India's city of widows

In the dark, damp back-streets of Vrindavan, more commonly known as the "city of widows", India's forgotten widows chant for their supper. For a few hours, their prayers earn them enough meagre rupees to survive. These women were once revered as mothers, sisters and daughters; some will die in Vrindavan without seeing any relatives again.

"She becomes a zero and all her powers are lost," says Mohini Giri, the former chair for the commission of women in India and a widow herself. She explains that many conservative Indian families see widows as a liability. Cast out of the family home, they live the rest of their lives in poverty and isolation. "When [a woman] loses her husband and becomes a widow, she loses her identity. A woman deprived, abandoned, malnourished will naturally have a high mortality rate."

For the more than 40 million widows in India – 10% of the country's female population – life is what some have described as "living sati", a reference to the now the prohibited practice of widow burning. Some are as young as 10 years old and are forced to spend the rest of their days in seclusion or earning a living through prostitution.

Only 28% of the widows in India are eligible for pensions, and of those, less than 11% actually receive their entitled payments. If a woman is not financially independent, she is at the mercy of her in-laws and her parents. And if they do not have the will or resources to take care of her and her children, she will be treated like an "untouchable". Financial aid is crucial to widows wanting to lead a self-sufficient life, but the government has failed to provide it.

Many of the 16,000 widows in Vrindavan have no choice but to beg in the streets. Traditionally, widows are only allowed one meal a day and renounce all earthly pleasures. However, Giri provides an alternative refuge and "ashram" for destitute widows in the state of West Bengal. "We break away from the traditional norms of widows being given one meal a day and not being allowed to have meat or certain foods such as garlic and onions."

Orthodox Hindus believe that both meat and certain vegetables have pulses that stimulate blood and are therefore impure. It is no wonder that deaths as a result of malnutrition are 85% higher among widows than married women, according to the Global Ministries Foundation. They are even expected to fast several times a month, sometimes eating nothing but fruit for days on end.

~ more... ~