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FRONT LINE

Volume 25 - Issue 11 :: May. 24-Jun. 06, 2008


INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

COVER STORY

Woman power

INDU AGNIHOTRI
The issue that has fired the imagination of women in India in recent times
is their demand for reservation in Parliament and the State Assemblies.
V.V. KRISHNAN

Women Members of Parliament of various political parties unite to demand


the tabling of the women’s reservation Bill, in November 2007 in New
Delhi.

“WOMANPOWER stalls Musclepower”, announced a newspaper headline the day


after the women’s reservation Bill was placed yet again in Parliament on May 7.

Surely, the headline highlighted a very basic challenge facing Indian democracy
both inside and outside Parliament. While it would appear that a long struggle lies
ahead for representative politics in India to become truly representative of popular
will, aspirations and interests, it must also be recognised that if there is one issue
that has fired the imagination of women across the country in an explicitly positive
sense over the past decade and more, it is the demand for 33 per cent reservation
in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies.

What were the factors that propelled the demand for the Bill?

The demand was a logical continuation of what had been achieved relatively easily
at the level of local representative bodies after the adoption of the 73rd-74th
amendments to the Constitution in 1993. There have been many attempts to
understand why women want greater representation – including the theory that
they are driven by compulsions as crass as naked political ambition or that they
desire important positions! Some may even believe that the demand comes from

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international platforms such as the Beijing Conference in 1995 where women’s role
in decision making was seen as a mark of achievement. Others may see in it an
expression of “feminist” politics coming of age.

Somehow, none of these recognises the basic fact that women contribute equally to
this society with men, that they demand and deserve a share in decision making
with regard to policies and planning, and that their struggle for equality is today an
integral part of the struggle of the Indian people to ensure the strength and
stability of Indian democracy.

Sustained campaign

Amidst this welter of views, it may be useful to put on record the extent to which
the demand for 33 per cent reservation galvanised women in a sustained campaign
spread over nearly 15 years now, notwithstanding the ‘drama’ enacted in Delhi
before every Parliament session. First, as anyone who has been actively involved in
the contemporary women’s movement would vouch for, the question “Didi, what is
happening to 33 per cent?” has come up in virtually every corner of the country
over the last decade.

The demand for women’s representation in elected bodies has perhaps featured in
every other memorandum at the State and Central levels, in discussions,
workshops, training programmes and interactive discussions across the regional
divide. It has been raised by the so-called autonomous women’s groups, by the
more political mass-based organisations, and by women’s wings of political parties,
thereby cutting across the so-called divides within the movement. A mass protest
before Parliament in the summer of 1998 drew an unprecedented response, with
nearly 10,000 women landing up in New Delhi to press the demand.

There has perhaps not been a single Prime Minister or Lok Sabha Speaker in the
past decade who has not been petitioned or has not had to field questions from
women representatives on the subject. It is one issue on which leaders of political
parties have been petitioned several times and quizzed on why this demand has not
featured in their election manifestos.

The issue has drawn in scholars, activists, policymakers, media personnel and even
members of the Election Commission, who are normally not drawn into such
controversies.

With the notable exception of the Left parties, which have consistently backed the
demand, verbal support for it has come in wavering undertones from some parties
(such as the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress), while the opposition to it
has been strident in others such as the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata
Dal. Women activists have made public their distaste for such “patriarchal”
mindsets even as they have debated the question of patriarchy and searched for
more nuanced definitions of it.

Meanwhile, women continue with their dharnas, memoranda and petitions, and
leadership training camps even as they engage with the dilemmas and challenges
that representative politics poses for the women’s movement within the context of
globalisation and a state that is committed to a neoliberal economic agenda.

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Furthermore, the issue has brought women in the South Asian region closer
through all the turbulence of the past two decades – military rule, the struggle
against monarchy, and the divisive conflicts thrown up by fundamentalism and
ethnic strife. There were ironies that emerged.

