35-year-old Sunita from Baijnath in Kangra district fought for maintenance from her husband for 8 years in the court with the help of her poor parents. She did not get a penny. In the meantime, her husband died. She could not even get social security pension (Rs. 700 a month) for want of documents and is now struggling to make both ends meet with her 10-year-old son.

Similarly, mother of two, Jaiwanti Devi, 38, of Chopal in Shimla district, got just Rs 11,000/- over last 12 years in the name of maintenance from her husband after separation. She too filed a suit with financial support by her parents, and is living on meagre income from a small beauty parlour.

Advertisement

Sunita had left her husband due to domestic violence and Jaiwanti had decided to live separately for other reasons despite poverty.

The sordid tale of this long wait for justice is shared by many more poor single women in Himachal Pradesh, many of whom don’t have even access to justice. They are not only hurdled by circumstances due to hostile taboo ridden society, but also by financial dependence.  

Such women have however, found a voice in the Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, the single women forum, in HP, which has strongly put up the demand before chief minister, Virbhadra Singh to revive autonomous ‘Nyaya Panchayats’ to facilitate single women get easy access to speedy justice at the doorstep.

An autonomous ‘Nyaya Panchayat’ is a separate justice delivery system in villages- which went missing in HP after 1978, when the government gave the role of justice delivery to Panchayats in general.

The Panchayats since then had been avoiding to take up this duty, for the vote politics involved.

Founded in 2005, the single women forum is headed by Nirmal Chandel, 49, who was widowed at the age of 23-years and had to struggle a lot therein. More than 15,000 single women from HP villages, including deserted, divorced, widows and unmarried women as its members and the forum fights for their basic rights to live with dignity.

“In many cases, the single women in villages neither have courage nor resources to knock at the doors of the court approach the court. Others who do, keep waiting for justice on basic rights. Their issues are as important as domestic violence, right to maintenance, property and other issues,” Nirmal Chandel told The Statesman.

She said the separate ‘Nyaya Panchayats’ can solve the problem as women can then easily approach them locally, without any hitch and get their due. “But they should be autonomous and have reputed and qualified persons from society for fair decisions,” she said. She said Bihar already has ‘gram Kachhehris’ for the purpose.