Shelter
Vasanth Kannabiran
-- by Malini Bhattacharya Tulika Books, 2008, 105 pp., 200
December 2008, volume 32, No 12

It is a truism to say that the index of the civilization is the status of its women. The honour and manhood of the state also rests on its capacity to shield and protect its women particularly the weak and the vulnerable. The Indian widow has for long been a metaphor for the humility and capacity for self sacrifice to inspire the Indian fighting for the freedom of his country thanks to Mahatma Gandhi. The Bengali widow for various historical and literary reasons has been a metaphor for the brutality and callousness of Hindu society. But evidently when it is discovered in the twentieth century that in Brindavan, that haven for widows, the Bengali widows outnumber all the others it is time to sit up and save the honour [and manhood] of the state. Is there a deliberate attempt to drive widows out of the state? How has it escaped the attention of the local authorities? What are the forces responsible for this phenomenon? These are troubling questions that have more far reaching implications than the mere fate of a few thousand widows.

In Radha’s Name: Widows and Other Women in Brindaban is an effort to trace the reasons behind the influx of Bengali widows into Brindaban. The book presents the findings of the team sent by the West Bengal Government to study the truth of the accusations/impressions and the orchestrated cacophony of the media that blamed the West Bengal Government and Bengali society as a whole for treating their widows worse than the other states.

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