R.V. MOORTHY

Women from Bihar on a visit to Parliament House. A file picture. The social
base of women entering panchayat bodies has broadened and now
includes a cross-section of women from underprivileged groups.

The same women from Pakistan who despaired of any kind of representation given
the virulent opposition to it from fundamentalists in their country managed to inch
their way to 22 per cent representation in their parliament.

However, in India, where the campaign has been stronger and more widespread,
the record is poor. The highest representation of women was a dismal 9 per cent in
the Lok Sabha in 1999 and 15.4 per cent in the Rajya Sabha in 1991. Indeed, in
2005 the percentage actually came down to 8.2 and 11.4 respectively.

Push from below

The women’s movement’s decision to foreground the demand for reservation in the
1990s marked a shift in stance as until that point it had upheld the historical legacy
of the freedom struggle in respect of the rejection of reservation by the pre-
Independence women’s movement. In fact, a majority in the Constituent Assembly
rejected a proposal for reservation for women.

In independent India, the Committee on the Status of Women in India (1975)


discussed the issue of the low participation of women in elected bodies. It, however,
rejected the demand for reservation, with Vina Mazumdar and Lotika Sarkar
registering their dissent.

Undoubtedly, the real push for reservation came from below, after the enactment of
the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments in 1993. The entry of women into
rural and urban local bodies forced activists to sit up and take stock of the ground
reality in ways they never had to consider before. Those contesting the local body

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elections were willy-nilly drawn into “party politics”, as it was referred to. Many of
these women who were elected found themselves ill-equipped for the job. They
were forced to draw on whatever support was available, family or otherwise, and
even before they were given a chance to perform they were derided for being
“proxies” and “rubber stamps”.

Nevertheless, they plodded on, taking vested interests head-on. After all, if India
lives in its villages, so does a significant section of its ruling elite, along with power
brokers, criminals, extortionists, conservatives, reactionaries and militants. It was
these deadly forces that these uninitiated women representatives of elective politics
had to take on all at once.

As if that was not enough, before they could even contest they had to pass the test
by fulfilling a long list of eligibility conditions. Consider, for instance, clauses that
sought details on criminal proceedings pending against them, details of outstanding
or unpaid loans, indeed clauses that would make many a parliamentarian or
legislator wince in guilt.

To add to this, they became subject to a clause imposing a two-child norm for
elected representatives. This formed a part of the population policies adopted by
many of the States and endorsed by the Supreme Court in its misplaced wisdom.

Further, even as the demand for accountability and the right to recall State
legislators and parliamentarians simply floundered, women elected to panchayat
bodies faced an extraordinary backlash. In several panchayats women faced no-
confidence motions that were brought in, and adopted to dislodge them, by those
whose interests they threatened. These powerful groups comprised contractor
lobbies or land mafia-backed criminals who wished to corner funds allotted for
development activity at the local level. Some of them allied themselves with upper-
caste sections who had hitherto enjoyed the benefits of these allocations.

Women representatives’ refusal to comply with “instructions” given to them or to


buckle under these pressures was met with no-confidence motions, physical
threats, criminal/sexual assaults on them or family members and, in some cases,
even murder. This, even as they juggled their “traditional” roles and new
responsibilities.

Despite the backlash, representatives of the women’s movement have assessed this
experience positively and chosen to push for 33 per cent reservation in elected
bodies at the higher levels too.

Positive outcome

In fact, the positive outcome of representation is evident at several levels, starting


with enhanced participation and the emergence of women’s leadership at the level
of local self-government. The social base of women entering these bodies has
broadened and now includes a cross-section of women from under-privileged
groups – those that suffer economic deprivation and social and caste discrimination.
New developmental priorities emerged with women entering panchayat bodies.

Thus the women’s movement’s subsequent demand for 33 per cent reservation in
State legislatures and Parliament arose out of a recognition of positive interventions

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and of the experience of women members and chairpersons of panchayats in
different States, specifically Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala.

