy

Institution / Women / Men
Remarriage / Widow remarriage difficult, almost impossible in case of elderly women and widows with children / Widowers are encouraged to remarry, do remarry easily
Patrilocality / Widowed daughter-in-law persuaded or compelled to forego the rights on property and return to parents home / Men retain the right to reside at and enjoy the parental property
Widowhood / Widows given secondary status, ill-treated on socio-cultural and religious occasions / Status of widowers unaffected
Joint Family / Rights of women circumvented, widows deprived of their legitimate share / Elder brothers and males benefited at the expense of younger ones and women.

Deprivation:

As widows, women suffer some of the most severe subjugation of their whole lives. Widowed women are harassed, abused, and denied land and livelihood.

The widows have to face many kinds of deprivation: economic, social, cultural and emotional. Of all the deprivation the economic derivation is the most harmful. The research that has been done shows that household headed by widows suffer dramatic decline in per capita income and that the mortality risk of widowhood was higher for women than men. Among basic causes of their vulnerability are restrictions on the residence, inheritance, remarriage and employment opportunities of widows. The situation of widows in North India is worsened by the system of Patrilocal residence, whereby widows cannot return to their parents' home even though they are often rejected by their in-laws.

There are very limited opportunities for widows living in households without an adult male to engage in income-earning activities. Criticized for being dependent, widows are severely restricted by cultural norms in the kind of self-employment they can undertake to reduce that dependency.

Economic Deprivation: Property Rights of Widows:

Although the Hindu Succession Act 1969 made women eligible to inherit equally with men and some individual states have legislated equality provisions into inheritance law widows are mostly deprived of their legal rights.

Local interpretations of the custom of the caste determine whether or not a widow will be granted some permanent or temporary share of the joint family's land or property.

In rural India land ownership tends to engender the bitterest family disputes - never more intense than when a husband dies. A full account of land inheritance in India would have to distinguish between I) traditional law 2) modern law, and 3) actual practice.

The inheritance rights of the majority of Indian rural widows are governed by actual practice. Practice can differ from village to village, even in the same region and among the same caste.

Patrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance (the wife goes to live in her husband's village; only males can inherit) is a fundamental source of the poverty and marginalization of Indian widows. Patrilineal inheritance effectively denies widows inheritance rights over their father's property, and their customary and legal rights over their husband's share of family property are often violated. An Indian wife becomes the property of her in-laws family, and when her husband dies they can decide what to give her and how to treat her. Having broken all intimate ties with her birth family, when her husband dies a widow has no freedom to "return" to the parental home, or to her brothers. She remains in her husband's village whether or not her owned land or property.

If there is land, under most caste codes the widow should be allotted some for her needs, but she is not given ownership rights; she cannot mortgage, sell or gift it away. She only has the "use" and very limited rights. If she marries away "going for nata", has no children, is judged to behave badly, she may be sent away.

The reality is that limited as they are, the accepted property rights of widows are often violated in practice. In a Chen study in 1994, 30% of the widows in a study reported serious conflicts over inheritance, land, property, and residence. Conflicts often ended in violence.

Conflicts over land and property are often so bad that brothers-in-law force the widow to leave the village. Conflicts are usually of two types: the brothers-in-law insist on sharecropping or managing the widow's land themselves, or they simply deprive her of her share (often rationalizing their claim by arguing that they spent money on her husband's funeral or on her children's maintenance; they might even bring up the dowry question and say that money was owed). Even if she owns land, she may have no access to wells, ploughs and bullocks.

In their attempts to gain control of land and property, the brothers-in-law may (often abetted by their wives) harass, persecute, beat and torture and even arrange the murder of the widow. Long after the abolition of Sati, there continue to be reported cases of women being forced to kill themselves on the death of their husband, in order for relatives to seize her inheritance.

Cultural, Social and Emotional Deprivation:

Along with economic deprivation, when a woman becomes a widow, stringent moral code is imposed on her, whereby her emotional and physical needs are not taken care of. When the husband is alive she is supposed to deck herself in colorful attire, wear ornaments, wear flowers, put sindoor and kumkum. But after the death of her husband she is doomed to live a life without any of these adornments. Widows are expected to remain in mourning during the remaining part of her life. She is disfigured to the extent of shaving off her hair and wearing white sari. The explanation given to such an act is that the widow should not induce carnal pleasures in another man. She is expected to remain inside the home and is allowed to perform personal pujas only. She is forbidden to take part in any joyful occasion or to attend any family festival because her very presence would be considered as an evil omen.

