Bangle-breaking ceremonies (where all the symbols of marriage: the red kumkum mark (pottu), the thaali (mangalsutra) are removed) are notoriously common in Tamil Nadu’s southern villages. In fact, these ceremonies are conducted before dawn, when even the gods are supposedly sleeping, because such a merciless sight is capable of disturbing even them.

Not only is a woman forced to undergo emotional agony because of her husband’s absence, but she is also forced to face social humiliation. The things that society puts forward as symbols of femininity and desirability are snatched away overnight. Widows are systematically kept out of social functions (celebration of menarche or marriage), they are stigmatized and heaped with abuse and they are denied all decision making at the family level. They are also denied civil rights–commonly-held beliefs discriminate widows by virtue of their being considered “inauspicious”. Tamil proverbs say that to see a widow early in the morning effectively ruins a day, and so on.

Yesterday, the women who were the driving force behind the documentary Pottu, got together and announced that soon they would be hosting the first international conference of widows, destitute and deserted women. They have two demands: laws to prosecute people who abuse widows in degrading terms and social, economic, legal rehabilitation for the widows.

There are several reasons why such a project has emerged from Tamil Nadu. According to a statistics by the Kalangarai Trust approximately 10% of the households in the state are headed by widows, and that 24% of the widows live alone. Majority of the widows are mothers of the head of the household. Their study also shows that the highest concentration of widows (8.06% of the general population) in Tamil Nadu arises from two categories of widows particular to the southern-coastal districts of the state: Tsunami widows and widows of men who have succumbed to HIV/AIDS. A large number of them work as daily wage labourers.

Tamil widows face a particular problem because of the manner in which their language subjugates them. The English word widow has an equivalent masculine form widower (which might carry fewer negative connotations may be, but at least a word exists). There’s no equivalent masculine form for the word vidhavai (widow) in Tamil. On the other hand, in popular practice, a just-widowed man is humorously referred to as the pudhu maapillai (new bridegroom)–perhaps enshrining the fact that he would soon be married to someone.

Widowhood is also becoming a problem that cuts across cultures. No longer are Hindu widows alone subjected to such torment. Even a religion like Islam, where there’s no bar on widow remarriage, is being influenced by local practices. At the documentary release function, a Muslim woman lamented how her own community was now following these meaningless practices which has historically plagued the Hindu religion.

The efforts of William Benetick and Raja Rammohun Roy put an end to the Sati system in 1829. The Widow Remarriage Act was passed in 1856. Another hundred years later, the Child Marriage Restraint Act came into place. Every reformer and every revolutionary on the Indian soil has voiced about the condition of widows: Phule opened a home for widows and abandoned children, Dr. Ambedkar traced the roots of the sati system in the necessity to maintain/preserve the endogamous caste structure, Periyar argued for widow remarriage. Even a middle-of-the-road traditionalist reformer like Gandhi condemned the practice of widowhood in no uncertain terms. Pandita Ramabai became an icon by speaking out against the heinous nature of imposed widowhood.

Today, as women fight against gender injustice and social indignity, they are forced to confront several challenges: how to oppose cultural facets that alienate widows, how to create alternative cultural symbols that don’t differentiate between women, how to develop a policy framework not only for widows but also for single women in India and especially how to fight against a hypocritical system where the oppressor is not someone from the outside, but one’s own blood, one’s own family? Perhaps this is one area where there is no dearth of Hindi/Tamil films that describe the plight, but there is a paucity of public debate and discussion.

(p.s.: Women members of this organization demanded (rightfully of course) that they should be allowed to wear bangles, wear flowers, and above all, wear the pottu. However, every ‘invited’ speaker pointed out that all women should unite to throw away the markers of marriage and/or femininity such as the bangles/flowers/pottu/thaali and so on? All of us might agree that these are decisions which women should take as individuals, and not just as a category, but then, what’s your take on this?)