By Maeeshat Correspondent,

New Delhi, July 19: In what could turn out to be a historic social revolution in the country, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Central Government to frame schemes to promote remarriage of widows to bring them in mainstream society.

Thanks to social stigma attached to widowhood particularly in the Hindu society, there are over 5.6 crore widows living a destitute life in the country. Islam and Christianity have provisions for remarriage of widows.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta of the apex court also asked the government to rehabilitate the widows by imparting skills so that they could lead an independent life.

More importantly, the court stressed that the Central government must take steps to remove the social stigma attached to widowhood.

“There is no proposal for remarriage of widows, particularly of young widows. Because of prevailing social ethos against widows, we have to encourage them to remarry. There is no such scheme framed by you in your various policies. It must be considered,” the SC bench was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

In places like Vrindavan and Mathura, lakhs of widows are living destitute lives. They have been left there abandoned by their family members.

As per Census of India 2011, there were 56 million widows in the country, that is 4.6% of the entire population. It was a huge jump compared to their numbers 10 years ago. As per Census of India 2001, there were only 1.8 million widows in the country, that was just 0.7% of the total population at that time.

According to the Census 2011 data, 9.0% of the total widow population is in the age group of 20-39 years and 32% in the age group of 40-59 years.