The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Over 9 lakh women elected members in panchayats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 08, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Over 9 lakh women elected members in panchayats

Alladi Jayasri

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'SDAY `It is more than the number of elected women representatives in the world'

BANGALORE: As another International Women's Day dawns, there is ample reason to celebrate the growing numbers of women who are joining the ranks of elected representatives in the three tiers of the panchayati raj.

Of the 28 lakh elected representatives in India, 9.7 lakh are women. This is greater than the sum of elected women representatives all over the world, as T.R. Raghunandan, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, put it.

Karnataka has every reason to gloat too — with 43 per cent of its panchayat members being women. It is second only to Bihar, where women constitute 54 per cent of the total.

Interestingly, 65 per cent of the seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes have been claimed by women, and 46 per cent of the Scheduled Castes category. The general category records a lower percentage of 37 per cent. "Poor women are increasing their presence in the panchayati raj, and over time, it is bound to change the way governance and administration is delivered in these institutions," Mr. Raghunandan told The Hindu.

Closer home, Karnataka continues to be a trailblazer. More than 40,000 women of the 91,000 elected representatives are in the zilla, taluk and gram panchayats. There are 6,000 presidents and 6,000 vice-presidents in the panchayats.

Karnataka was the first to launch a sisterhood of elected women representatives. The Karnataka Federation of Elected Women Representatives has emerged as a forum for the members to network, and find support to fight gender stereotyping, and bring about a women-sensitive aspect to governance at the lowest rung of political institutions.

As M.R. Sreenivasamurthy, Principal Secretary, Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, said, "Karnataka has always held a pre-eminent position in empowerment of women at the panchayat level. In 1987, we had 25 per cent reservation for women.

This was the first break, and 15,000 women were swept into the political arena at the time. This sowed the seeds for Central legislation fixing 33 per cent of reservation for women in 1993."

Since then, the Government has started several initiatives, including institutional support, training in all aspects of governance, to ensure that women did not opt out. It has been slow and gradual, but now there can be no going back, Mr. Sreenivasamurthy said.

An indication that the panchayat can be the kindergarten level for women to enter politics is the fact that a few women, who started out as zilla panchayat members, have moved on to become MLAs. Bannur MLA Sunita Veerappa Gowda is one name that stands out in this context.

Though it is not possible to say whether the presence of women in panchayats has meant a different way of looking at issues or prioritising them differently, it can be said that fewer women today need the hand-holding by their family members, (mostly husbands) than 15 years ago.

While it is "Karnataka Shining" as far as women in panchayats is concerned, the same can hardly be said of the State legislature, where reservation remains a chimera for women.

With just six women in the Assembly, it is a man's world there, though it didn't stop the Speaker recently, from famously rebuking the members in the House for "quarrelling like women".

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