Sometimes the intensity of the conflict was greater in the supposedly backward
States. Although this experience has been varied, uneven, and State- and locality-
specific, it has enriched people-friendly governance, and its measurable success has
strengthened the demand for reservation at higher levels.

Why is it important to place these facts on record?

The pressure from below to engage with politics in a meaningful and positive way
comes at a time when the elite classes of India are united in hijacking politics to
serve their own vested interests, thus spreading a certain cynicism towards politics,
particularly amongst the Indian middle class, which conducts a continuous tirade
against the “political class”.

Further, the wave of depoliticisation sweeping across the world since the 1990s has
left the women’s movement in other parts of the world facing fragmentation – even
disintegration – and certainly seeking fresh moorings. Given the context of this
phase of politics, marked by the ‘end of ideology’, can the women’s movement in
India afford to ignore the push coming from below for a more direct engagement in
politics?

Significant issues have been raised in the course of the debate around the Bill over
the past decade. Broadly these relate to the mode of ensuring increased
representation of women; the quantum of reservation and the manner of its
implementation; and lastly, the issue of quotas within the women’s quota.

First, let us look at the number of proposals as alternatives to a reserved quota for
women. There have been suggestions for double-member constituencies; for an
increase in the overall number of seats in the course of delimitation, whichwill
automatically improve women’s chances; and even reservation within the list of
candidates put up by parties.

These proposals raise more issues than they settle. For instance, on the issue of
double-member constituencies, can only women represent women? Or, can women
not be represented by men? Such tokenism or biological essentialism can never be
the terrain on which women can argue their case.

The delimitation exercise has already reached an advanced stage and it is simply
not feasible to incorporate women’s reservation within its terms of reference.

Whereas there is no disagreement with regard to parties putting up more women


candidates, in the current situation of fractured mandates and coalition
governments, the importance attached to a candidate’s winnability by the party
makes it unrealistic to expect that they will pay heed to such a proposal.

Two objections

Opposition to the Bill has come up on two major grounds. First, given the wavering
support for the Bill even among those who do not oppose it, some have argued for

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a diluted demand. Why not settle for 15 per cent or even 20 per cent? some well-
wishers ask.

Pro-reservation activists have stood their ground on two main counts. First, they
point out that while successive governments took the plea that they were waiting
for a “consensus” to introduce the Bill, the fact that the Bill had been referred to a
Joint Select Committee, which submitted its report in 1997 under the
chairpersonship of the late Gita Mukherjee, was conveniently buried. Women
activists have rightly said that the Bill, drafted along the lines of its
recommendations, be placed in Parliament and debated forthwith without any
bargaining.

Secondly, they have stood their ground on the principle of 33 per cent as it will
provide the necessary critical mass for women to make an impact. Further, if there
is a compromise here, it could spur efforts to scale down one-third reservation in
local bodies as well.

The second major objection to the Bill is more complex as it apparently uses a
weapon from the arsenal of the women’s movement against itself. If greater
inclusiveness is a goal of reservation, then what of the marginalised groups from
amongst women? Can the goal of inclusiveness be achieved without inbuilt sub-
quotas for Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and minorities?

The debate has privileged the issues of ‘non-homogeneity’ within women as a


category and the politics of ‘presence’ in the context of the marginalised sections
more sharply, and has built pressure on the women’s movement to be ever more
sensitive to the histories of discrimination and exclusion on the basis of caste and
religion.

OBC representation

There are several issues involved here. First, a quota for Dalit women will form part
of the reservation for women as per constitutional norms.

Secondly, why have those parties and forces that have used this as a plea to reject
the Bill not placed before Parliament concrete proposals on reservation for OBC
categories at a more general level? Also, if OBC representation in representative
bodies is going up, then who is responsible for blocking the entry of women from
these sections coming into the same bodies?

