Fatima Thesis.docx

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUTION Plight of widows: The study of patriarchal society in Bapsi Sidwa’s Water. Bapsi Sidhwa was born in Karachi in 1939. She was raised and educated in Lahore. Bapsi Sidhwa has been praised as ‘A Powerful and Dramatic Novelist.’--- The Times Sidhwa is the author of five novels: Water, The Bride, Crow Eaters, An American Brat, and Cracking India (Ice-Candy-Man), which was a Notable Book of New York Times, nominated by the American Library Association as Notable Book. The book also won the Literature Prize in Germany in 1991, and was made into the award-winning film Earth by Indian director Deepa Mehta in 1999. Sidhwa received the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest honor in the arts in 1991, and was inducted into the Zoroastrian Hall of Fame in 2000. She has been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, and the Bunting Fellowship from Radcliffe, amongst other award honors. Her novels have been published in India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, and Italy. Bapsi Sidhwa is a Parsi diaspora writer and the genres discussed in her novels are Post-colonialism, Partition, and cultural Literature. Deepa Mehta adapted Sidhwa’s Cracking India into a critically acclaimed movie, Earth. The two veterans joined hands again for another project called Water.

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Water was made in 2005, and Bapsi Sidhwa according to the wishes of the producers was asked to write a novel which was to be released with the movie. Sidhwa’s novel Water brings to light the conventional customs that victimize women. The subject of the novel is controversial and complicated. Water offers a concerning examination of the lives of widows in colonial India, but ultimately it is a haunting and lyrical story of love, faith, and redemption. Her writing style is commendable which took the story to another level. In a span of four months, she gave more background to some of the characters, including the child widow. Sidhwa says she began to read extensively about the widow system in India and various related customs and traditions. She was able to explain the background of many rituals and customs that the film, given its running time, could not. It is one of the great works of art which must be not only read but preserved as a treasure as it focuses on women’s issues, cultures and customs of India especially on pre-independent India. It is also a wonderful opportunity to immerse oneself in the delicious language so peculiar to the Anglo Indian authors of the sub-continent. Sidhwa has written a truly stunning novel which reveals the fact that even today there are widow ashrams in Varanasi. Her recurring themes include human relationships and betrayals, the coming of age and its attendant disillusionments, immigration, and cultural hybridity, as well as social and political upheavals. Sidhwa skilfully links gender to community, nationality, religion, and class, demonstrating the

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ways in which these various aspects of cultural identity and social structure do not merely affect or reflect one another, but instead are inextricably intertwined. Sidhwa’s feminist touch to her characters moves violently forward despite many obstacles. She exposes the true selves of women by observing the lives too closely and understanding the limited space given to them in this patriarchal social system. She does not shy away from stating that women are by nature loyal, in whatever role they are placed in the society. They live for love but become the victim of lust, just because of their lovable nature and considered to be emotionally weak. This research highlights the complexities the brutalities of Hinduism against widows. This research also exposes the individual equity, fatalism, and violence unseen in conventional Hinduism. Sidhwa’s Water is all about Indian widows in the 1930s and how they were forcefully made to live in the widow ashrams and fearlessly attacks the oppressing falsity of a patriarchal customs that have developed over thousands of years of socioeconomic imperatives and now disguises itself as religion. This research presents the offense of women especially widows by other heartless people and how they are dragged into adultery. In addition to, it is not acceptable the remarriage of widows (punar vivah) in Hindu’s orthodox society back in 1930s which is legally acceptable in our society. It also powerfully points to some of the underlying economic factors behind the dispossession of widows. As Narayan explains, when widows are segregated from their husband, family and property, they are: “One less

