Living in the shadows: ‘Widows of Vrindavan’ are the forgotten people this election
Vrindavan (UP): The buzz of electioneering stops where the quiet of their lives begin. Thousands of women, known simply as the ‘Widows of Vrindavan’, have been relegated to the margins even in the noisy, participative general elections with little interest in a group largely without voter IDs.
The women, mostly in their 60s and 70s, have taken refuge in this temple town, abandoned by their families and left with virtually no identity – other than being banded together as women whose husbands have died. Crowded together in dirty rooms and earning about Rs 20 a day, or even less, singing bhajans, there are no promises for them this election season.
And while most are resigned to their fate, some still fight it.
Like Gayatri Mukherjee who regrets she does not have voting rights despite being a citizen of India. Mukherjee lost her husband and her only daughter to cancer and came to Vrindavan after repaying the loan taken from their treatment
“I voted in every election in Kolkata. I am a citizen of this country and I feel that I should also take part in this festival of democracy. Perhaps this is not possible now, so what will be the point of mourning,” said the politically aware 67-year-old.
Anita Das, also abandoned by her family, knows an election is around the corner but has come to stoically accept that there is nothing for women like her.
“I am 80 now. I tried but now at this age what will I do even after getting recognition as a voter. It is better to spend my last moments peacefully taking Krishna’s name rather than wandering from door-to-door,” she said while waiting for her turn to sing in a temple.
“I know that elections are happening. The condition of Bengal is also serious but I want to live peacefully here. There is no interest left neither in casting vote nor in getting Voter ID made.” Das came to Vrindavan from Kolkata after the death of her husband 17 years ago and has spent a major part of her widowed life in the bylanes of Vrindavan, which falls in the Mathura Lok Sabha constituency.
Mahananda, who came here 15 years ago after she couldn’t live on at her home in Maharashtra because of her daughter-in-law’s harassment after her husband’s death, said, “I have an Aadhar card but do not have a voter ID. Who do I ask to get it made?”
In the world’s biggest festival of democracy when politicians across parties are trying to attract the voters, the widows, without any social capital, find they have no political capital either because most are not registered voters.