Finally, while it is true that majority fundamentalism has targeted and further
alienated women belonging to religious minorities, it is unclear whether this issue
can be addressed within the purview of this Bill. Reservation for minorities is a
matter that requires constitutional amendments of a more complex nature.

The demand for religion-based rights and reservation was debated at length when
the Constitution was being drafted, and was rejected on the basis of a clear
understanding of secularism and democracy. The majority of women’s organisations
today would, therefore, reject a demand for re-negotiating this issue. As the Sachar
Committee report highlights, the problems of minority rights and reservation have
to be addressed at multiple levels.

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In other words, the reservation Bill cannot be a piece of catch-all legislation that
should address all historical inequalities and challenges women face before it can
settle the issue of women’s reservation. In fact, it is in recognition of this reality
that many women’s organisations have made concerted efforts to reach out to
women from the minorities and other marginalised sections in an attempt to
address the specific discriminations faced by women of these sections and to take
forward the discussion on democratic rights. This has often brought them into
conflict with fundamentalist forces from both within and outside minority
communities.

Interestingly, the issue of caste and its links with patriarchy has been central in
much of the academic writing in women’s studies with some interesting critiques of
Brahmanical patriarchy from a non-Brahmin perspective. These have focussed on
issues of consciousness and perception from both gendered and caste-based
perspectives. While that has added to the complexity of the debate within the
movement, it should not be assumed that the political forces opposing women’s
reservation in the name of caste necessarily share the same concerns.

In fact, the disconnect between historical movements or individuals who


foregrounded issues of caste before 1947 and the present-day champions of caste-
based reservation could not be sharper. Despite their ideological differences,
leaders such as E.V. Ramasamy ‘Periyar’, B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Ram
Manohar Lohia and E.M.S Namboodiripad located the institution of caste within the
framework of pre-capitalist relations and ideology. Some of them successfully
mounted a challenge to it because they firmly placed the struggle against caste
within the context of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles. Also, from their
varied perspectives they shared a commitment to equality for women.

In contrast to this, some of the modern champions of caste and reservation neither
understand the material basis of the phenomenon nor challenge the context of
globalisation and liberalisation within which caste operates. They merely press for
representation based on identity and are at best silent on the subject of women’s
equality.

To conclude, the debate around the women’s reservation Bill has thrown up
interesting questions. It has generated a significant political momentum. In the
event of its passage, it will create the conditions for meaningful interventions by
women in particular, and progressive forces in general, in the struggle for a more
egalitarian and humane path of development to take India forward.

This is necessary if social justice, inclusiveness and the right to dignity are to
acquire real meaning, going beyond the rhetoric of their use as mere slogans by
those who often choose to stall parliamentary proceedings rather than focus on real
issues. For those united in sharing a concern for India’s advance to a secular,
socialist future, the principle of 33 per cent reservation for women will in time,
hopefully, transform the context and terms of representative politics itself.•

Indu Agnihotri is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Studies, New Delhi.

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COVER STORY

‘We have crossed the first hurdle’

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Interview with Brinda Karat, vice-president of the All India Democratic
Women’s Association.
K. GOPINATHAN

Brinda Karat is a member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau.

FOR those who form the bulwark of the women’s movement in the country, the
introduction of the women’s reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha is no mean
achievement. Brinda Karat, vice-president of the All India Democratic Women’s
Association and Rajya Sabha member, along with representatives of other national
women’s organisations, has been at the forefront of the struggle for 33 per cent
representation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies. In an interview to
Frontline, she spoke on the long-standing demand and related issues. Excerpts.

The issue has been hanging fire for nearly one and a half decades. You
along with the seven “sisters” (the seven national women’s organisations
who have fought jointly on several issues since the early 1980s) played a
crucial role in having the Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha. How do you
view this development?