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mouth to feed, four saris saved. One bed and a corner are saved in the family house. There is no other reason why you are sent here.”(Water). And while the treatment of widows is disguised as religion, he concludes, “It’s all about money.” These few sentences illuminate the situation in an extremely powerful manner. This research is primarily intended to highlight the history of oppression on widows in misogynist patriarchal society. This study explicates the journey of child widow chuhiya who unaware of social obligations and hierarchies, but acts according to her emotions. The only social role she has had so far was being the child of her parents. She cannot remember her marriage and therefore cannot be considered a married woman. She is even too young to know women’s role in society general, so how should she understand what being a widow means? This age is even so immature to understand the concept of marriage. This research explicates the prevalent conditions of widows. The male domination and prevailing superstitions have made woman so hardhearted that she becomes cruel towards her own sex. They are getting suppressed in the name of religion. Within the dominator system, the widow constitutes threat to society as she is perceived to be inauspicious and polluted, because of her association with death and sexually dangerous as she becomes desirable and uncontrolled by a male counterpart. The disfiguring of the body is enforced in order to reduce their attractiveness as women by transforming them into neuter or sexual beings by prohibiting them from

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wearing the symbols of marriage (vermillion mark, bangles, marriage, pendant) and, more deeply traumatic, having their heads shaven.

Kate Young in an article published in Gender and Development journal as “Widows without rights: challenging marginalisation and dispossession” states: In some cultures, a widow is liable to lose all the possessions acquired during the duration of her marriage, including access to the means of making a livelihood for herself / and her children, if, as is often the case, the widow is young and her children are still unable to fend for themselves. To avoid destitution, she may be forced to marry one of her husband’s close kinsmen / a younger brother, perhaps many years younger than herself, or an older brother, who already has one or several wives, who may not welcome yet another set of mouths to be fed from the collective landholding.

Through the topic of widowhood, Uma Chakravarti an Indian feminist historian demonstrates in On Widowhood: The Critique of Cultural Practices that how women writers went on to discusses issues of female agency and autonomy, and critique larger patriarchal structures such as religion and family, which reinforced oppressive practices against women. Chakravarti thus claims that these works were responsible for expanding the boundaries of the discourse around widowhood, making widows the subject of the issue than mere lifeless objects. She critiques these works, analysing the ideologies and influences of each writer.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The primary source of this study is Bapsi Sidhwa’s Water (2006). The research methodology of this thesis is descriptive, analytic and explanatory. In order to support the argument, various secondary sources are utilized like research journals and websites. This research work is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 This chapter introduces the thesis statement besides featuring an introduction of the writer and highlighting her writing style. The topic of the research is also introduced in this chapter besides a brief summary of chapters. Chapter 2 This chapter deals with the Literature Review incorporating the arguments and viewpoints of different critics and writers relevant to the research thesis are included in this section. Chapter 3 This chapter discusses the hardships of widows facing marginalization from society and family and how they forcefully make to live in widow ashrams. Chapter 4 This chapter discusses the prevalent conditions of widows and how they are still facing social destitution.

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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW A large number of social cultures throughout the world, brand widows as a curse and they are at times blamed for the demise of their husbands, irrespective of the original cause of death. As a result, they are subjected to a number of humiliations and denial in the name of religious and customary rites. Most cultures deny rights of widow on the husband’s property and are driven out from their homes until and unless they marry their brother-in-law. Even worse, they might be abused physically or even murdered to keep them from claiming any inheritance and land rights.

The plight of widows has gone unnoticed through several centuries. However, with increasing awareness of human rights, people have drawn their attention to the bereaved life of widows. Programs are now held to provide support to widow women and make their life more secure, both socially and financially. An international law for widows has been implemented to put an end to their suffering and help them acquire the rights which they truly deserve. On an interview by Francesco Mannomi, Bapsi Sidhwa discussed the significance of Gandhi movement for freedom and independence. One the question she answered: The ‘Untouchables’ are the pariahs of the Hindu caste system and Gandhi fought against their inhuman treatment.

He renamed

them ‘Harijans’ (Children-of-God); they now have a chance for

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education and some political power. This was Gandhi’s most significant contribution in the social sphere. He also tried to dispel the prejudice against Hindu widows, and other social injustices.

The prejudices remain, but there is improvement.