The patriarchal nature of Indian society vests all economic and social powers in a man. In the name of religion males perpetuate innumerable atrocities against their woman. Even a tottering old man tries to marry after his wife dies. But a young woman rendered a widow is barred from marrying even if she is only in her teens. She has to control her emotions and feelings and live like a recluse all her life and die as a widow. This rule that widow should not remarry is even more atrocious than that of 'Sati', as sati at least puts an end to her tragedy immediately. But if the widow is living, her life is socially, culturally and emotionally dead. She has to live all her life facing the slings and arrows of society as a widow. The laws of the religion, as interpreted by the men in the society, prohibit a widow from remarrying even if she has never experienced the pleasures of a married life.

The higher the caste the more likely it is that the widow remarriage is forbidden. Though remarriage is not forbidden in the religious books as stated earlier that the Rig Veda has a direct connotation on widow remarriage, which is conveniently not read by the religious leaders. Hence even the poorest Brahmin feels indignant at the very suggestion of widow remarriage. The over all probability that a widow will remarry is quite low, perhaps of the order of 15 to 20 percent in India as a whole (Chen, 1994).

There are exceptions: a child widow or a young childless widow may usually remarry. If the widow is very young, her parents may arrange another marriage for her. If they are poor and cannot afford another dowry, the second marriage is often full of problems - the husband may be an elderly widower, a divorcee, or sick and handicapped. In some castes leviratic marriage is practised: the widow is taken by a brother. In some areas of Indian society, a widow chooses not to re-marry but is forced to live with the younger/youngest brother of her deceased husband for "protection", a crime which condemns her to a lifetime of repeated rape.

There is an emerging trend towards prohibiting and discouraging remarriage even in the lower and middle castes as a means of achieving higher social status but most widows interviewed do not wish to remarry. They fear ill treatment in a new family, especially abuse of their children.

The common restrictions on residence, ownership, remarriage and employment place a widow in the most economic, social and physically vulnerable group of women within a given population. A survey highlighted the health problems of the widows. About 45 per cent of the elderly widows suffered from chronic health problems in both rural and urban areas. The percentage of physical immobility due to chronic illness and old age was found to be consistently higher for women than men in all states of the country. The older widows in India today face situations of poverty, malnutrition, poor health care, physical overwork and unhealthy work environments in their younger years. It is estimated that nearly 50 per cent of the population of the elderly widows in this country, are in need of some form of supportive services. An analysis of their problems reveals the following major areas of need namely:

  • Economic deprivation and insecurity.
  • Restricted mobility due to ill-health.
  • Physical insecurity.
  • Reduction in dignity and self-esteem.
  • Loneliness due to rejection.
  • Lack of meaningful occupation and leisure activities.
  • Lack of protective supportive shelter.

These problems are compounded by age and poverty, and are aggravated further by social and cultural practices. The older widows are subjected to indignity and ill treatment. The specific health problems faced by older widows are eyes, orthopedic problems, back strains and nutrition and in some cases asthma and other respiratory problems. With younger widows, reproductive health problems are major concerns, besides cold, cough, fever and periodical accidents. Personal hygiene of widows both living independently as well as in shelter homes in deplorable. Mental health is also neglected.

To deal with such deplorable situation the widow has to demand her rights and exercise them. To understand her rights she has to be literate, courageous and mobile. She needs to be able to assist her claims along with the males. For a rural widow this is impossible. Her status as a widow prohibits her from leaving the house. She is completely unequipped to deal with the bureaucracy, confront males, strangers and in seeking outside assistance she lays herself open to more abuse and abuse.

During our survey, the majority of the women whom we interviewed were found to be from West Bengal. After having conducted a detailed study of Vrindavan we shifted our attention to Varanasi where at least 10000 out of these 33 million Indian widows reside. We found widows sitting on the banks of the river Ganga at the entrance of the Vishwanath temple holding a small broken bowl in their frail hands begging for alms.

The management of the Dharmshalas at Varanasi were found to be in the hands of a few influential people and very little of the funds that they received by way of donations went to these unfortunate widows. Most widows were asked to attend an evening prayer and spend their time begging on the various ghats, Dashvamedh ghat being a focal point. Our survey showed that none of them received financial assistance from their relations and were completely at the mercy of the Dharmshalas or donors.