Yes, the issue had been hanging fire since 1996 even after the Select Committee
report by the late Gita Mukherjee went into different aspects of the Bill in great
detail. Even though the supporters of the Bill had the majority, its opponents
managed to create hurdles to prevent even its introduction. Now the introduction
has ensured that we’ve crossed the first hurdle. We should be very clear that only
the first hurdle has been crossed. We have a long way to go. As far as the Standing
Committee is concerned, it is important that all the political parties give concrete
suggestions.

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The opposition to the Bill has been so far in general terms, and grounds have
shifted over time. The Standing Committee gives an opportunity to everyone to put
their point of view forward. However, there should be a time frame worked out
because we do not want the Bill to get refrigerated. I personally feel that if there is
a political will to ensure women’s representation in Parliament, this is the best
opportunity to get it through. What we require is assured political will, and at the
same time, we do need to take on board the suggestions and see how they can be
included in the Bill.

What has basically changed since the time the Bill was drafted in the mid-
1990s? The issues raised by those opposing the Bill remain very much the
same.

What has become apparent is that India lags so far behind as compared to other
countries. In the last 10 years, while India was hesitating to bring forth any change
to ensure adequate representation for women, we’ve seen Pakistan reach 22.5 per
cent as far as the extent of representation for its women is concerned, Afghanistan
has reached 27 per cent and now Nepal in its proportional representation category
is going to ensure one-third reservation for women. India, which took the first step
through the 73rd and 74th amendments has fallen far far behind not only in this
region but in the whole world. The political parties who have opposed the Bill have
maintained their opposition, and so the issue needs to be discussed.

Would you say its introduction in the Rajya Sabha is a milestone in the
struggle for reservation?

I wouldn’t call it a milestone. We have crossed the first hurdle, and to that extent it
is a step forward in our struggle. We do need to congratulate the United Progressive
Alliance government. During the tenure of the National Democratic Alliance
government, only because the Janata Dal (United) was opposing it [the Bill], they
refused to bring it to the Standing Committee. They sabotaged the Bill the very first
day.

In contrast, the UPA government got the Bill introduced and convinced the
Rashtriya Janata Dal, which is an important partner in the coalition government.
This is an important development in coalition politics. The government persuaded
the RJD, which had voiced strong opposition right from the beginning, to let the Bill
be introduced and sent to the Standing Committee.

The fact that the RJD agreed to it is no mean achievement. This is a positive step.
As far as the Left is concerned, we feel that the government has accepted our
reasoning that there must be a concrete discussion on this. This is the only
democratic way.

The main issue now is that the Bill has to be discussed in a parliamentary forum.
Let all the suggestions come. It is not necessary that the Bill be accepted in its
present form, but it is necessary that there is 33 per cent reservation for women in
Parliament. Whether it is a question of quota within quota or rotation, we are
completely open to a discussion on these issues. We have maintained this right
from the beginning.

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What is your stand on the demand for a quota within a quota? The Left and
the women’s organisations have always supported affirmative action for
Dalits, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes and have
campaigned actively for the rights of minorities, including women from the
minority communities.

We have never said that it [a quota within a quota] is not acceptable. We are saying
that the constitutional provision for this does not exist. Where there is reservation
on the basis of caste, men and women have got elected to such reserved seats.
Even at the panchayat level, as there is a constitutional provision for reservations
for OBCs, women OBCs have got elected. These discussions have to go on,
especially the form in which they [those demanding a quota within a quota] want it.
As far as minorities are concerned, reservations, not just in politics, even for
employment and educational institutions, have been through the OBC quota mostly,
except in one or two States.

I entirely agree that if there is one glaring weakness in our democratic system and
the pattern of representation, it is the absence of representation of elected
members from the minority community, particularly Muslims. It is there in the
Rajya Sabha too. That is a very serious problem. The community is conspicuous by
its lack of representation.

