India has set a stellar example of reserved quotas for women in local governance for a country that has a poor record of its overall commitment to women’s rights. It is an example of how a country can successfully empower women, politically, economically, and socially.
India is far from perfect in ensuring women’s rights, but quotas at the local government level are making a real impact. Development experts are discovering that societies and cultures that invest in and empower women are on a virtuous cycle. They become more affluent, better governed, stable, and less prone to violence.
By contrast, countries that limit women’s educational and employment opportunities and their political voices get stuck in a downward spiral. They are poorer, more fragile, and have higher levels of corruption. In the last two decades, the gender landscape in rural India has been slowly greening, and women are now on the cusp of a powerful social and political revolution. The harbinger of this change is a unique policy experiment in village-level governance that has brought transformative results for the weakest of the weak and the poorest of the poor: the village women.
In 1993, India introduced the Panchayati Raj Act, mandating a three-tiered structure of local governance at the village, block, and district levels with reservation of one-third of all posts in Gram Panchayats (village councils) at the bottom tier of India’s decentralised governance system, for women. The vision was that these women-headed councils would bring greater transparency and better governance to their villages.
It revitalised an age-old method of rural local government whose name “panchayat” is drawn from Sanskrit, meaning the council of five wise men. This new law was a step towards the fruition of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams of village-level self-governance with gender justice as a critical pillar.
Gandhi believed that if implemented correctly the Panchayati Raj system would alleviate the alienation of the common people from governance and preclude the external intervention of higher-level civic officials, who might not be familiar with the concerns of local people.
Earlier politics was considered a foul word, and women were expected to keep a hygienic distance from it. However, development scientists and social activists now acknowledge that the modern development paradigm has political salience and that politics underpins all facets of development. Politics is the firing engine for all the cylinders of development. It is true that political power needs to be sanitized and has to be reinforced with ethical underpinnings to make it more benevolent.
This can come about only when more educated and development-oriented individuals embrace politics as a critical arena for innovation and change. Politics is the fulcrum of governance, and unless the quality of political timber is improved, governance will continue to limp.
Experience of this social and political experiment has shown that women are not just equal to the task but also orientate public-good provision more towards the preferences of their gender, namely more water, healthcare, and roads. Though less politically savvy and often only semi-illiterate, these women had an advantage in being actively mentored by trainers who are building the district bureaucracy.
Several NGOs also designed programmes to skill them in governance. Women face a host of difficulties in handling political power – cultural norms, social hierarchies, and patriarchal practices ~ which together tend to favour and attract men and discourage the participation of women. India has set a stellar example of reserved quotas for women in local governance for a country that has a poor record of its overall commitment to women’s rights.
It is an example of how a country can successfully empower women, politically, economically, and socially.
In 1993, an amendment to India’s constitution formally established Panchayati Raj (local democracy), a three-tiered local governance structure at the village, block, and district levels, to represent small rural communities. It has been called a silent revolution, the most significant social experiment of our time, and one of the greatest innovations in grassroots democracy. It is one of the crown jewels in India’s democracy.
And thanks to quotas reserving spots for female representatives, several women have been making their way up India’s governance ladder. More than thirty lakh women have become politically active, with over ten lakh of them being elected to public office every five years. They are no longer puppets, rubber stamps, or proxies for their husbands.
The rise of Indian women as heads of Gram Panchayats is a spectacular achievement, given that India has one of the worst records concerning how it treats females. Malnourished, suppressed, uneducated, violated, and discriminated against, Indian women have the odds stacked against them. Remarkably, they are now setting Indian demographics and social indices right.
These elected women are now role models to other women in their communities and are altering the development agenda to address issues critical to them. Their impact touches other areas, which may lead to enduring overall change. This role model effect can help close the gender gaps in other realms because higher aspirations translate into more significant investments in girls by their parents and themselves.