Gandhi’s doctrines are respected by people of all faiths; even if they are not followed. Kate Young in an article published in Gender and Development journal as “Widows without rights: challenging marginalisation and dispossession” states: The ill-treatment of widows is thus an acute expression of gender inequality. It stems from a denial of the possibility of women being and behaving autonomously from men, and the creation of women as highly dependent social beings. A widow no longer has a male ‘protector’ and despite a proper and recognised marriage, her rights in her husband’s kin group are weak, while she retains few rights in her natal kin group. As the widow is socially weak, she therefore can be thought to be an easy prey for the ruthless. As such, widows often lose control of land and other assets to which they have rights, and are subjected to all forms of sexual harassment-the word for widow and for whore are closely related in Hindi. They can have the heartbreak of losing their young children, due to the inability to earn an independent living and live autonomously in patriarchal societies.

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In India widowhood was not just transition from one marital status to another after the death of the husband. Entering into widowhood is more hazardous, painful and humiliating to women than to a widower because of the discrimination and the ritual sanctions of the society against widows. With the result, widows not only suffer social and economic sanctions but also face many psychological consequences, loneliness, and in many cases deprivation causing emotional disturbances and imbalance. In Ghandi's movement for freedom and independence he fought for women's right which was against child marriage, purdah, and sati. The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 states that girls under 18 and boys under 21 could not get married. Ghandi was open to the idea of widows getting remarried and soon there was a law that allowed it too. Gandhi believed that the Hindu concept of faithful widow who remains chaste and devotes herself to good work in her husband's memory is a worthy ideal for women to strive for salvation. However, enforced widowhood, which is the result of social pressure rather than inner conviction, is merely a charade, which far from encouraging morality may have the opposite effect. According to Gandhi,

Widowhood imposed by religion or custom is an unbearable yoke, and defiles the home by secret vice and degrades religion. In order to save Hinduism, enforced widowhood must be ridden. Child widows must be duly and well married and not remarried. They were never really married" (India of My Dreams).

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Sarah Lamb in her article Aging, gender and widowhood: Perspectives from rural West Bengal states that: Widowhood was the phase of despair in the life for most women. Widowhood hence was also a dreaded time of life. Depending on her caste and age at widowhood, a woman could expect to face numerous of hardships. French indologist Abbé Dubois in his Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies wrote: The happiest death for a woman is that which overtakes her while she is still in a wedded state. The Bengali intellectual and reformer Ram Mohan Roy, who had seen his own widowed sister-in-law burnt in 1812 – "A hysterical and unhappy sacrifice" (quoted in Allan / Haig / Dodwell 1934: 722) Filmmaker Deepa Mehta also praised by her movie in The New York Times: Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, "Water" is an exquisite film about the institutionalized oppression of an entire class of women and the way patriarchal imperatives inform religious belief. ‘A magnificent film!’ -Salman Rushdie

The novel has been commented upon by a Canadian novelist M.G. Vassangi:

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‘A Deeply Moving Story, Elegantly Told, With All The Assurance Of A Master’ Sara Suleri Goodyear praises Novel Water, ‘In this brilliant work Bapsi Sidhwa adds richness and depth to the beautiful film Water. With her characteristic grace, Sidhwa historicize the image, lends greater poignancy to faces and provides speech where the film must leave the women speechless.’

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CHAPTER 3: THE HARDSHIPS OF WIDOWS IN ASHRAM The novel takes the most controversial issues including patriarchy, religion, corruption, poverty, child prostitution and hidden love. These issues are brought to light through the stories of three widows: Chuyia, a child widow who brings life into the ashram; Kalyani, a beautiful young widow, who falls in love with a reformist law student Narayan, and Shakuntala, a devout believes in the traditions who struggle to make sense of the realities that surround her. According to Gandhi, the problem of early widowhood for Hindu girls is closely connected to the problem of child marriage. He pointed out that girl children left widowed should not be considered widows in the true sense of the term, because they had never experienced married-life. Gandhi referred to the prohibition of remarriage for child widows as a senseless and cruel custom, which should be abolished forthwith. The unhappy girls should be given every opportunity to find mates. Gandhi's opposition to enforced widowhood of young girls went so far to publically call upon young college men to take a vow to marry none other than a girl widow. (Young India)

Chuyia is an eight year old child, married to an elderly man, Hira Lal, who is nearing fifty. After two years, Chuyia had literally forgotten that she was married. Hira Lal is taken ill and dies, leaving Chuyia a widow at a tender age. Her father Somnath, takes her for the funeral rites, where looking at the pyres, Chuyia is bewitched by the flames.

