Welcome to the inaugural post in a series to set the appropriate historical and cultural context for AGAINST THE ODDS OF TRADITION, my debut Historical Fiction novel scheduled for release on Sunday, March 1, 2026. Through this series, I hope to help you keep up with the research and background that sets the premise for this story of Meena Kumar, a 25-year-old educated widow to whom love, marriage, and family are forbidden by her traditions.

At the time of the article’s publication by Policy Circle[1] in 2021, there were 40 million widows in India. According to this article, that number represented 10% of the country’s female population and the largest widow population in the world at that time. These are not women looking for a new life in the aftermath of their husbands’ deaths. These are women who have voluntarily given up or have been forced to give up hope for a new life by those who had proclaimed to love them.

For centuries, widows in India performed the ritual of Sati where they, voluntarily or involuntarily depending, self-immolated (burned themselves) on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands. While religious and cultural reasons have been presented as the origins of this ritual, it simply comes down to economics. In a rich country where the natives are impoverished by their rulers, homegrown or foreign, every mouth must justify why it deserves to be fed.

The practice was known to have been abolished in the 16h century after the Portuguese invasion and then outlawed by the British in early 19^th century. The British also passed Widow Remarriage Acts in the mid-19^th century to provide agency and rights to a forgotten set of women. Enacting a law and enforcing it are two completely different things, especially in a country where a widow is seen as a burden and a bad omen whose sins attributed to the death of her husband to begin with.

Who, in a land with as many rituals as superstitions, wants to marry a bad omen? One solution that popped up over time was widow ashrams. As of February 2022, the BBC[2] reported there were 20,000 widows living in Vrindavan, a pilgrimage city with the largest widow ashram. One widow reported being brought there by her son under the pretext of prayer. Another widow reported being abandoned on the streets by her family before she found help to get to the ashram.

This is 21^st century India. Meena was a widow in 1930s India when the men would have to get their freedoms before the women could demand theirs. Stay tuned for upcoming posts to connect more dots. In the meantime, please reach out via a DM or comment on the platform you are using to view this post. I would love to hear from you. Check out more posts about this and my other work by going to www.jatinderkoharki.com. Thank you.

[1] Widows in India: Invisible women facing invisible problems | Policy Circle

[2] The widows who can’t return home