Several women who started their political careers as self-described “rubber stamp” officials are now asking about budget allocations. They stride about in government offices with polished informality sharing their concerns with officials in tones of supportiveness and assertiveness. They successfully challenge the traditional village male elite by defying social codes of female bias and are now powerful aspirational symbols and role models.
Women leaders today are more than just mouthpieces for their politically-savvy husbands. However, the path they have trodden after the initial euphoria of winning elections has not been easy. There have been growing pains and many early entrants retreated, never to emerge again.
The avalanche of social and cultural mores rained heavily on them. Although the resistance is whittling down, it is clear that achieving gender equality in leadership will require sustained policy actions that favour women over a long time. The vision is not as romantic as many would like us to believe.
But as women have shown, they have all that is needed to ride out these storms. The men know this very well, but they don’t want to concede that women possess the ability to be the better halves because they are afraid of losing their last refuge, that is, politics.
In the long term, the journey will be harder than policy wonks can imagine. The wait could potentially be eternal. But if bureaucrats can muster the will, they can succeed. They know from past lessons that they have the tools and need to vigorously back reforms that can engender greater empowerment for women. For sustainable change to happen, women must actively compete in the present political game.
Legislation and policy pronouncements seldom penetrate the surface of social and political barriers. They are ultimately impotent against the grid of the established power structures inherent in most rural households and villages.
The great strength of democracy, according to Amartya Sen, lies in that “it gives people in need a voice and, by so doing, plays a protective role against so many different forms of political and economic abuse.” Panchayati Raj is just the beginning; it is only one step on the way, but it is the right step on the right ladder.
These women are reconfiguring gender and social dynamics and have started exploring their wider responsibilities as stakeholders and citizens of a polity. However, decentralisation is not easy. The skill levels in impoverished communities are very low.
And in a country where democracy has been established in a top-down manner, a feudal mindset may still prevail. The people may not be aware that the government should be accountable to the people, and not the other way around. A lot of positive changes are coming in better-governed villages.
There are still large swathes where discriminatory traditions continue to dominate. Several factors constrain the effective participation of women leaders, including a lack of basic familiarity with political governance and the absence of legal literacy. Women need to be given adequate advocacy tools to strengthen democratic engagement and gain control over local resources.
Village assemblies are a critical participatory institution in providing equal access to all members of the community to the deliberations and negotiations in local governance. Still, elite control of these bodies has prevented functional democracy from taking root. This is the reason why, in several remote and tribal pockets, Panchayat Raj has failed to enhance the social outcomes for most citizens.
The social pecking order of villages cannot be overturned easily, and several challenges remain to fuller empowerment. Legitimately-elected women representatives remain vulnerable to manipulation and harassment and are often reduced to mere proxies, while the actual decision-making authority remains with their husbands or power brokers from higher castes.
At the policy level, we must understand the structural impediments in the full evolution of Gram Panchayats as functional governance units remain. The Panchayati Raj Act created these bodies but did not endow them with various governance functions like financial authority for the provision of education, health, sanitation, and water.
Instead, the law simply enumerated the functions that could be transferred and left it to the State Legislature to devolve them. There has been very little devolution of authority and functions till now. Gram Sabhas were expected to be the primary legislation of rural governance with responsibilities to catalyse local planning by conducting ‘needs assessment’ exercises and devising plans for development projects aggregated at the panchayat level.
These would become official inputs into the state government’s annual budgeting process when further aggregated and rationalized at the district level. Gram Sabhas did remain a pivotal institution in local planning but had a little real role in governance.
Despite the noble intention, they have struggled to stay relevant. They continue to be plagued by low participation and frequent hijacking by influential interests and have not been able to mature into viable democratic units. The dip in popular participation and weak political will has had significant implications for the future of democratic decentralisation in India.
The heroic stories of tenacious women scripting tales of success are significant signs of a brighter tomorrow. Women’s empowerment is a journey that yields simple policies, not a fixed point.
MOIN QAZI
Source: The Statesman, 17/11/22