Walking along the bank of the river we found hundreds of women some in small groups and some alone begging for their existence. Stronger women among them would be taken as domestic servants and another small group live in religious havens, ashrams or maths but the majority we found lived alone finding shelter where they could under a plastic sheet or a small room on rent. Widows sit on the dirty steps of the Dashvamedh ghat and we found that there were some widows there since the past 25 years waiting for death.

We also found that many of these widows were not from the poorest strata of Indian society. They had frail bodies and tattered clothes but came from well to do families, which could have supported them.

From our survey of 85 women we discovered that a large section approximately 65% women were Brahmins from well to do families. On further questioning many of these we found that it was because they were not welcome in their own homes that they had to come to Vrindavan and Kashi. Spirituality was not the real reason, even though claimed it to be.

We have tried to analyse the situation of widows in Varanasi and compare it with that of the widows of Vrindavan. Mobility in all these religious places is an ongoing process.

Rationale:

There are a few studies on the conditions of widows and widowhood, but most of these studies have examined only the emotional adaptations to bereavement and socio-economic aspect of the problem. There is a need to look into the existing behavior pattern and the material structures of the society that perpetuates the traditional marginalization of widows. The present study was formulated to analyze, understand and document the problems faced by the widows in Vrindavan and Varanasi with reference to rehabilitation home providing boarding, lodging and all the necessary facilities and a boarding houses providing only boarding, to street widows taking refuge in Bhajan Ashrams. The main focus of the study deals with the factors responsible for the predicament of the widows in the three places of refuge in the holy cities of Vrindavan and Varanasi and the motivational factors that lead to an influx of widows to these holy cities. The study also looked into the manner in which they attempt and would like to overcome them.

Methodology:

The study was started in May' 2002. A total sample of 240 widows in Vrindavan and 84 in Varanasi was selected for the study. For collection of information, the entire sample was divided into various categories like widows above seventy years, young widows, etc. Given the nature of information required, the study was structured using qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Sample: Stratified Incidental sampling technique was used to collect data of 240 widows in Vrindavan and Incidental sampling was used for collecting the data in Varanasi on 84 widows. A list of rehabilitation homes and boarding houses in Vrindavan and Varanasi were taken and to give a broader spectrum widows living on the streets were also incorporated as respondents.

Table: Depicting The Distribution Of Respondents Selected For The Study in Vrindavan

Rehabilitation Home / 80
Boarding Home / 80
Street / 80
TOTAL / 240

Table: Depicting The Distribution Of Respondents Selected For The Study in Varanasi

Rehabilitation home / 28
Boarding house / 28
Street / 28
TOTAL / 84

Instrument: The present investigation is based on the primary data, consisting of the responses received from the respondents to the schedule. The schedule was first tentatively prepared and presented in a non-sample area as a pilot study to locate the ambiguity and redundancy of questions included therein. The final schedule was prepared after making necessary corrections. It consists of questions to obtain information in the following categories:

  1. Background of the Widows: This section consists of 13 questions pertaining to the age at present, age at marriage, age at husbands death, differences between the age of spouses, socio-economic characteristics of widow, type of family and reaction towards marital life.
  2. Family Background: This section consists of 10 questions pertaining to the educational and socio-economic background of husband and relevant information regarding the children.
  3. Deprivation Faced by Widows: This section is divided into four heads consisting of 31 questions:
  4. Economic Deprivation
  5. Social Deprivation
  6. Emotional Deprivation and
  7. Cultural Deprivation
  8. Reaction, Attitude and Suggestions: This consists of 15 questions pertaining to the attitude of widows regarding remarriage, death and status and refuge of widow in the holy city. It also consists of questions regarding suggestions of widow for widow welfare.

Data Collection: A prior appointment at the rehabilitation centre and the widow home was taken, so that the widows could be interviewed. The interview was conducted at the centre and the home. The normal duration of the interview was about 60 minutes. Questions were asked by the researcher in their regional language and the relevant responses were recorded in the schedule. The researcher followed the free conversational style to elicit relevant information. As majority of widows were illiterate hence information were also collected through observation and discussion methods. A rapport was first established with the respondents with the help of sharing some personal experience and confidence building measures. It was noticed that most respondents were free in sharing their experiences. A small token of remembrance was given to each respondent after the interview.