But the question is, whether this problem should be overcome through the women’s
reservation Bill or whether the Bill should be put on hold till such issues are
resolved. So my plea to those who make such arguments is that, do not link the
solution of every weakness in our democratic system to the women’s reservation
Bill. That, in other words, will amount to sabotaging the Bill. Let the parties put
their points in a concrete form, and bringing the Bill to the Standing Committee
gives them an opportunity to do so. We should and must find a way to ensure that
the Bill gets the widest support.

Is there any merit in the oft-repeated argument that the scions and
relatives of upper caste and rich people would get elected to Parliament
and that genuine people’s representatives would not get the party ticket to
contest reserved seats?

If political parties are going to sell their tickets, it is not relevant whether a man or
a woman gets it. Those with money will get in anyway in this kind of a political
culture. The allotment of the party ticket lies entirely in the realm of the decision-
making process of the political leadership. It depends on the culture of political
parties, on how they allot tickets. For example, we have seen in the Assembly
elections in Karnataka, in the profiles of some of the candidates of the main
contending parties, the declared assets of some of them are to the tune of Rs.300
crores and, so on. Even in the Rajya Sabha, we have seen political parties fielding
prominent industrialists.

What about the suggestion made by the Election Commission a few years
ago that more women be fielded by political parties?

That has worked in those countries where there is a system of proportional


representation. This is known as the “List” system. For example, in the recent
Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal, one portion of the seats was set aside for
the first-past-the-post system and one portion for the proportional representation

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system. Here, it officially makes out a list and declares that if it gets a certain
number of votes, such and such a person on the list will be its first or second
choice, and so on.

The number of votes decides the number of MPs. So, if a party decides that every
third [person on the list] will be a woman and if the party gets the requisite votes,
many women get elected. The first, second or third candidate on the list can be a
woman. So if these political parties decide that one-third of their representatives
will be women, then this ensures that there will be similar representation in
Parliament too.

In India, we don’t have the system of proportional representation. So, to say that
political parties give one-third representation for women within their party
structures will not ensure that one-third of their elected representatives will be
women or that one-third women will get elected to Parliament and State
Assemblies. Women will be fielded in seats where they are not likely to win. In most
cases, they will be taking on sitting MPs who are more likely to be men. In the first-
past-the-post system, the only way to guarantee that women get elected is to
reserve seats for them. The other problem is that of rotation of reserved seats.
Many MPs feel that if there is going to be a change every five years, it will cause a
certain problems. The original idea was that there should be a horizontal spread for
15 years, allowing women to come up from different constituencies. But if only a
certain number of seats are frozen for the purpose of reservation, then it would
mean that women from other constituencies would not be able to benefit from
reservation.

In some of the local body elections, seats are reserved for 10 years. We have to see
what kind of suggestions are finally made. At the moment, people feel that this is a
major problem, and this will have to be worked out. So far we have not had the
opportunity to discuss these issues. The problem is that we never had a discussion
on the contentious issues of reservation within reservation and rotation. Let the
suggestions come in and the democratic process begin. The problem is we haven’t
had any opportunity to have discussions in a meaningful manner. For example, on
the issue of proportional representations, the idea was suggested by several
commissions. The Left parties have always supported proportional representation,
but it has never been accepted. There are so many issues that need to be
discussed, but they have to be done within a time frame. I feel that the UPA
government, having taken up the first step to cross the hurdle, will go through with
this.•

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COVER STORY

Success stories, some setbacks

PARVATHI MENON
Reservation for women in panchayati raj institutions has yielded excellent
results.
PTI

A Musahar woman contestant campaigning for the panchayat elections at


Jamsaut village in Bihar's Patna district in 2006.

THE strongest argument in favour of reservation for women in State legislatures


and Parliament is its success at grass roots-level local governing bodies. The 33 per
cent reservation for women in panchayati raj institutions (PRIs), provided on the
basis of the provisions in the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution,
changed the lives of thousands of women in the countryside and created conditions
for their equal participation in local government. Creating a law that ensured a
quota for women was an important step in encouraging women’s participation in the
political process.

