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India - Women Dare to Defy the
Harsh Rules & Discrimination of Widowhood
Widows in India, above, contend with
tremendous discrimination by society and by their own families. They also get
forced into certain dress codes if they are Hindu, like being banned from
wearing bright clothes. PUSHPA ACHANTA/WFS
By Pushpa Achanta - Feb 19, 2015
BENGALURU — In a traditional patriarchal
society, where the identity and value of a woman is determined through her
husband, widowhood is about much more than losing a husband. In India, from
changing how she dresses to being treated with contempt by family members,
especially by her in-laws, there is a lot that a widow must bear, often without
complaining. The trauma doesn’t end there. The widow becomes a social pariah
who is barred from participating in family events and is often denied property
rights.
Humiliation, harassment, loneliness,
abandonment — there is nothing that a widow in India does not encounter.
However, when the going gets tough, widows rise to the challenge, whatever the
odds.
Vinita, from a small town in Karnataka state,
is one such inspiring young woman. Vinita, who is 25 years old and HIV
positive, lost her husband to AIDS. “A few years ago, when I found out that I
was expecting, I went to the local government hospital. The doctor in charge
recommended HIV testing,” she said. “Shockingly, I tested positive. I had
contracted the virus from my husband, who was gravely ill at the time. We hid
this reality from our families and broke the news only to a close friend.
“Although both of us started treatment, he
died soon after. Unfortunately, our son also passed away within a year,” said
Vinita, speaking at a recent meeting in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore)
facilitated by Swaraj, a statewide network of organizations, groups and
individuals that champion the empowerment and advancement of socioeconomically
disadvantaged women. Vinita said that she and her husband, a middle-income
couple, had faced discrimination when they sought treatment for HIV.
Despite widowhood, Vinita made up her mind to
forge on, raising a foster child by herself. Although she had minimal emotional
and financial backing from her own family and her late husband’s, she has
carried on. She has no savings and was not employed when her husband was alive.
Now she works as a schoolteacher who takes out time to counsel young girls and
women to study and work and to say “no” to early marriage. She does all this
while undergoing intensive antiretroviral therapy, which involves commuting to
a treatment center every month to collect her medication and undergo
examination.
The traditional mistreatment of widows was
the subject of the powerful film “Water,” by a Canadian, Deepa Mehta, a decade
ago. Though the story is set in 1938, the film is still regarded
as a classic portrayal of the perils of widowhood in India — a social curse
still being challenged by the women who face it.
Like Vinita, another HIV-positive survivor,
Jayamma, 38, has also learned to live life on her own terms. Her husband died a
decade ago of AIDS, but because she received a diagnosis early she was able to
get treatment, “even though enduring discrimination at the hands of health
workers that comes along with the treatment,” she said. “As I was ostracized by
my natal and marital families as well as all our friends and neighbors, I
decided to relocate to Bangalore.” Once in the city, her life improved when she
heard of a nonprofit group that assists economically marginalized HIV-positive
women and transgender people in gaining access to antiretroviral treatment and
counseling. She offered her services as a volunteer.
“The initial few years in Bangalore were full
of emotional and socioeconomic struggles, and overcoming these has made me
stronger,” she said, with a smile of satisfaction. “Right now, I am a peer
counselor with the same NGO, a job that has helped me provide for my four
children, three of whom are still studying, while the oldest is employed.”
Jyoti, a 23-year-old social worker, also
bears the stigma of widowhood, but she has fended off attempts by her late
husband’s conservative family to tie her down in shackles of regressive
traditions and societal norms. Generally, after a woman loses her husband,
Hindu religious customs require her to give up wearing bright clothes for white
attire, remove ornamental symbols of her marital status and become a strict
vegetarian.
The mother of a 3-year-old boy, Jyoti shunned
these “old-fashioned” beliefs. “I come from a financially backward family and
was compelled to give up my education after middle school,” she said. “I was
married off while still in my teens to a daily wager. He was an alcoholic and
died of cirrhosis.”
Her real trials began then. “My
parents-in-law, who are agricultural laborers, wanted me confined to the house
to perform religious ceremonies, which, in my opinion, are demeaning to women.”
She persuaded her in-laws into allowing her to work “so that I could become
independent and augment the family earnings, too.” Jyoti is now employed at a
nonprofit organization that helps women in distress and is ably supporting
herself and her son.
If Jyoti, a Hindu, had to fight stringent
traditions to live on her own terms, Sabeha’s experiences have not been too
different. Sabeha, a tailor, sees how sexism and patriarchal notions prevalent
among some Islamic clerics and men in the community compel Muslim widows to
follow in their Hindu sisters’ footsteps, even though it is not mandated in
their religion. “Islam only prescribes ‘iddat,’ a three-month period of
mourning for widows, and even that is not mandatory as per the Quran,” she
said.
Sabeha, who founded and leads a group of
women who reach out to others experiencing gender-specific harassment or
violence, decided to remarry after her first husband deserted her when their
child was young. Currently, though, she lives independently with her two sons —
the elder one runs a grocery store, while the younger is studying in high
school. Her husband stays with his first wife, even though he visits Sabeha,
who is around 40, regularly and contributes to the household expenses.
Vinita, Jyoti, Sabeha and Jayamma are gutsy
women who have faced tragedy and fought hard to make a place for themselves in
society. They hope to inspire this change in others who are alone and striving
to live with dignity.
The names and location of the women have been
changed to protect their identity.
(© Women’s Feature Service)