‘Single Women’ Face Never-Ending Abuses from Own
Cannaught Place. Image credit Bhawna Malik
Property-owners Among Single Women Suffer Silently
‘Me too’ continues changing forms. ‘Be loud’, ‘Be vocal’, Be seen’, and ‘Be heard’ are mantras for single woman who battles unending abuses from her own.
Bhawna Malik for The Raisina Hills meets two single and dynamic women who decided be seen and heard. This single woman is an aggrieved sister who faces threats, and public notices from her brother-in-law and his kids.
“Me too must not be limited to sexual exploitation. Its tentacles have much stronger grip on other aspects of women’s lives. Like her finances – it can be a job or a business and today women are property owners also,” says 56 years old Pratibha Sen (name changed), a single woman, who is facing threats, extortion, blackmailing while living under constant vigilance and fear not from an outsider, but her own NRI brother-in-law and his four NRI kids.
She explains that the “mental torture a woman experiences when she is forced to share her sacred privacy and threatened to give away what is legally hers has much deeper impact on her mental health and that woman starts doubting everyone”.
Her three-story house with basement in a posh locality that she sold to buy another apartment in the same vicinity in 2024 brought an unending suffering for her. She was the only legal surviving heir for her father who passed away in 2021, leaving ‘Will’ to name her the only beneficiary of all his movable and immovable assets.
It was her father’s self-acquired property and assessed in the wealth tax also. India has 71million single women according to the 2011 census. The data stated that there has been a 39 per cent rise in numbers of the single women the last decade while 68 per cent of the are in the age group of 25 to 29 years. They can be unmarried, divorced or widow, the reasons of being single can be by choice or circumstances.
Pratibha said that her brother-in-law came to India to keep a watch on her this year. He lived in a flat nearby. Considering him a father figure, she had made him a witness to the sale purchase agreement in three documents. But Pratibha was shocked when she was informed through a message from a lawyer about a public notice in leading newspapers, mentioning her name with claims that she is a false owner of the said property.
The notice also said that she is selling the property ‘without his client’s knowledge and he /they are the 50 per cent owner of the said property. The notice also demanded that 50 per cent of the share from the sale deed of the old property along with half share in the new property that she had bought.
Bindiya Chaddha (name changed) is 50 years old. She is a childless widow. Her father died of cancer in 2021 and after three years she lost her mother in 2023. She is youngest of four sisters. Other three sisters are all well-placed with their children now grown-up.
Bindiya works in an NGO and she had always been financially independent. Her sisters and brothers-in-law, immediately after death of her parents, asked for the share in the rented property.
“My father and mother didn’t leave a will. But I was the only one living with them and running from pillar to post when my father was diagnosed with cancer,” she adds.
Bindiya recalls that though her father during his last days signaled her to get a pen to write a will she refused. “I didn’t want to bother him and never once I gave importance to money and trusted my family. But I was in for a shock,” she adds.
Bindiya was even rebuked by her sister and brother-in-law when she bought a music system just to listen to spiritual songs. “Not only this, recently we had a ceremony in the memory of my mother, but none of the sisters also supported me financially,” adds Bindiya
Both Bindiya and Pratibha have different circumstances but feel stuck in their lives. Pratibha shares that she met her brother-in-law in a formal meeting along with the person who had bought her property.
“My brother-in-law saw the Will and tried to scare me with legal proceedings. But I have all the documents. Eventually, he admitted in the court I am the sole owner of the property,” says Pratibha.
Her tears and trauma both are visible. “I was in the process of bringing out my own magazine, but everything was stalled,” she adds.
Pratibha also states that “single women are usually taken for a ride by property agents, builders, relatives as they are easy targets”.
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