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She is too young to understand any notion of marriage and of death. Chuyia’s mother-in-law gazes callously at her as she thinks it is her bad karmas that have brought death to her son. Hindu customs in the villages of Bihar, bordering Bengal, are heart-wrenching. Chuyia is stripped off her mangal-sutra and other symbols that are indicative of her marital status. Her bangles are smashed brutally, treating her as if she was cast in stone. Even the barber who is to shave her head was moved by the predicament in which Chuyia is enmeshed. After bathing, on the ghats, she is stripped off the colorful clothes by a hired woman and is wrapped in just a single white coarse-cloth. She is left to her fate by her mother-in-law. Her father can’t keep her because of the strict codes of Hindu Brahminical laws.

From now onwards Chuyia has stopped existing as a person and is fit to be part of the society. It is tragic beyond comprehension how even parents could be so indifferent to one’s own child just for the sake of carrying the burden of inhuman laws of the land. In spite of Chuyia’s imploration to take her back home, Somnath, left her in the widow-ashram, where Chuyia first of all confronts Madhumati who welcomes her saying: “In our shared grief we’re all sisters here and this ashram is our only refuge” (Water 36)

This is the larger concern that Sidhwa touches upon, speaking for the suffering of women across the globe, in one way or the other. But her protagonists are daring, causing ripples in the surroundings in which they are forced to live and in the process come to self-realization. The unawareness of inscribed social stigma also makes her think, that she can decide whether she wants to be a widow or not.

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In the dialogue, Chuiya first takes a glimpse inside the ashram and then comes to the decision that she would prefer going home. Then she is taken inside and experiences some more of the lives of the widows. After Madhumati’s explanations Chuiya angrily shouts at her: “I don’t want to be a stupid widow! Fatty!” (Water 37) Chuyia is always hoping against hope that one day she will go back home. In this regard Jai Arjun Singh’s observation is pertinent. “Slowly, Chuyia overcomes her sense of dislocation, makes friends with other women in the ashram and stirs a few hackles with her directness in situations where others simply follow the letter of the ancient texts” Chuyia, Bapsi’s protagonist, is a keen observer. When she sees a large number of widows’s collected in the temple hall, clapping and singing joylessly, as this was their only means of sustenance, feeding a fistful of rice and daal, served after the performance of the religious rites, Chuyia instinctively asks: “Where is the house for men-widows?”(Water 70) This question sends simmers down the widows who instinctively cry out aloud, “God, protect our men from such a fate!” (Water 70) Chuyia, who is quiet observant notices that among the widows, there is one, whose head,is not shaven. She befriends her and finds out that this young widow is Kalyani, who is assigned a separate room on the terrace. Kalyani too, is touched by the fate of this child-widow and is reminded of her own wounds. She is sympathetic and caring towards Chuyia who in turn

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serves as a huge wave upon which Kalyani tries to surf for a fulfilment. When her friend Kalyani falls in love with a young Gandhian idealist, the proscribed affair boldly defies Hindu tradition and threatens to destabilize the delicate power balance within the ashram. Kalyani tells Chuyia that she is free to visit her room and play with Kaalu, the pet dog, whenever she likes. But Chuyia instantly responds with all gravity, ‘I am not staying here…My mother is coming to get me.’ (Water 45) When Kalyani makes no attempt to answer, Chuyia again asserted, ‘If not today, tomorrow for sure.’ (Water 45) Such confidence is undoubtedly the domain of Sidhwa’s protagonists in novel after novel. Sidhwa’s canvas encompasses daring women who have a strong urge to bury that is obsolete and walk their own paths. Chuyia loves Kalyani’s pet Kaalu, as it reminds her own pet back home. Both of them had gone to the ghats to bathe Kaalu, when Narayan, a young follower of Gandhi is mesmerized by the onset of his feelings for Kaalu and wanted to know where she lived, Chuyia’s acute perception of his innermost recesses cast her into the role of an elder and taking pity on him says: ‘She lives in the House of widows, and that, I am just visiting her’ (Water 55). This statement by Chuyia brings to surface the dubiousness of the strictures imposed on her childhood and she is sure of returning to her parents someday. Chuyia serves as a vehicle for Narayan and Kalyani’s romance to flourish, helping them exchange written scripts, professing the love for each other. Sidhwa herself acknowledges Chuyia’s role in this developing relationship. Chuyia became the secret emissary between Narayan and kalyani and took her role seriously and delighted in it.

