Poverty and Hope in India's City of Widows

(my thanks to DU'er appalachiablue for bringing this to our attention)

Poverty and Hope in India’s City of Widows

Shunned by their own families, thousands of Hindu widows make their way to the holy city of Vrindavan in northern India to find solace. But most also end up impoverished and neglected.
Written by
Sutirtha Sahariah


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The holy city of Vrindavan, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Lord Krishna. It is also home to more than 10,000 widows, most of them destitute and neglected. Sulabh International/PIC/Rajeev Tyagi

VRINDAVAN, India – After her husband died eight years ago, Manju Rai’s family started mistreating her and eventually cast her out of her home. “I was thought to be a burden on the family,” she says. “My daughter and son-in-law didn’t want to take responsibility for me. At my age, I could not fight them.” In 2015, with nowhere else to go, she made the journey thousands of widows had made before her: She went to Vrindavan in search of salvation. The holy city is 890 miles (1,400km) from her home in West Bengal, and Rai had never traveled that far on her own before. But she was driven by the belief that “love for Lord Krishna would guide me and liberate me from all sufferings.” Located on the banks of the river Yamuna in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Vrindavan is considered sacred to India’s majority Hindu population. It’s believed to be the birthplace of Lord Krishna, one of the most revered gods in Hinduism. With more than 5,000 temples, ashrams of various religious gurus and sects, the dusty town is one the most visited pilgrimage sites in India. It is also home to more than 10,000 widows, most of them living lives of destitution and neglect and surviving by begging on the streets.

A global report on widows by the charity Loomba Foundation found there are 46 million widows in India, which makes up more than 9 percent of the population. Those who make it to Vrindavan come from a broad cross section of society, but they are also one of the most neglected and marginalized groups in the country. One study by the National Commission for Women found the majority of widows living in Vrindavan are illiterate and have no access to government pension schemes or subsidized meal schemes.

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The government-run shelters can only accommodate 515 widows, a fraction of what is needed. Some of the women not in the government homes live in private shelters run by charities or religious organizations. But a vast number of them live on the streets and depend solely on the charity of others. O.P. Singh, the district officer responsible for overseeing the government program for widows, says the residents of Vrindavan are being properly looked after. “The inflow of widows varies every year, but the government is doing all it can to help the widows who are living permanently in Vrindavan,” he says. “They face few problems as they receive a pension, rations and healthcare from the government.” The government also says it is building a new facility that will offer refuge to 1,000 widows.


The lucky ones get a room in a government-run or privately run shelter, a small monthly pension and money for medical care. Many get nothing. (Sulabh International)

Once considered worthless without their husbands, widows in India have benefited from a strong history of activism in support of their rights. Progressive movements in the mid-19th century saw the abolition of Sati, the tradition of a woman burning herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, and the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 granted women inheritance rights. But in parts of rural India where patriarchy is deeply rooted, widows are still often driven out of their homes by their husband’s relatives who want control of their property and land. In 2012, the Supreme Court of India said the government and its agencies were not doing enough to reduce the suffering of the widows of Vrindavan, after the National Legal Services Authority charity filed a public interest litigation petition to improve living conditions for the widows. The charity told the court conditions in the government shelters of Vrindavan were so bad that when a widow died, her body was chopped into pieces and disposed of, as there was no money to pay for the funeral rites. The court then gave Sulabh International the task of providing better services and care for the women.

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“The neglect of widows living in Vrindavan is a problem specific to some families and some communities,” says Pathak, who is campaigning for a government law for the protection, welfare and maintenance of widows. “It is the question of moral deprivation and greed of some families. But times are changing. We must teach the new generation to look after its elders.”


https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/womenandgirls/articles/2017/02/10/poverty-hope-indias-city-widows




“Nothing to Go Back To” - The Fate of the Widows of Vrindavan, India

Lys Anzia - WNN - Women News Network



Widows of Vrindavan - photo image ©Tewfic El-Sawy, “White Shadows” -

“In many conservative Indian Hindu families, widows are shunned because they’re seen as bringing bad luck. Superstitious relatives even blame them for their husband’s death. The widow can become a liability with no social standing, an unwanted mouth to feed. Often they’re cast out of the family home,” said foreign correspondent Trevor Bormann in a recent June, 2007 interview with Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Dr. Mohini V. Giri, for the ABC – Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Once the widows of the Hindu holy city of Vrindavan lose their husbands their life “becomes zero,” says Dr. Giri, director of the Guild of Service in New Delhi. A widow herself, and tireless activist for women’s rights in India, Dr. Giri works specifically today for the “empowerment of marginalized women and children.”

“According to the Dharmashastra, the sacred Hindu legal text, covering moral, ethical and social laws, widows are expected to devote the remainder of their lives to the memory of their husbands,” says humanitarian photographer, Tewfic El-Sawy, after he visited the poorest ashram of Vrindavan. “By renouncing life’s luxuries and by withdrawing from society, critics of this practice have declared that such women are living a form of suttee, the now-outlawed practice of burning widows alive on the dead husband’s funeral pyre,” El-Sawy added.


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At Mathura ashram in Vrindavan conditions are critical as widows, abandoned on the death of their husbands with no resources of their own, appear with no chance for education, no protection from possible rape and no chance for a better life. They face situations of hunger, starvation and negligence as they try to survive with only one small plate of food a day. These widows, many times, are deserted and admonished by the families of their husbands, leading them to leave and seek shelter away from their home in the ashrams of Vrindavan. “It’s unbelievable that families would abandon their mothers. . . ,” said Dharan Mandrayar, a filmmaker who has been criticized by the press in India for the controversial subjects in his movies. His film “White Rainbow,” follows the “real life” story of a Vrandavan widow. “White Rainbow” was created as Mandrayar was “called to action” as he witnessed the living conditions of the widows of Vrindavan.” Deepa Mehta is another filmmaker who has sought to bring the darker story of the widows of Vrindavan to the screen. Struggling against the protests of the town people of Vrindavan while trying to film, Ms. Mehta continued on with her production and moved the location to complete her movie. Her film “Water,” which was released in 2005 was later nominated for a U.S. Academy award. It shows life searingly through the eyes of an eight year old childbride named Chuyia, who became widowed on the death of her much older husband. It follows, too, the older-yet-young and beautiful widow, Kalyani, who is sold for sexual services as she is finally befriended by a young lawyer, a man who is a student of Mahatma Ghandi.

Although India’s widows today are not forced to die on the death of their husband - in ritual sati - by burning to death on their husband’s funeral pyre, they are still forced to undergo daily ritual humiliations, to beg for alms each day chanting, to live completely apart from society, to live lives of extreme poverty, lonely for their children, alone and hopeless. Younger widows, with no chance of remarrying, face strong cultural disproval within their own families. They often flee dangerous hostile family situations or abuse. Rising problems with widows and their husband’s family after the death of their husband can sometimes include sexual abuse from a husband’s brother or father, starvation or abandonment.

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See the unforgettable and haunting series of photos on the widows of Vrindava, “WHITE SHADOWS,” by Tewfic El-Sawy.

http://www.wunrn.org/news/2009/02_09/02_09_09/020909_widows2.htm