Making women’s representation effective was altogether another matter and


became a task fraught with unforseen challenges. More than a decade later, there is
no going back on the gains women have made and passed on to the societies in
which they live and work.

As these inputs on the reservation experience for women in the five States of
Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra show, there
could have been no other way to ensure conditions for gender equality in the
political sphere other than through reservation. Patriarchal attitudes in the social
and family spheres and women’s lack of formal education and general awareness
were among the biggest deterrents to their political participation.

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These still are, but the panchayat members and office-bearers of today are far
ahead of the first generation of women panchayat members and office-bearers in
respect of confidence and quality of leadership.

Illiteracy continues to be a formidable stumbling block for women to realise their


full leadership potential as the experience in Andhra Pradesh shows. Kerala, which
has perhaps taken women’s participation to qualitatively new levels, continues to
grapple with the problem of persistent male domination, which appears to reinvent
itself as more and more women enter the public sphere. Kerala has just 5 per cent
representation of women in the State legislature, a figure that speaks forcefully of
the forces opposed to women’s participation even in a State that boasts a
progressive political environment. In Maharashtra and Karnataka, the
representation of women in PRIs is far greater than the mandated 33 per cent.

The expansion of the democratic process, consequent to the constitutional


provisions for women’s representation at the panchayat level, nevertheless,
provides the strongest impetus for the women’s reservation Bill, and its experience
provides a foretaste of the challenges that face women if and when the Bill is
passed.

PIVOTAL ROLE OF SHGs

Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay in Kolkata

Although women in West Bengal have been active in politics from the time of the
independence movement, it cannot be denied that for long there was no
institutional arrangement for their active participation in the political process, in
development activities and in policy formulation. This opportunity finally came in
1993 with the 73rd and 74th Constitution amendments, which prescribed that one-
third of the seats in the panchayat bodies must be reserved for women.

In 1998, in another major step forward, women came to occupy 33 per cent of the
posts of office-bearers in the panchayat bodies. In fact, seven gram panchayats in
West Bengal are run exclusively by women. Cynics have raised the suspicion that
this increasing participation of women in panchayat activities has not been
spontaneous and that many women members are only proxies for their husbands or
fathers. But even a casual inspection will give the lie to this canard. The social and
economic indicators speak for themselves.

Between 1981 and 2001, there was a reduction in the below poverty line (BPL)
population by close to 51 per cent in rural West Bengal. The birth rate came down
by 42.7 per cent and the death rate by 48.36 per cent. The Infant Mortality Rate
fell by 59.18 per cent. The average marriageable age of girls increased from 14.3
years to 19.6 years, and the literacy rate among women went up from 30.25 to
60.22 per cent.

All these achievements have been possible because of the concerted activities of
women in panchayats, not only individually, but also through the collective efforts
of self-help groups (SHGs), which have played a pivotal role in the empowerment
and socio-economic upliftment of women.

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According to a study titled “On Self-help Groups and Panchayats”, brought out in
2007, about four lakh SHGs have come into existence, and because of their
operations between 40 and 60 lakh women have been able to raise their per capita
income by 20.25 per cent. These women cut across all strata of rural society –
ranging from the destitute landless to the orthodox Muslim.

The performance of women in West Bengal’s panchayats is, if anything, better than
that of their male counterparts, and the rapid strides made by the SHGs bear
testimony to this. Rekha Goswami, Minister for Self-help Group and Self-
Employment, recently described how the SHGs were coordinating among
themselves for access to markets, availability of infrastructure and uninterrupted
provision of essential inputs. This has led to the formation of sub-clusters (upa
sangha), clusters (sangha) and federations (maha sangha) at the village, gram
panchayat and block levels.

The pace at which the SHGs are expanding is staggering. There are about 7.4 lakh
SHGs with a membership of 60 lakh women. About 3.13 lakh SHGs get financial
assistance from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and
64,298 from the Small Industries Development Bank of India. In addition,
departments such as Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare and Urban Development have
also set up SHGs. The groups that get aid from the government’s poverty
alleviation programme, the Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana, had collective
savings totalling Rs.182 crore as on February 2008. Those assisted by NABARD had
Rs.166 crore.

