ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the liberation of widows from wearing the white sari is transforming the whole experience of widowhood and at the same time changing the habitus of people as well as towards widows in Nepal. It also explores the transformative performative agency through women's resistance, including the explicit resistance of widows to the white sari in post-conflict Nepal. The white sari functioned as a symbolic denial of existence in private and public spaces. In theory, the symbolic meaning of a white sari is to discipline' widows, to keep them pure' in memory of the deceased husband. White is also considered a colour of purity, spirituality and asceticism as well as a symbol of peace. The dominant religious narrative within Hindu ideology positions the husband as a god in relationship to his partner. The wife has to be devoted to her husband when he is alive and when he is dead.
