Women, who had to keep their heads covered, remove their footwear and hold it in their hands while walking in front of the village panchayat office to show respect to the male leaders sitting inside, have upset the men by occupying seats in the same office.

Twenty six years after Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments in December 1992, introducing one-third reservation in panchayats for women, the grassroots women leadership continues to face hurdles at every level to make it big in politics.

After being elected as a sarpanch of Borne village in Satara district of Maharashtra, Sunita Lohar entered the Gram Panchayat office and took charge. She started questioning the gram sevak — the government employee in the panchayat — about funds released from the Zilla Parishad and the State government for development projects.

She launched a village cleanliness campaign and started a self-help group network for women so that they could become self-reliant. She focused on construction of toilets, even before the Centre had launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Men, especially village politicians, were taken aback by Sunita’s enthusiasm and courage. The seat of village sarpanch was reserved for a woman from the backward category, and men expected Sunita to be a puppet and act as a ‘rubber stamp’ in the hands of male politicians who “made” her sarpanch. They humiliated her, pressurised her and also spread rumours about her, but Sunita was determined to continue her work.

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Unable to stomach the fact that a backward class woman was trying to be “oversmart”, the deputy sarpanch from the upper caste called her ‘monkey’ in public and asked her, “Why are you trying to be smart? Do you want to become a leader? You want to contest assembly elections and become MLA?” he asked. And Sunita’s answer was, “ Yes. Why not?”

Ten years down the line, Sunita is living an isolated life. After her five-year term as village sarpanch ended, village politicians ensured that she vanished from the political scene. “Village women wanted that I should become sarpanch for another term contesting from an unreserved seat. But all the men came together and ensured that I didn’t get any chance to contest. They even ensured that my name didn’t appear anywhere on the village boards. The male ego doesn’t accept the fact that women can lead,” Sunita told BusinessLine.

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But it is not just Sunita, there are thousands of grassroots women leaders who want to make it big in politics. Alka Kamble, a dynamic woman sarpanch of Waghapur-Lasina village in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, has built a network of self-help groups to make women self-reliant in the drought-prone area. Alka wants to contest State assembly polls as she says that grassroots women must not stop at the panchayat level. However, facts and figures show that Alka’s dream will probably never be fulfilled.

The panchayats were supposed to be nurseries for grooming women leaders who could take a leadership role in the future. But the dominant patriarchal political system has ensured that the majority of women contesting from reserved seats don’t return to the political arena at any level.

The majority of over 13.45 lakh elected women representatives in Panchayati Raj institutions, which constitutes 46.14 per cent of total elected members at a grassroots level, perform and perish without getting a chance even to knock the doors of Parliament or state assemblies.

There are other factors at work holding up opportunities. Despite the fact that the existing level of reservations in Maharashtra at the Zilla Parishad (ZP), Panchayat Samitis (PS) and municipal councils is 50 per cent, a good number is cornered by women from political families, often as proxies of male politicians.

In this light, a study commissioned by the State Election Commission of Maharashtra has recommended issuing guidelines to political parties to give at least 5 per cent of their tickets to women in constituencies not reserved for women, in ZP and PS elections. There are enough women without a political background who want to make it big in politics. This move to expand women’s representation is significant, as women do tend to stand only from seats reserved for them.

A study by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics bears out this trend. The number of years taken by a woman candidate between joining politics and contesting the first election at local level is often less than one, implying that women candidates mostly enter politics for contesting a reserved seat for women. In contrast, men take much longer between joining politics and contesting their first election. Interestingly, a study titled ‘Elected women representatives in Panchayati Raj institutions’ by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in 2008 had drawn the conclusion that women’s seats are captured by political families.

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The Gokhale Institute study observed that 86 per cent of women participating in this survey said that they contested PS or ZP election because a seat was reserved for a woman candidate; 73 per cent said that they want to contest elections for a second term.

Poor show by India

According to ‘The women in politics’ map released by UN Women last year, India ranks 148th among 190 countries when it comes to the percentage of women in Parliament, with 64 women MPs in Lok Sabha, of which only 11 have grassroots politics experience. Not surprisingly, many women MPs come from the families of political bigwigs. The UN Women map puts India behind Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh when it comes to representation of women in Parliament.

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Bhima Raskar, working with Mahila Rajsatta Andolan — women in governance campaign — for the last two decades, stresses that “Just reservation for women is not going to suffice. There should be proper training facilities for women leaders where they could learn about the administration and functioning of the system. Political parties have failed to create a conducive atmosphere for encouraging women and, thirdly, elections at every level have become a costly affair.” Raskar points out that male politicians or husbands of elected grassroots women leaders still continue to play a decisive role in every matter.

As for representation of Dalit women, the situation is abysmal. This is despite the fact that there is caste reservation within the reserved seats for women, depending on the local population.

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