Raising awareness: a panchayat gathering in the village of Haryana, in northern India.
In
a short time, women have shown their potential to wield power effectively at the
village level and challenge feudal traditions
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Woman is born free and her
rights are the same as those of a man (...) All citizens, be they men or women, being
equal in the state’s eyes, must be equally eligible for all public offices, positions
and jobs, according to their capacity and without any other criteria than those
of their virtues and talents.
Olympe
de Gouges,
French writer and revolutionary (1748-1793)
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I became a feminist as an
alternative to becoming a masochist.
Sally
Kempton,
American journalist (1943-)
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Over a million women hold the
reins of power at the village level but a law to boost their presence in parliament
has been deadlocked for several years
 Nothing
short of a small revolution occurred during President Bill Clinton’s visit to India
last March. In the rural heartland of Rajasthan, a dozen village women sat around
on plush blue sofas, in resplendent dress, to discuss issues of democracy and power
with the U.S. president. First they introduced themselves: all are elected representatives
of their village councils (panchayats). Together they run a women’s dairy cooperative
and have initiated several small credit and loan schemes for poor, landless women
in their communities. They had discarded the age-old custom of hiding their veiled
faces behind home walls. Now, they explained, they had to go to the bank to draw
and desposit money, and to their district headquarters to attend monthly meetings.
Even as they spoke in their native tongue, the women freely used English words such
as ‘loan’, ‘credit ’, ‘Internet’, ‘public’ and ‘no confidence’. They complained about
the lack of jobs for their educated sons, spoke about the need to open a school close
by for their adolescent daughters, and their ongoing fight for drinking water, better
roads, seeds and farming tools for their villages.
A
lingering debate
Some might
like to dismiss this meeting as a clever act of ‘feel-good’ politics on the part
of the President or as a showcased stunt on the part of the Indian government. But
the meeting was really about women entering politics and staying on. Along with some
million others across the country, these women are the daughters of the 73rd and
74th amendments of the Indian Constitution. Passed in 1993, these two amendments
oblige all states to reserve one third of seats in the three-tiered system of local
government (village, block and district levels)–known as panchayati raj–to women.
Elected directly by and from among the villagers, the panchayats can make decisions
concerning a wide range of fields, from agriculture to health, employment and primary
education.
In a short time, women have shown their potential to wield power effectively at the
village level and challenge feudal traditions. According to some observers, this
is one of the reasons why the passage of the Women’s Reservations Bill, which seeks
to reserve 33 per cent of all seats in the national parliament and state assemblies
to women, has been repeatedly blocked in the parliament. First put forward in 1996,
the bill was reintroduced in 1998 but lapsed following the government’s fall the
same year. It was resurrected in December 1999 but has continued to create havoc
in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament. There are only 43 women MPs
in the current Lok Sabha, out of a total figure of 543, and the majority are from
the elite.
Opponents of the bill, which include the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party
(both centre-left), along with some constituents of the ruling coalition, led by
the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claim that the bill should include
a sub-quota for Other Backward Classes1 and Muslim women. Otherwise
they argue, the quotas will only promote the interests of the elite. The debate has
been characterized by an ugly display of male muscle and lung power: in one instance,
the Speaker had to adjourn the House, in another, opposing lawmakers grabbed the
bill off his desk. Meanwhile, Congress (I) president Sonia Gandhi staged a walkout
with her party members protesting against the delay in the bill’s passage.
As the debate lingers, a number of organizations are intent on highlighting the success
of women in the panchayats. They are also working hard to build up leadership among
the most marginalized groups, namely Dalit and Tribal communities, and to give women
a better understanding of their powers and rights at the local level. The Society
for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) for example, helps to groom women candidates
for elections through education and training and gives panchayat representatives
the opportunity to meet with their counterparts from other states. At another level,
these organizations are seeking to mobilise women to vote, and if need be, stand
up against election malpractices, such as giving bribes or distributing liquor to
win votes.
A recent study prepared by the Multiple Action Research Group (MARG), a Delhi-based
NGO, concluded that the constitutional amendments have indeed acted as a catalyst
for greater participation by women in governance, but the legislation now needs to
be fine-tuned: women should be given more than a single term in a reserved constituency
to make a real difference, and every effort should be made to provide them with literacy
training. A separate study conducted in three states on the government’s behalf by
the Centre for Women’s Development Studies also highlighted the fact that the reservations
had benefited women from the Other Backward Classes.
Despite this, the barriers to participation remain sizeable. Rural areas are plagued
by illiteracy and poverty, and patriarchy remains deeply entrenched. Practices such
as wife beating and dowry deaths are still prevalent. Furthermore, as Ela Bhatt,
the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) points out, rural women
do not represent a unified group. Caste, clan and family considerations still overshadow
political and gender-based priorities for large numbers of women in rural areas.
As such she says, women panchayat members are easily manipulated, coerced and coopted
by their male counterparts. Also, dress, election campaign meetings and strategies
for women are still often decided by male members of the family.
Reaching
a critical mass
Feminist economist
Devki Jain feels that political empowerment through affirmative action is essential
for women to ‘break this hard-rock of patriarchy.’ There has been much debate in
the country about whether illiterate rural women have the skills to stand for elections
and take office. The late Gita Mukherjee, a Communist Party of India member and six-time
MP from West Bengal, who headed the special parliamentary committee on the Reservations
Bill, repeatedly asserted that the first step was to allow women to break into politics;
their awareness would automatically rise. The panchayati raj institutions, she said,
are to be valued as the real nurseries of political leadership for women. Poverty
and violence, she stressed, can only be fought against effectively if women form
a critical mass in all decision-making bodies, from village panchayats to the parliament.
It may seem ironic that Madhu Kishwar, an activist and editor of the Delhi-based
feminist journal Manushi, is one of the bill’s critics. She argues that party leaders
will merely flood the reserved constituencies with the “Bibi (wife) Beti (daughter)
brigade.” With the Forum for Democratic Reform, an umbrella organization of women’s
groups, she has proposed an alternative bill that would make it legally binding for
political parties to present women as one third of their total candidates and to
give proportionate tickets to those from Dalit and Backward Classes. However, Mukherjee’s
long time associate Bidya Munshi has criticized the proposal, claiming that women
are likely to be relegated to seats where political parties are unlikely to win.
Still, despite entrenched patriarchy, there are obvious signs of change, even if
they seem anecdotal. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh, recently
organized a meeting with women in Bhopal. Chairs were laid out for the ministers
and high officials and mats on the floor for elected women representatives. As the
meeting began, Remmebai, a tribal woman stood up and questioned the chief minister:
“You keep talking about women’s equality and reservations for women. We are in politics
now, the people have elected us. Is there a shortage of chairs in your city?” A hundred
years ago Remmebai and her family would have been hung from trees for their audacity.
But the chief minister thanked her humbly for raising the issue and the next day
all of them sat on similar chairs.
1. Other Backward Classes
account for 52 per cent of India’s population. They belong to kinship groups that
are entitled to certain benefits because they are considered disadvantaged, although
less so than ‘scheduled castes’ (previously referred to as untouchables) and ‘scheduled
tribes’.
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