WIDOWS IN INDIA: Study of Varanasi and Vrindavan

This heart-wrenching book on widows in contemporary India delves into multiple forms of material and emotional deprivation including a most oppressive kind of renunciation forced on the widows living in Varanasi and Vrindavan. Seeing the things from the suffering women’s perspective, it questions the exclusivity of their renunciatory life prescribed by the Hindu Dharmashastras. Among other things, this work argues powerfully that the widows need a measure of social security for their sheer material survival, as they have for long been subjected to humiliation, neglect and blatant exploitation.
In spite of modern India’s constitutional provisions which grant equal rights to women, a large section of these women continue to suffer due to the heterogeneous and hierarchical nature of our social structure based on most glaring forms of socio-economic inequalities. The plight of widows is very pathetic because of the longstanding hold of orthodoxy, obscurantism and superstitious beliefs. Besides cruel frustrations of widowhood, the widows suffer from severe social, economic and cultural deprivations.
Concerned with social and economic conditions of widows and their dependent children, this empathetic study seeks to understand: What are the overwhelming problems of widows? Do the widows think that widowhood has affected their social life in a cruel way? How do the widows cope with the changing times and changing society? Besides providing insight into the socio-psychological aspects of widowhood, this study investigates the people’s attitude towards the widows and their own self-image.
The book also elucidates and suggests ways and means to be adopted by the state, civil society organizations and the people as a whole in order to change the mindset of the widows and reorient them to take life in their own hands instead of being passive beneficiaries of others’ charities.

Bindeshwar Pathak is the Founder of Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement. A leading social reformer and humanist of contemporary India, he is renowned the world over for his liberating work for scavenging untouchables, widows and other weaker sections of society. His invention of Sulabh toilet technology has been internationally recognized as one of the best global practices for safe disposal of human waste. He has written extensively on social issues, and has developed the concept of Action Sociology. Dr Pathak has to his credit several national and international awards Padma Bhushan (1991); the Saint Francis Prize for Environment (1992); the Scroll of Honour by UN-Habitat at Rio-de-Janeiro (Brazil) (2003); the Global 500 Roll of Honour Award by UNEP at Beirut (Lebanon) (2003); Stockholm Water Prize (2009); the LEGENDE DE LA PLANETE Congrès Fondateur Jeux Ecologiques at UNESCO, Paris (2013), WHO Public Health Champion Award, New Delhi (2016). He is ranked by The Economist (November 2015) amongst the World’s Top 50 diversity figures in public life along with US President Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates. Recently, the New York Global Leaders Dialogue conferred the ‘2016 Humanitarian Award’ upon Dr Pathak on April 12, 2016. Its jury further said: ‘Dr Pathak is a great humanitarian who, for decades, has enhanced the quality of life for millions of fellow human-beings. He is the perfect example of a social leader, who is needed to be followed by other nations’. Mr Bill de Blasio, Mayor of the City of New York, declared April 14, 2016 as ‘Dr Bindeshwar Pathak Day’.

Satyendra Tripathi is trained as a social scientist in India, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the USA. Formerly Professor on SBI Chair and Director of the Centre of Integrated Rural Development Programme as well as Head of the Department of Sociology, BHU, Varanasi, he has worked in United Nations as UN Fellow in Asia-Pacific countries. While working with Sulabh International, he organized training programmes in Africa for the senior officials on Water and Sanitation in collaboration with Human Habitat Centre, Nairobi. His specialization is social change and development in developing countries.