Vrindavan widows: Encourage widow remarriage to enable society to give up stereotype view, Supreme Court

The Supreme Court yesterday constituted a 6-member committee to study the reports filed in the Court relating to Vrindavan widows and submit a common working plan based on the suggestions made in the reports..The judgment was passed by a Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta in a petition by NGO, Environment and Consumer Protection Foundation..The court in its judgment noted the plight of widows in Vrindavan as described in article ‘White Shadows of Vrindavan’ written by Atul Sethi and published in the New Delhi edition of the Times of India of 25th March, 2007..“Broadly speaking, the article described the city of Vrindavan in which abandoned widows live a hand to mouth existence like white shadows thus giving the city another name that is the City of Widows. According to the author no one knows since when these widows have been coming to Vrindavan but most of them are from West Bengal and their life stories often follow a similar pattern which is the death of the husband, relatives leaving them in Vrindavan, days spent singing prayers and begging at temples where they live on a day to day basis. Most widows refuse to go back to their village or home, even if they are given a chance to do so, saying that now this is our home…..…the widows congregate in some ashrams or temples where they sing bhajans and are paid about Rs. 18 per day for about 7 to 8 hours of singing. The rest of their time is spent begging on the streets. Many of them are too old to look after themselves requiring others to pool in their resources to look after them. Overall, the article paints a rather tragic and dismal picture of the living conditions of the widows in Vrindavan”.The Court had sought reports from various bodies from time to time. On July 18, the Solicitor General also submitted an Agreed Action Plan. In order to implement the various suggestions and plans set out in different reports and the Agreed Action Plan, the Court proceeded to constitute a 6-member committee to come up with a common working plan..“It is also our opinion that the effort put in by all concerned in the reports that we have adverted to above should not go waste – it must be gainfully utilized, being in a sense a gold mine of pragmatic and workable suggestions. Accordingly, we constitute a Committee to study all the reports filed in this Court and provide us with a common working plan (based on the suggestions in the reports) within a period of two months and in any case on or before 30th November, 2017”.The committee shall consists of the following persons:.Ms. Suneeta Dhar of NGO Jagori,Ms. Meera Khanna of Guild for ServiceMs. Abha Singhal Joshi, Lawyer and activistA nominee of HelpAge India, an NGO that has rendered valuable assistance in this case,A nominee of Sulabh International, an NGO that has rendered valuable assistance in this case,Ms. Aparajita Singh, a lawyer practising in this Court to provide any assistance on legal issues.Interestingly, the Court also asked the committee to consider one issue which was not mentioned in any reports – the need to encourage widow remarriage..“One of the issues adverted to during the hearing of the petitions, but not mentioned in any of the reports, is the need to encourage 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.”.The matter has now been listed for October 9..Read the judgment below.