The Day the Collection Plates Went Empty

• Women sustain religious institutions through their attendance, spending, donations, care work and coordination, much of which remains invisible and unpaid.
• The piece explores the contradiction between institutions controlling women’s bodies and participation while depending heavily on their presence and labour.
• Through satire, it imagines how quickly exclusionary rules would change if women collectively withdrew their time, money and support.

Sunday, 6 AM.

Mrinalini puts on her cardio leggings instead of a dupatta wide enough to cover the collarbones the priest finds distracting. Across the street, Farida walks past the mosque where a man in a kurta checks hemlines like an airport security agent scanning for liquids. In the next colony, Susan makes coffee. She does not confess anything to anyone because nobody asked.

Across the city, women stay home.

No temple visits. No church pews. No mosque courtyards. No gurudwara kitchens. No flowers carried to shrines, no candles bought outside churches, no new dupattas or saris bought for upcoming Eid or Karwa Chauth, no trays of sweets sent to relatives because someone, somewhere completed a fast.

By 8 AM

The flower sellers outside Kalkaji Mandir are sitting on unsold marigolds worth more than their rent. The parking lot at Sacred Heart Cathedral, usually packed for Sunday Mass, has three cars and a stray dog. Outside Jama Masjid, stacks of embroidered scarves stay sealed in plastic. At Bangla Sahib, vegetables wait beside chopping boards with fewer hands around them.

By noon, the first WhatsApp messages arrive. Madam, aap nahi aa rahe? (Madam, are you not coming today?)  Uber introduces a new category: Places of Worship, Men Only. Demand remains low.

Turns out, religious economies were never running on religion alone. They were running on women’s attendance, women’s purchases, women’s donations, and women’s guilt, monetised at scale.

The modest-fashion industry calls an emergency meeting after women discover that God appears to hear them perfectly well in yoga pants.

By 2 PM

A second economy begins to fail. This one never had invoices.

Nobody remembered to bring the flowers. Nobody packed the prasad. The church group is asking who has the hymn sheets. Food meant for a community meal is still waiting to be chopped. A charity collection has no one coordinating it. Relatives discover that the woman who usually remembers every fast, feast, prayer, birthday and death anniversary is busy with her plans.

For years, religious institutions had managed women with impressive precision. Enter through this door. Sit behind that screen. Cover your head. Cover your shoulders. Cover your legs. Come back when you are no longer menstruating. Stand here. Do not stand there.

India had taken the question of women’s entry into Sabarimala all the way to the Supreme Court. In Noida Film City, a news producer is now scrambling to book women panellists for an evening debate on the issue.

By 4 PM

The language changes.  Institutions that once issued instructions about women’s clothes, bodies and movements begin posting photographs of smiling women. Saying “Women are the backbone of our community.” Someone finally notices what happens when the backbone takes Sunday off.

By 6 PM

Targeted ads appear.

“WE MISS YOU, SISTERS.“

Women welcome at all entrances.
Dress code not required.
Separate seating now optional.
Periods no longer an administrative concern.
Free parking for the first 100 worshippers.

Someone in temple trust’s marketing proposes a loyalty programme.

By Monday morning

Economists are discussing “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Women’s Withdrawal from Religious Institutions.” Consultants have begun preparing PowerPoints. Churches announce committees on inclusion.

Mrinalini, Farida, and Susan are at lunch when Farida’s phone lights up with a sponsored post from the mosque. She turns it face down.