Behind women’s reservation in local body polls, tales of patriarchy, proxy candidates

Many women in local politics still rely on their male family members to run affairs. Poor women's education and deep-rooted patriarchy contribute to this issue.

In a pale blue shirt, sitting on a chair in the centre of a dimly lit room in his home, hands on his knee, the women of his household hovering behind him, 60-year-old Namandilal Meena flashes the smile of an important man. It matters little that in 2020, it was his wife Mohan Bai that was elected the sarpanch of Gambhira village by the Rajasthan state election commission in the Malarna Doongar panchayat samiti. Meena puffs his chest out, and declares with authority, “I am the sarpanch of Gambhira.”

30 years after the 73rd amendment, while there have been benefits, there is also evidence on the ground that there is a long road to emancipation.(HT file (representative image))

On September 21, both houses of Parliament passed the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, or the women’s reservation bill, reserving 33% of seats for women in both parliamentary and legislative assemblies. In some ways, the legislation is the second step of legislative intervention that began in 1992, with the 73rd constitutional amendment which mandated that all state governments must reserve one-third of seats for women in Panchayati Raj institutions (PRI).

The principle at play was similar. If women are given the keys to power, it will increase their representation in government bodies, give space to their often-ignored voices, make women’s issues central to governance, and in turn, trickle down to upliftment on the ground.

Yet, 30 years after the 73rd amendment, while there have been benefits, there is also evidence on the ground that there is a long road to emancipation. Data from the 2011 Census pegs Malarna Doongar as the tehsil in India that has the largest literacy gap between men and women. The average literacy is 60.79%. But 78.79% of the males are literate, with only 41.03% for women, a difference of 37.75 percentage points. In fact, an analysis of the top 5 tehsils with such a difference in India shows that all five are in Rajasthan, with three in the Sawai Madhopur district alone. To be sure, there are districts with considerably lower literacy percentages for women, but those typically — some are tribal districts in Chhattisgarh — have correspondingly low percentages for male literacy as well.

In terms of districts with such a large difference in literacy rates between men and women, it is also clear that Rajasthan has a problem. Eight of the top 10 districts (with Sawai Madhopur the highest) are in the state. The only two exceptions in the top 10 are Ramban in Jammu, and Nuh in Haryana.

In Gambhira, one of the villages in Malarna Doongar, asked if women make better sarpanches, and a pall of silence fell across the Meena household. Twenty-three-year-old Jaskaur Meena, who finished a Master of Arts (MA) in history from a college in Sawai Madhopur in 2021, hides behind her father Namandilal with a shy smile. Her mother, Mohan Bai, who never completed formal education, is clearer about the hierarchy in both the home and the panchayat. “I only sit there in panchayat meetings. But it is my husband who speaks to people. I sign papers when it is required. But how am I to understand all this administrative work?” she says, shifting a long blue veil across her face.

The Malarna Doongar panchayat samiti has 27 villages, 13 of which are reserved for women. But in most, it is their husbands, or other male family members, who run local politics.

In the voluble opinion of the men, the skew is an outcome of women’s “eternal lack of interest in politics and social issues.”

Mazhar Khan, the husband of the Peelvanadi sarpanch Afsana Biwi, said, “Rural women keep themselves from politics. Men have a better understanding of the subject which makes it easier for them to handle such work.” Khan’s WhatsApp bio reads, “Sarpanch of Peelvanadi”. Even though he isn’t.

His wife says one solitary word when asked why she stood for the reserved seat. “Parivaar (family),” she says.

Sawai Madhopur district collector Suresh Ola says that the poor standards of women’s education in turn lead to this manipulation of the intent of the Panchayati Raj legislation. “The lack of education means there is limited interest in socio-political issues and men take advantage. We have taken several steps such as conducting door-to-door awareness programmes, setting up free libraries, and conducting free mock tests for exam preparations that have improved the situation but more awareness is required. Often, girl students do not pursue higher education after they finish school,” Ola said.

At the only senior higher-secondary school in Peelavanadi, there are 80 girls as opposed to 120 boys. In Gambhira’s senior higher-secondary school, the situation is a little different, authorities said, with more than 70% of the intake being girl students. But the vice principal of the school, Narendra Verma, says that this number is misleading, for here too there is the shadow of discrimination. “Most boys in the village are sent to private schools because of the poor infrastructure here. Most girls are sent to government school, and are married off after schooling ends. People spend lakhs on the education for their sons but will not do that for girls,” he said.

Professor Lad Kumari Jain, chairperson of the Rajasthan State Commission for Women said, “Despite the situation improving with time, patriarchy is deep-rooted including in Rajasthan. People still see women as the holders of the reputation of the family. Therefore, women are not yet allowed to step forward as administrators. A better government monitoring system of the execution of government schemes and also the functioning of the panchayats can only improve the situation.”

In June 2020, the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj department issued an order threatening action under Section 38 of the Panchayati Raj Act, including a possible suspension of the sarpanch, if “husband, relatives, or anyone closely related to the woman sarpanch is found directly or indirectly interfering in her work”.

“We take action when such complaints are lodged. But it is not an easy job to stop such practices. We conduct orientation sessions for the newly elected women sarpanches as well as awareness programmes for villagers. It is also important for women to come forward and fight for their rights,” Ola said.

But in the village of Abra, Pushpa Devi says it is almost impossible to balance her identities as a sarpanch and a homemaker. A law graduate, Devi says she fought her first panchayat election in 2015 at the insistence of her father-in-law. “My family had been contesting the Abra panchayat election for a long time. When it was declared reserved, they asked me to fight. Now that I have become sarpanch, I cannot leave it in the middle of my term despite these difficulties,” she said.

Like in most other villages, it is Devi’s husband, a police officer in Sawai Madhopur, who does the job the law intended that she do to bring about change.