Army veteran's wife fights apathy to war widows

The first thing Sudesh Gurbaksh Singh thought of when the news of Pulwama massacre came in was about the fate of widows of the martyred jawans. "When our jawans are killed, the worst sufferers are the wives. I try to mitigate their pain," says Singh, seated at a flat in Juhu.
Few in India know the issues that concern war widows like she does. Widow of Major General Gurbaksh Singh who was decorated with Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services in the Second World War, Singh is also president of War and Defence Widows Guild of India."I am not speaking much these days due to bad throat though I was a koel (cuckoo) who could coo for hours," laughs the feisty 82-year-old who was in Mumbai last week for treatment. Andheri-based activist Mohammed Patel persuaded her to be chief guest at Friday Women's Day function where she gave awards to women achievers and also saw theatre director Mujeeb Khan's Shaheed Ki Vidhwa, a play on a war widow's life.
She is disappointed at the politicisation of the airstrike to avenge Pulwama massacre. "It is not the job of soldiers to count bodies in enemy territory. Our soldiers were asked to carry out attacks on terror camps in Pakistan. It is for the government to estimate the damage done," says Singh.
For someone who has lost 11 family members to wars and clashes, including father and brother-in-law, Singh didn't allow personal grief to chain her. Instead, she led from the front to ameliorate the suffering of war widows. She first hit the headlines in 1975 when she arranged the remarriage of 47 war widows belonging to different castes and creeds. "I went house-to-house telling the women who had lost their husbands in the wars of 1962, 1965, 1971 to get remarried as they needed life of dignity and financial security," explains Singh who is called an "Iron lady with a golden heart" because of her dogged determination and the love she shows to the kin of martyrs.
Former chairperson of Handloom Handicraft Corporation of Himachal Pradesh, she now divides her time between Shimla and Chandigarh and won several awards, including Bharat Gaurav Award for services to the families of ex-servicemen and been feted by the likes of Indira Gandhi and Shaikh Abdullah.
Singh sees the One Rank One Pension granted by the Narendra Modi government as a big victory. "Still more needs to be done. Armed forces and their families need to be taken care of well," says Singh, a pensioner whose husband, a gallant soldier received Padmashree and became ADC of India's first President Rajendra Prasad. He spent a lot of time in social work before he died in 1979 of cancer.
Not one to sit idle, she is busy doing what appeals her. "I go to border areas like Akhnoor to enthuse our soldiers guarding our borders. Earlier I walked. Now I use a wheelchair. Once when I visited Akhnoor wearing a pink sari, some criticized me for being a widow wearing pink. I told them I am veer naari (wife of a soldier) and I celebrate life. They were enthused," she recalls.