Widows choose to come to holy places like Vrindavan to escape social ostracisation, but only to fall into a mire of indignity and beggary, the Supreme Court said.
It condemned the modern-day stigma against widows, while setting up a committee of experts to study reports collected by the court during the past decade and come up with a plan to rehabilitate the hapless widows of Vrindavan and other ashrams by November 30, 2017.
Plan to use software
One of the suggestions is to kick into motion an Aadhaar-enabled software to identify widows when they enter as inmates of Swadhar homes.
The court highlighted reports which recommended widow remarriage. “This is a subject of hope that might enable our society to give up the stereotype view of widows. We request the committee to consider this during its deliberations,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta observed recently.
“There can be little or no doubt at all that widows in some parts of the country are socially deprived and to an extent ostracised. Perhaps this is the reason why many of them choose to come to Vrindavan and other ashrams where, unfortunately, they are not treated with the dignity they deserve,” Justice Lokur said. The verdict was based on a PIL petition filed almost 10 years ago by the Environment and Consumer Protection Foundation.
The court said it was part of its constitutional duty and for reasons of social justice to issue appropriate directions “intended to bring back some sunshine in the lives of the widows in Vrindavan and in ashrams elsewhere in the country.”
“It is a pity that these widows have been so unfortunately dealt with, as if they have ceased to be entitled to live a life of dignity and as if they are not entitled to the protection of Article 21 [right to a dignified life] of the Constitution,” the court observed.
It asked the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government to take “all steps to rehabilitate the widows of Vrindavan so as to bring them to a stage where they can live with dignity.”
The committee set up by the court consists of Suneeta Dhar of NGO Jagori, Meera Khanna of Guild for Service, Advocate Abha Singhal Joshi, nominees of HelpAge India, Sulabh International and Aparajita Singh, a Supreme Court lawyer.
Legal aid
They will consider recommendations such as legal aid for widows, medical insurance, opening employment avenues in the care and hospitality sector, setting up old age homes and linking widow pension schemes to provide medical facilities for them.
