“In India, a woman is considered incomplete without a man,” says Vandana Shah, the owner of an NGO that supports divorced women.

As Rashami Desai talks about being discriminated against after her divorce, HT Café talks to experts about the issues that divorced women face in India

Television actor Rashami Desai is scared. Since her divorce, she has been traumatised because people and the media have frequently been linking her with her co-stars. “I am scared of stepping out of the house because of what people will think of me. These reports are not letting me move on. Is it a crime to be a divorcee and a single woman?” she said in a recent interview with HT Café.

AN EASY TARGET?

Unfortunately, it’s not just celebrities who face such discrimination. Divorce is still a taboo in India, and women face the worst of society’s stigma. Mental health counsellor Kavita Mungi says that our society is still not free of gender bias. “The bias stems from the fact that, traditionally, women get married and move into their husband’s home. So, if anything goes wrong, a woman is blamed by her in-laws. We talk about gender equality on one hand, and on the other, we ostracise divorced women,” she says.

Vandana Shah, who owns 360 Degrees Back, an NGO that supports divorced women, says that Indians believe it’s the woman’s job to hold the family together. She says, “When you start looking at divorce from that perspective, you understand where the discrimination is coming from. So, for some reason, people keep away from divorced women. I have been told divorced women lose 80% of their friends.” Shah, who is also a divorce lawyer, says that divorced women are often told that they shouldn’t have separated from their husbands in the first place and stayed in the marriage no matter what.

There is also a need to understand that the way we treat divorced women also affects them mentally. Mungi says that the self-esteem of divorced women is low and that they are prone to suicidal tendencies, owing to the trauma of living in a hostile atmosphere. Relationship expert Shyam Mithiya says divorced women develop a lot of insecurity because of all the negativity around them. “The feelings of insecurity may sometimes get so bad that these women don’t trust anybody, even if a person genuinely has her interest in mind or thinks positively of her. They can get clinically depressed because there is no emotional support system. They may feel lonely sometimes, and since everybody blames them for the divorce, they start feeling guilty,” he says.

Clinical psychologist Tanushree Bhargava agrees, saying divorced women sometimes start believing the divorce was their fault even if it actually wasn’t. “In some cases, the insecurity also affects later relationships. They start wondering if the new person [they are dating] is faking it,” she says.

SECOND INNINGS

Divorced women also face problems when it comes to marrying again. Shah says, “In India, a woman is considered incomplete without a man. People say that if you are above 45, you can’t get married again. If a man marries someone even when he is 60, he is considered a stud. One of my divorced clients was even told by the man she was dating that her two children would have to move in with her parents after the wedding.”

But, according to a marriage portal, the number of single people open to marrying divorcees is steadily increasing. “Every month, over 10,000 singles say they are open to marrying divorcees, and this number has been rising steadily over the past few years. This is just one of a long string of indicators that show that people focus on compatibility, and often defy a lot of other social norms,” says Aditya Save, chief marketing officer, Shaadi.com.