Women In Uttarakhand's 'Village Of Widows' Are Urging For Help To Get Them Married

None of us is withheld from the knowledge against patriarchy and what it has done to women for generations. Using its might, the system has stopped, sabotaged, and suspended as many things as they could that worked in favour of what makes the 50% of mankind.

Rachna Shukla, 28, has reconciled herself to leading a solitary life, much like the 31 other widows of Deoli-Bhangiram, a village in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, dubbed as the "village of widows" after the 2013 Kedarnath deluge took the lives of 54 men from this tiny hamlet alone.

Thirty-two of the men were married at that time.

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Now, four years after the disaster, the widows of these men, mostly priests at the Kedarnath shrine ¡ªlike Shukla's husband ¡ª cannot hope to pick up the pieces of their lives and contemplate marrying again because of the stringent social norms prevalent in their village.

Shukla, who is one of the few widows from the village to move out -- she is currently pursuing higher education in Dehradun -- said that many widows would like to remarry but fear a severe backlash from villagers.

Requesting TOI to refrain from using her real name as she feared for the safety of her family back home, she said, "The social organisations which are helping widows in my village are doing praiseworthy work in bringing our lives back on track. But more than financial aid, what we require is urgent intervention to change the mindsets of villagers who are against widows remarrying."

Rajni Devi, 31, another widow and a mother of two children, aged 8 and 11 years, said, "I believe that those who don't have kids with previous husbands should be allowed to get married.

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The ones who have children often don't prefer remarriage themselves, but seeing the young girls who have been left without a husband at a tender age, with their whole lives before them, it seems cruel to deny them the opportunity to start life afresh."

Most of the families in Deoli are Brahmins who have traditionally been employed as priests at Kedarnath. Ved Prakash, the village pradhan, cites the villagers' "high caste lineage" as the primary reason why it is taboo for widows to remarry.

"There has not been even a single incident in our area of a widow getting remarried. Remarrying is not a part of our culture or tradition.

We have followed this custom for many centuries. The girl is either asked to stay in her maternal home or with in-laws, whatever is her preference."

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A few women from the village whom TOI spoke to said that they could not even think of broaching the subject of remarrying with their family members because they would be accused of breaking the village's centuries-old tradition.

"We are constantly given the example of older women who have embraced their widowhood and told to follow their lead. We are also human and feel loneliness and want to lead happy lives. But it seems that we are destined to die as widows," said a woman who did wish to be named.

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Sushila Baluni, Dehradun-based social activist, when apprised of the plight of the widows, said, "It is truly a sad state of affairs that in today's day and age, these women have been kept shackled by such primitive beliefs.

It is the responsibility of all the social organisations as well as the state government to intervene in the matter and help them get rehabilitated not just financially but in their personal lives too. For this, the mindset of villagers needs to be challenged and changed."