Giving visibility to women in local governance
SREELAKSHMI GURURAJA
IN THE late 1970s, one of the most difficult questions to answer when doing field work in rural India was why women should join the mahila mandal or attend the functional literacy session. Almost three decades later, the participation of women in their community's development is no longer an issue. Concrete and tangible achievements have paved the path of women's participation, giving them their right to association and opportunity to exercise their choices.
Being part of the audience at a recent convention of elected women representatives of Karnataka at Bangalore, I was struck by the articulate presentations by woman after woman on their real life experiences as elected representatives. No longer did one see a shy and non-literate woman being urged to raise her head and face the audience but instead there was a pervasive boldness and enthusiasm in `queuing up' to speak from the podium.
The directness of communication was astounding. What was equally amazing was the spontaneous interventions from the floor from women without distinction of class, location, religion, caste or literacy. It seemed that the common bond of being elected representatives and women leaders had swept away all differences and cemented their resolve to be heard and get answers to their concerns, here and now.
If a woman is able to identify the levels and locus of corruption in her district or clearly explain why girls' schools should have latrines, is that not empowerment? If a woman representative pleads for direct dispensation of funds to the grampanchayat without intermediaries, is that not a visible milestone for devolution of power?
When women leaders express their desired role in village development planning and agree to assume responsibility for water facilities, the village school and the anganwadi, then there is no longer room for scepticism or disillusionment about the capacity of rural women to assert their rights for equal participation in local governance.
When and how did this change happen? With pride, the women's movement with its avant-garde thinkers pioneered the change in not just India but South Asia. Their political activism, the strength of their intellectual analysis and discourse, their boldness to break barriers of male dominated institutions and the solidarity of their network made irreversible dents in the policy and administrative fabric of the country.
The openness of the few but influential male allies to join the struggle and steer the change from within the system was a major support and cannot go unrecognised. The facilitating factors have been the increasing participation of women in public and private spheres; the equalising of remuneration for equal work; targeted credit and economic assistance; and incentive linked girls' education.
But the most tumultuous happening has been the reservation for women in the panchayat raj institutions. This spurred the `coming out' of rural women in the hundreds just in Karnataka. The eagerness of these women to avail themselves of training and literacy programmes, attend the grampanchayat meetings and be active in the gramsabhas has put to rest those who had qualms about giving women space and place in making decisions that affect their lives and that of their communities.
Their men folk speak about them with pride and encourage them to attend events in urban areas. Women do not come to such events with male chaperons but with other women from their own and neighbouring villages, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. Unknowingly they have become social and political leaders in their own right without the expense and fanfare of a loudspeaker-aided elections but through gaining respect of their fellow women and men in their villages.
We owe it to these emerging leaders to give them sharper skills of negotiation and information management supported by the right to information for succeeding in their aspirations to contribute to the plans and progress in their grampanchayats. Let us not fail in our commitments to nurture the burgeoning zeal and fervour of elected women in local governance.
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