From Margins to Movement: The Legal Awakening of India's Widows and Single Women

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

Avid readers of Shakespeare may recall the melancholic musings of Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night — yearning for love in a world that objectified women. Literature across centuries, from Brontë's Jane Eyre to Tagore's Chokher Bali, has revealed a recurring truth: that women have long struggled to find their voice in patriarchal societies.
While modern India has made significant strides in empowering women — with leaders at the forefront of politics, science, and social change — there remains a large, often invisible group still battling for dignity: India's widows and single women.
Through its collaboration with the field research collective Kacheri Diaries, 5 Points Chambers has already supported vital legal literacy efforts — including recent groundwork in Urali Kanchan, Maharashtra, where rural widows and single women were informed of their land and succession rights for the first time.
It's no surprise, then, that the work of Ekal Nari Shakti Sansthan (ENSS) — or The Organisation of Strong Women Alone — struck a powerful chord. What began as a grassroots movement in Rajasthan has now caught the attention of 5 Points Chambers, leading to a transnational collaboration rooted in shared values: justice, dignity, and access for all women, regardless of geography.
Across India's rural landscape, particularly in conservative states like Rajasthan, single women — whether widowed, divorced, separated, or older and unmarried — face systemic exclusion. They are frequently denied access to family property, ostracised by society, and left without any real path to economic independence.
While courts across India are over burdened with unresolved cases, there are countless women who cannot even access the system. Their stories never reach the courtroom. These are women who, despite having legal rights to property, livelihood schemes, or entitlements, are simply unaware — or unable — to claim them. In many cases, widows are left without family support, social standing, or even basic information on their rights.
That's where ENSS steps in. Founded in Rajasthan, the organisation has been working tirelessly since 2002 to support single women, including widows, separated and abandoned women, and older unmarried women. What started as a state-level gathering of 450 widows in 1999 has grown into a full-fledged movement with single women themselves in leadership roles.
At the helm is Chandrakala Sharma, a fierce advocate for gender equity and land rights, who has helped shape ENSS into a model of grassroots feminism rooted in dignity, access, and solidarity.
ENSS's mission is bold and transformative: to ensure that every single woman, regardless of caste, religion, or class, can live as an empowered citizen with full access to legal, social, and cultural entitlements.
As their legal awareness grows, these women are transforming their communities — helping others obtain access to electricity, clean water, government schemes, open education programmes, and skills training. They champion fair wages, push for individual MGNREGA cards as household heads, and demand respect not as victims, but as change-makers.
Despite a strong constitutional and legal framework, enforcement remains the biggest barrier. Under Indian law, widows have rights to their husbands' property, and daughters have equal inheritance rights after the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005. Yet many women — especially in rural India — are unaware of these laws or lack the documents, support, or social power to enforce them.
According to ENSS, widows often face opposition from their in-laws, who seek to evict them from family land. False accusations — branding them as 'unlucky are used to push them out of their homes and strip them of dignity. Separated and abandoned women fare even worse: they may have lived and worked on land for decades without a shred of legal entitlement, especially if no formal divorce has been obtained.
The law still leaves many women behind. For instance: separated or abandoned women — whose husbands have left or disappeared — have no legal claim to marital property without a formal divorce. Divorced women may also lack legal recourse unless property is specifically awarded in settlement. Unmarried daughters, despite legal rights to parental property, often face societal resistance in asserting those rights.
5 Points Chambers, a UK-based law firm, is committed to advancing mediation and grassroots justice. As advocates for non-adversarial dispute resolution and equal access to justice, we collaborate closely with ENSS and partner initiatives like Kacheri Diaries, whose vital fieldwork has laid the groundwork for legal awareness in rural communities. Together, we aim to raise awareness and give a stronger global voice to their cause. Transformative legal awareness must be built from the ground up — starting with the most silenced voices.
Legal schemes exist, but awareness doesn't. And this flaw remains all too common across rural and suburban India.
As Chandrakala Sharma, head of ENSS, puts it:
'We are not just helping women survive — we are helping them reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Once a woman realises her rights, she is no longer alone.'
As India moves forward with landmark reforms like the Mediation Act, let us not forget the women left furthest behind. The ENSS model teaches us that justice is not merely the domain of courts — it begins in fields, in villages, and in the quiet assertion of dignity by women who have refused to be broken.
Susheel BellaraBarrister and Founder, 5 Points Chambers, London, UK
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