Widows in our country are an invisible lot who are denied their economic rights. It is up to the Government and civil society organisations to ensure that they live a life of dignity
June 23 is the International Day for Widows. Even today, they are perceived as being a burden on society and inauspicious to the family. They still have to contend with the “triple burden” in the form of stigma associated with their status, severe constraints on access to resources and sexual vulnerability. Gender disparities make them one of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in India. This is in stark contrast to their male counterparts who are not subjected to similar socio-economic exclusion within households. In India, much of the struggles and multiple vulnerabilities of widows continue because of welfare-driven Government policies. The absence of a rights-based approach in Government programmes makes them dependent on doles or pensions. There are about 44 million widows in our country. With the joint family structure collapsing, many leave their homes voluntarily while some are thrown out by family members. They all gravitate to pilgrim cities like Vrindavan.
The temple town of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh is barely three hours from the national capital New Delhi and is known as a magnet for widows. Although they congregate from all over the country, the highest number flocks from West Bengal to worship Lord Krishna. Here, widows are dependent on charity and literally sing for their supper while seeking solace in religion. Just like 55-year-old Rupa Dasi, a widow living in Vrindavan for over 15 years. She goes to the Bhajan Ashrams to chant prayers and gets 100 grams of rice and 50 grams of pulses worth Rs 4. Since she does not have the requisite documents, she does not have a ration or Antyodaya card. Nor does she get old age or widow’s pension. Dasi represents a stream of widows typical of Vrindavan — preferring to spend their time in prayer and living on charity.
But charity does not have to be the first and only option as widows in Rajasthan have shown. Married at 19, Mankanwar became a widow after seven years of marriage. Uneducated and a mother of two, she was thrown out by her in-laws, who hounded her to give up her share in the family property. But she didn’t give up. She sought help from the Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan (ENSS), an organisation that works for single women in several States, including Rajasthan. The collective provided her legal support to get control of her share in the family property.
However, Mankanwar also realised that she needed to be economically independent. While helping ENSS in finding ways to empower other single women get their entitlements, she and the organisation homed in on the livelihood option offered by the Government’s MGNREGA programme. But since job cards were traditionally made in the name of the family, ENSS found a large number of its widow members being deprived of employment after the death of their husbands. After a vociferous campaign by ENSS and its members for individual ones, separate job cards in their names were issued. The Rajasthan Government issued orders in 2009 that a widow and her children should be considered an independent family unit. It mandated that a separate job card be given to the widow, irrespective of whether she lived with her parents or in-laws, and that no supporting documents or ration cards should be called for to make the separate job card.
This resulted in a 10-15 per cent increase in separate job cards for widows, leading to a boost in employment of widows under MGNREGA. Records show that 69 per cent of Rajasthan’s 95 lakh job cards are now being utilised by women, much higher than the national average of 49 per cent women benefiting from MGNREGA. The ENSS also suggested that certain categories of work, which do not involve heavy manual labour like watering of plants and monitoring of sites, should be identified and reserved for older widows to enable their inclusion within MGNREGA. Consequently, MGNREGA supervisors were asked to allot less physically strenuous work to older people at their worksites.
The Rajasthan ENSS model has shown that when widows are organised and are part of a collective, they are less likely to be cheated or harassed. This is why ENSS was able to successfully lobby for an increase in the Government grant given to widows at the time of their daughters’ marriage and an extension of the widow Palanhar scheme for their children’s education up to the age of 18 as well as an increase in education allowance. The State widow pension amount was also increased and preference was given to widows in Government jobs.
But for widows not a part of such collectives, life has not been so smooth. A 2014 UN Women study on the programmes and policies for widows in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka found that most policies for them lack a rights-based approach and are designed with assumptions and conditions rooted in patriarchy. Government welfare programmes treat widows as a homogenous group. But the situation of widows varies considerably, depending on age, societal norms, their geographical location, educational levels and also on who their husbands were. Social norms around widowhood further complicate their access to basic services and welfare schemes, meaning that linking them to entitlement would need more efforts by the Government as well as by civil society organisations.
Fortunately, India now enumerates widows in its population census. However, there is a paucity of analytical data — both quantitative and qualitative — on several aspects such as access to healthcare, inheritance, property ownership, poverty levels and crime against widows. There is particular dearth of studies that could elaborate on issues of women belonging to minority groups, those residing in conflict affected areas and widows residing in remote locations.
A lack of integrated services and complex procedures are significant challenges for widows. In India, several Government Ministries implement schemes for widows but there is no convergence of services. Further, poor coordination and implementation of other programmes for destitute women has led to the exclusion of particularly marginalised and illiterate widows. Procedures and documents required to access Government benefits still remain complex. A lack of education as well as financial illiteracy adds to the problems of access for widows. On the part of the Government, weak monitoring and reporting systems further add to gaps in implementation.
The best way to tackle these issues would be to have a single-window system to converge services of different departments to facilitate widows’ entitlements for shelter, pension, health and food among other things. The Government/local bodies should be pro-active as well as flexible in implementing the existing policies and programmes; providing necessary documents required by widows to access all their entitlements, especially pensions.
Giving them a life of dignity is possible if a needs assessment is regularly conducted for skill and job development that is age-appropriate and in keeping with the educational level of the widows. If Livelihood Mission and the Skill Development Mission in India as well as civil society organisations engaged in providing skill training for emerging job markets keep in mind the needs of widows, it can change their lives. The best way to boost their self-esteem and confidence is by helping them move up the economic ladder.
A good example already exists in our neighbouring country Nepal. The Government’s policy there of giving land on lease to groups of widows to build shelter homes or chhaharis has helped in their empowerment. These chhaharis provide skill training, economic and emotional support to help widows become financially independent.
In August 2017, the Supreme Court constituted an expert committee on the status of widows to suggest how the lives of 44 million of them could be bettered. The committee, comprising several NGOs like Jagori, Guild of Service, HelpageIndia and Sulabh International, submitted its report to the apex court within three months. The findings and recommendations by the committee were similar to those in the UN women report. The court directed the Government to implement the recommendations. However, even after almost two years, no action has been taken yet. How many more years will widows have to wait for their right to live a life of dignity?
(The writer is a senior journalist)
