Background

During the 2nd phase of Covid 19 Pandemic, one of close relatives died to Covid and severe heart attack. During the final rituals of the body, few women went to the widow wife of our staff. The wife was crying as she lost her spouse. Instead of counselling the women were forcing the widow to break her bangles and remove the Kuk kum or singur on her forehead as a mark of tradition and to symbolise herself as a widow woman. Pramod Zinjade was there at that time, he felt very bad about this. He instantly stopped the women doing so.  After this day, he thought intensively on this and decided to start a campaign. He started by filing and submitting an affidavit to the local tehsildar stating that ‘after my death, my wife Alka should not be subjected to any such malpractice’.

This practice is to wipe the Kumkum on the forehead, break the Mangal sutra around the neck, break the bracelets/ bangle on the hands, remove the ankles from the feet, at the time of the funeral after the death of the husband. This practice still exists in Maharashtra. While the husband is being set on fire, while the woman's good fortune is being taken away, we should think about how much the woman's mind is in pain. Such an incident, coming upon any woman is a very painful event for her.

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The motive behind the practice may have been to make the widow look ugly after her husband's death, so that no one would look down on her. But now the situation has changed. Women are becoming more and more educated, superstitions are diminishing, and social science is becoming more and more popular, so such undesirable practices need to be changed. By doing so, it cannot be said that society does not look down on such women. Widows have to suffer for the rest of their lives because of such things.

 

The widow women also face sexual harassment from other men in her laws place, as well as in the community she lives, whether it is her parent’s community or in her in-laws community.