Herwad village in Shirol tehsil and momentous Mangaon in Hatkanangle tehsil in Kolhapur district passed the persistence at gram sabha's on the instance of Maharastra Day(May 1). Mangaon already holds a remarkable place in the history of the social reform movement. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Chatrapati Sahu Maharaj held the first joint conference against unattainability in this village on March 21, 1920.

The resolution said that, subsequently, no women in the village would undergo the excruciating rituals of widowhood.

'When the husband dies, a woman is subjected to habitude such as wiping her sindoor, removing her mangalsutra, disintegrating her bangles, and removing toe ring. Correspondingly, she is obstructed from any religious or social gathering and her social status as a married woman is grasped, Such rituals impoverished her of her entitlement and contravene human rights. Our village bans any such rituals in order to ensure that widows too should be able to live like any other woman,' said the resolution.

Muktabai Sanjay Pujari, who initiated the resolution in Herwad gram panchayat, told that being a woman she used to associate with widows and knew how much it hurt them when they were interdicted from family functions or religious programs. 'We Felt the intensity of it after the Covid wave. We wanted to do something about it,' she said.

Pramod Zinjade from Pothre village Solapur district's Karmala tehsil runs a syndicate called Mahatma Phule Samaj Seva Mandal and initiated the work to stop the disfellowship of women prior to the pandemic.

'When one of my fellow-worker died and his wife became inconspicuous in the social sphere, I started contemplating that this needed to change,' he told.

'I procured a Rs 100 stamp paper and drew up a legal consensus saying in case of my death, my wife shall not be subjected to any such customs,' he said. As he promulgates his work, he decided that the sarpanch of villages should be made aware of it as the actual change began from the bottom.