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The most elderly widow, whose husband had also died when she was young, tells Chuyia that life is unhappiness. She passes the time dreaming about sweets like the ones she had eaten at her wedding and pines for the only physical pleasure she had known. When another widow dies, her sardonic comment sums up the oppression of Indian women and, ironically, the place of religion in this oppression: “God willing, she’ll be reborn as a man!”(Water 100) Chuyia was once offered puris by Gulabi, the eunuch, but Madhumati scolded her saying,“Are you mad?’ she scolded Gulabi. ‘Giving a widow forbidden food!’ (Water 122) Chuyia is offended and challenges say, “So what? I will eat a hundred puris at Kalyani’s wedding.”(Water 122) The piece of information and the defying attitude of Chuyia was too much for Madhumati to digest and conforming again from Chuyia, she snorted, “She will get married over my dead body! Widows don’t get married.”(Water 122) But Chuyia maintained what was the truth and rightful, insisted, “But she will.” “No she won’t! Now get off” (Water 122). At a later stage in the novel when Madhumati tries to push Chuyia into prostitution, through Gulabi, the eunuch, and had literally sent her across the water on the pretext of sending Chuyia to her parental home as this was the weak spot where Madhumati could take advantage of otherwise defying child. Chuyia, as a child she is, unaware of the ways of the adult world. She is rescued by Shakuntala from the boat by which Gulabi was rowing back to Ghats across the waters. Seeing Shakuntala’s rage, Gulabi runs away to save herself from her wrath. Shakuntala with the help of a woman, a Gandhi

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follower sprinkled water on Chuyia who seemed to have been drugged. Shakuntala was clear about the way Chuyia’s life should be stirred: After Kalyani’s suicide and the bestial horrors that had been perpetrated on the poor child in her arms, her convictions had been shaken; they couldn’t be counted on to direct her life any more. (Water) Shakuntala had a fainting hope that this was the right time when Chuyia should be boarded on the train and handed over to any of the Gandhi followers. Taking Chuyia in her lap, she runs across the platform the train by which Gandhi was travelling had just whistled and sped off. But her faith in Gandhi and his followers was so strong that Shakuntala ran to the risk of her life. There was loud screams, and just then she saw Narayan gasping to hold Chuyia. With the help of people on board Chuyia was ultimately in the safe hands of Narayan and other Gandhi followers. Shakuntala was hopeful that anyone of them would marry Chuyia and she will find a blessed future in the custody of people with broadened outlook. Sidhwa hints that there is a ray of hope, bringing to readers the fact among the followers of Gandhi. Shakuntala also has a glance of the face of the same woman who had helped Chuyia regain consciousness at the ghats, and she promised to take care of Chuyia. Arjun Singh’s states that, “Growing influence of Mahatama Gandhi does in fact seem to indicate a better future for society’s victims, and Water ends on a tenuous note of hope”

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The author in an interview to Francesco Mannoni acknowledges that, “At eight years old, Chuyia is too young and seems to have been doctrined by the worst of these traditions, and she rebels against them. Most girls in her position succumb to the pressures of traditional mores by their teens, but they don’t lose their desire for romance and love. Chuyia’s example and the change in thinking of other widows, especially Shakuntla, are cause for hope and celebration.”

