![]() While there are some signs of improvement in the treatment of widows and widow remarriage in urban areas, the general attitude towards them is perhaps best summed up by this Mewari proverb: Teetar varani baadali, na vidhwa kajal rekh, ba barase ba ghar kare, bee me meen na mekh (When clouds have the colours of a partridge, it is sure to rain, and when a widow wears kajal, she is sure to bring destruction of the household.) Widow pension schemes haven't taken off in most states and even in those places where widows are registered for pension schemes they are told that states have failed to sanction enough money. ![]() This is partly as the Government has also been content to sweep them under the rug. There are no accurate statistics on how many widows there are. Reduced to virtual non-status through a series of rituals masquerading under obscurantist religious sanction - the breaking of her bangles or banishing her from auspicious functions - she loses her independence and capacity to fight for her property rights. She becomes the flotsam and jetsam of Indian society washed ashore at the portals of exploitative ashrams in the hope of dying there and attaining moksha (salvation), or remains prey to the predations of relatives who enslave or mentally torture her. In the absence of widow remarriage, even if she lives with another man, she has no pati and therefore, no home. Conditioned from childhood to accept a totally man-centred existence - " pati ho to ghar ho, pati nahin to ghar nahin (your home is only where your husband is) - the widow becomes a non-person when her husband dies, so closely is her psyche linked to her husband's identity.
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