Indian Widows Still Struggling to Live

83-year-old widow Meera Rani shows me the room where she’s been living for the past 16 years in Vrindavan – popularly known as the ‘City of Widows’.

It’s a small kennel-like house... not even proper for a dog to live in...

“What I can do? Nobody is taking care of me. I don’t have any family. What I only know is Lord Krishna will look after me here.”

Meera’s children disowned her away after her husband’s death. She came to this central pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in search of salvation.

There are over 5,000 temples here and it is believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity
Krishna.

This is where more than 2,000 upper-caste Hindu widows, disowned by their families, come to live in guest houses, shelters or cramped quarters.

Young and old, these widows spend their days singing hymns in temples for food or a small amount of money.

91-year-old Ganga Dasi lives in a compound of 40 Nepali old-aged widows – it’s a dark and poorly-lit room, with unventilated kitchen.

“Lord Krishna… I don’t remember anything. I came here long ago, perhaps 25-26 years or more than that. I have a daughter and her name is.....”

She stops as she can’t remember her daughter’s name.

Her daughter, Hari Dasi, is also a widow.

“Nowadays children are busy earning their livelihood. It’s better to live here than to live alone back home. God’s home is far better than my own home. I don’t have any brother and as a daughter, I stay here to take care of my mother.”

“My son told me to live here until I die,” says Hari Dasi.

In many conservative Indian Hindu families, widows are often blamed for the death of their husbands.

Seen as bad luck, many of them are abandoned by their families and shunned by society.

Hari Dasi chants hymns in a local temple to earn some 30 US dollars a month.

“The rain has damaged my room,” she cries.

“And we don’t have any access to water as the tap is broken. I’ve spent 30 US dollars to repair them. I’ve used up the money to buy my mother some milk.”

Some charities and NGOs have programs to help the widows. 

They also teach skills that have help some get jobs selling threading flowers for pilgrims visiting the temples.

Local philanthropist Baba Ram Ji and his Akshayapatra Foundation provides free lunch and medicine for them every day for the past two years.

“In Vrindavan there are many widows who are the guest of Lord Krishna. It is my duty to serve them. If my guests are happy, My God will be pleased.”

The government says it's aware of the problems facing these women. 

And The National Commission for Women says it's pushing the Uttar Pradesh state government to provide adequate food and hygienic living environment for these widows.

“They don’t have any proper shelters,” says Mamta Sharma, head of the Commission.

“And if there’s any, it’s very dirty with no access to sanitation, food and drinking water. The widows are begging for their survival. We are trying to create cottage industries for their employment and shelter homes so that they can live with dignity.”

And last year, India’s Supreme Court stepped in and asked the government to improve the widow’s living standards.

A government body, the National Legal Services Authority, then recommended issuing identity cards for these abandoned widows.
 
But nothing has changed so far....

“I haven’t received my card or pension,” says another widow Mori Dasi.  “Government officers say that some of us have received pensions but we did not get anything. Many officers come, take our pictures and go… Nothing happens….”

And so these widows continue singing hymns to call the Lord to help them...