I had heard that in the past, India’s widows were expected to burn themselves on their funeral pyres, and that the English had abolished that. Arnold Winkelreid’s excellent column on the Teeming Millions website reminded me that I wanted to do a bit of 'net research on that custom and the status of Indian widows today. To my shock, I see that in some areas the widows are still pressured to perform suicide in this way, and in addition, are still generally treated like crap. How can the largest democracy in the world get away with this? If it has no other concern, isn’t India worried about world opinion?
Why should they worry? Next to Afghanistan, India looks good in its treatment of women. Afghanistan just shut down the UN bakeries where widows could get food. Imagine, not having any money and then you aren’t even allowed to go buy food.