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CHAPTER 4 PREVALENT CONDITIONS OF INDIAN WIDOWS

In all societies, the loss of the marital partner through death necessarily involves several changes in the financial arrangements and subsequent economic management, and these are even more so if the dead spouse was the primary earner in the family. In general, women tend to be worse affected, largely because of the gender construction of society: in almost all societies, men are disproportionately likely to hold assets of all kinds and engage in paid work, relative to women. The well-known gender gaps in occupational distribution and pay add to the discrepancy. So a wide range of patriarchal institutions, most particular patrilineal inheritance, patrilocal residence and the gendered division of labour in a society, which affect all women, also affect widows and make their situation that much more difficult than for widowed men. Patrilocality in the narrow sense refers to the norm prevalent in most Hindu communities of India, according to which a woman has to leave her parental home at the time of marriage to join her husband in his home. In a broader sense, especially in North India where marriage rules dictate marriage outside the village, Patrilocality can also be understood to refer to the drastic alienation from her parental family experienced by a married woman after her 'transfer' to her husband's family.

The system of patrilocal residence also plays a crucial part in the deprivation of widows. In North India, in particular, widows are expected to

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remain in their husband's village, and most of them do so. However, they are unlikely to receive much support from their in-laws. In effect, most North Indian widows are denied both the freedom to leave their husband's village, and the support they need to live there happily (Dreze and Sen 1995:174). The north Indian widow tends to be a highly marginalised person. She typically receives very little support from persons other than her children, and even when she lives with one or several of her adult sons she remains highly vulnerable to neglect.

But in India the gender dimensions of this are much stronger than in most other countries and they affect many more women. There are at least 55 million widows in India, probably more. That is around the same as the entire population of countries like South Africa and Tanzania, more than all the people in South Korea or Myanmar. It is well known that in India widows tend to face many difficulties and deprivations because of negative social attitudes towards them and social restrictions that are placed upon them and their activities. They are subject to patriarchal customs, religious laws and widespread discrimination in inheritance rights. Many suffer abuse and exploitation at the hands of family members, often in the context of property disputes.

Remarriage is much less common than among male widowers, and often explicitly or implicitly forbidden by local communities and prevalent cultural norms. Widows are often perceived as “unlucky” and subject to various kinds of discrimination and even ostracism. Issues about the division of the marital property and the rights of the widowed over such property,

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relative to the rights of children, are also significant. In many instances, women are denied automatic rights over the property of the dead spouse, and are therefore forced to reply upon the largesse of inheriting children. In families with less assets and incomes they are also more prone to being abandoned or forced to reside in ashrams and similar refuges, as testified by the well-known presence of widows in Banaras. Among the extremely destitute in India, widows are disproportionately represented.

In the northern Indian state of Punjab, a widow is referred to as Randi, which means “prostitute” in Punjabi. In this region, they usually arrange for the widow to marry her deceased husband’s brother because being owned by a man is a way to avoid being raped. “Widowhood is a state of social death, even among the higher castes,” says Mohini Giri, a veteran activist in the fight for women’s rights who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She is also the director of the Chennai-based social work non-profit organization Guild for Service. Widows are still accused of being responsible for their husband’s death, and they are expected to have a spiritual life with many restrictions which affects them both physically and psychologically. Laxmi Puri, acting Head of UN Women, told The Hindu during her recent visit to India: First because they are women and second being widows, such women encounter heightened discrimination. So we need to

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address the issues of widows and their condition as part of gender equality and empowerment agenda. The cities of Vrindavan and Varanasi – referred to as the “widow cities” of India –welcome thousands of widows every year; those who have no other place left to go. These cities are home to a large number of dingy, suffocated, guest houses and “ashrams” where impoverished and abandoned widows spend the remainder of their lives.

In such places, young widows are often sexually exploited or enter prostitution. Elderly widows are reduced to begging outside temples or busy streets. Such widows don’t have roofs over their heads. It’s believed that about 15,000 of them live on the streets of Vrindavan, which makes a large majority of the 55, 000 people who live there.

