Representation matters over leadership

There are now four women Chief Ministers in the country, up from just two a couple of months ago.

Add to this, a woman President and the UPA chief. But does this translate into more success for the larger cause of womenfolk, in terms of a bigger voice or an increased representation of their woes? A new research says not necessarily so.

Crime against women

The study, conducted by two researchers from the International Monetary Fund, Prachi Mishra and Petia Topalova, Harvard Business School's Lakshmi Iyer and University of Warwick's Anandi Mani, concludes that it is the increase in women representation at the lower levels that is making a difference in India, instead of the women in top positions.

The researchers look at data relating to crime against women. They trace the incidence of such crimes since the 1993 constitutional amendment – the 73rd –that heralded the Panchayati Raj. The amendment made it mandatory for states to set aside one-third of all positions in local government councils for women. The amendment also mandated reservation for other marginalised groups in proportion to their population ratio.

The study argues that mandated political representation has lent voice to disadvantaged groups within the criminal justice system, leading to a statistically significant increase in the documented number of crimes against women. This, they say, is clearly good news for women's empowerment, and attribute it to higher reporting, rather than an increase in the actual incidence of crime.

However, they find that women's presence in the general rank and file of politics, rather than in leadership positions, generates a more powerful impact.

Minority group

Members of the minority group (including women), with a different perspective to justice, could even influence the functioning of the police or other law enforcing agencies, and make them more responsive and less bias.

To come to such a conclusion, the researchers exploited the fact that the legislation was enacted at varying dates across the states as and when the local elections came up. Hence, they constructed the impact of political representation for women and lower castes on crimes against them according to this varying data.

They found that across all categories, crimes against women rose by 44 per cent, while rapes per capita rose by 23 per cent and kidnappings of women by 13 per cent. They also found that there was no significant rise in categories of crime unrelated to women such as kidnapping of men, crimes against property, among others.

This suggested that there was no deterioration in law and order situation, but was driven by increase in reporting of the crimes by women. Their analysis was also able to rule out backlash against women due to attaining greater political power.

The researchers, however, did find that women who encounter more sympathetic women leaders and a more responsive police force are encouraged to report crime and expect justice.

Using district-level crime data, they compared districts with and without women chairpersons. This helped them deduce that the effect of having a district chairperson is marginal compared to the impact of significant representation of women at the broad base.

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