Although widows today are not forced to die in ritual sati (where a wife is forced to immolates herself on the burning pyre of her deceased husband), they are still generally expected to mourn until the end of their lives. According to 2,000-year-old sacred texts by Manu, the Hindu progenitor of mankind: “A virtuous wife is one who after the death of her husband constantly remains chaste and reaches heaven though she has no son.” Historically, traditions like ‘widow-burning’ or Sati characterized the norms of Hindu society for widows. The treatment they got was extremely discriminatory and inhuman. Practices such as Sati were abolished during the

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British rule and in 1856 the British legalized widow remarriage in India. A century and a half has passed away since then; Indian Independence has happened, economic liberalization and globalization have transformed our basic cultural system. Yet, widows still lead a miserable and pitiable life in many towns of India. In the absence of financial independence, their hardships only increase. This is one of the major reasons behind their ouster from home — because they’re seen as a financial drain on their families. The fundamental flaw in the law’s treatment of widows is the bias that exists towards women’s protection, rather than women’s independence. Widows are left marginalised as the legal system assumes a paternalistic stance. Instead of helping women to become self-sufficient, the state takes over and propagates the rhetoric appropriate to a caretaker social welfare ideology, but it does not implement programs that would provide the measures it promises.

According to recent information, widows represent a little over 9 per cent of the female population. The incidence of widowhood is lower in most of the northern states than in south India. This can be attributed to several factors, including strong survival advantages of adult females (compared with adult males) in the south; a large difference between male and female age at marriage in the south; comparatively high remarriage rates in the north; and high mortality rates among north Indian widows. The incidence of widowhood rises sharply with age. The proportion of widows is as high as 64 per cent among women aged 60 and above, and 80 per cent among women

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aged 70 and above. In other words, an Indian woman who survives to old age is almost certain to become a widow.

Leaving aside societal stigmas, economic problems could be addressed to some extent by formulating welfare schemes for widows. But facts reveal those that currently exist are poorly implemented. Only about 28 percent of the widows in India are eligible for pensions and even among them less than 11 percent actually receive their dues.

A tiny ray of hope, however, has made its way recently as the Supreme Court of India has appointed a seven-member panel to collect data on the socio-economic conditions of widows in Uttar Pradesh, taking note of their “pitiable condition”. The committee is to conduct an enumeration of the widows living in the city within eight weeks. The SC bench has taken note of the need for “immediate steps for their rehabilitation and better living”. In 2015 The Widow Protection and Maintenance bill passed by Shri Janardan Singh, M.P to provide for the measures to be undertaken by the State for the protection and maintenance of neglected, abandoned and destitute widows by establishing a Welfare Board for such widows and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Also Water concludes with a sign of hope for the widows in the ashram; as well as for all the other discarded and untouchables in India. Gandhi’s train goes through the village bringing that message of change and hope.

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CONCLUSION Throughout the novel, there is a stigma around widows. Widows are considered a disgrace in society and go through a lot of hardships to survive. In culture and tradition widows are considered also to be a bad omen and the reason for the death of their husbands. They are supposed to do the work others are doing for a long time. They follow the same rules like other widows and believe it is the fate they deserve like putting restrictions on their diets and do what traditions ask them to do. The novel proves to be a seething critique of India social system prior to independence days. Gandhi is seen as the "only" hope for the upliftment of the widows.

This research concludes with the sign of hope when the widow child gets free from the irrational conventional norms implied by patriarchal society.

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WORKCITED Chandrasekhar, C. P. “What it means to be a widow in India today.” The hindu

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(Oct

09,

2017).

www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/c-p-chandrasekhar/what-itmeans-to-be-a-widow-in-india-today Chahar, Santosh. “Chuyia: A Vehicle of Social Consciousness in Bapsi Sidhwa's

Water.”

www.academia.edu

Chuyia_A_Vehicle_of_Social_Consciousness_in_Bapsi_Sidhwas_Water Eva Corbacho, Sara Barrera. "The ongoing tragedy of India’s widows." WMC WOMEN

UNDER

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2012,

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