Their activities range from making items such as papad and pickles on a small scale
to weaving, catering, selling groceries and vegetables and operating micro banks.
The State government has a programme to set up a corporation for the
procurement of paddy and rice through the SHGs.

Women at the panchayat level have also taken an active part in social programmes
such as mass literacy drives, pulse polio administration and midday meal schemes,
and they even visit buildings for electricity meter reading. Elderly women
distributing contraceptives among young wives and offering counselling is not an
uncommon sight in rural Bengal. Outdated social taboos are being challenged
silently.

Where the SHGs are active, young girls are going to school in larger numbers than
elsewhere; their dropout rate is coming down: public health and hygiene are
improving; and attendance of women at literacy centres is going up.

RISING TO THE OCCASION

Anupama Katakam in Mumbai

If numbers are indicative of progress, Maharashtra does not seem to fare badly in
respect of women’s representation in panchayats. The 33 per cent reservation has
been largely successful in this State. Reservation appears to have given women an
opportunity to prove their capabilities in governance. The confidence they have
inspired in their constituency has encouraged more women to enter the political
arena.

14
“The numbers are not that much above the 33 per cent norm, but the
commendable part is that women have contested general category seats and won,”
says Sunil Chavan, Officer-in-Charge of Panchayati Raj. The elected women make
sure funds are used properly and that their villages and districts actually benefit
from their leadership, says Chavan. He says an interesting aspect of having women
leaders is that they give a lot of importance to women’s literacy and care of the girl
child. The literacy rate among women has improved significantly. This, in turn, has
increased awareness and independence among women. “Literacy is a big reason
why there is much more women’s participation in panchayat polls,” he says.

“By and large reservation has been beneficial for women in Maharashtra,” says
Mariam Dhawale of the All India Democratic Women’s Association. “Not only should
it be extended but the percentage should be raised.”

Dhawale, who has worked extensively in the field, says that instances of women
office-bearers being used as proxies by men are bound to occur in a largely
patriarchal society. In many cases, upper-caste men refuse to accept or take
directions from a lower-caste woman leader. “Yet in the 15 years since it was first
introduced, the explosive reactions have decreased. In fact, you hardly hear of any
violent or disrespectful incident towards elected women members nowadays.”

Raseela Dhodi, a member of the gram panchayat and an ex-sarpanch of Dongari


village of Thallassery taluk in Thane district’s tribal belt, says: “It is we women who
understand the basic needs of the village. We are the ones who know the problems
relating to water, health of women and children, facilities in schools, ration cards,
roads, and so on. When a woman is the sarpanch, more often than not these
problems are addressed. When a male is elected, he is invariably involved only in
politics and fails to look at real problems.”

Dhodi says that her village has had both male and female sarpanches in recent
times and that the village has begun to realise that women are more effective.

For Suman Patil, a member of the panchayat samiti from Bokadvira village in Uran
taluk in Raigad district, it has been a long journey to leadership. She came to the
village 20 years ago as a daughter-in-law. “I could hardly go out of the house, and
sitting next to a man who is not your husband was unthinkable.” It took some time,
but eventually she decided to contest the elections.

“In the beginning I found it very difficult to address men. Then I thought, what is
there to be afraid of? People have voted for me, they have confidence in me, so I
should prove that I am capable of helping them. I used to stand at the site of road
works through the day to make sure the work was completed. The men used to
laugh, but then they got used to it.”

Bokadvira sarpanch Hemlatha Patil says SHGs in rural areas and the setting up of
cottage industries have also played a role in making women in villages independent.

PROBLEM AREAS

In spite of the positive stories, there are still many areas that are extremely
backward, says Hemlatha Patil. In Marathwada, many of the women sarpanches
have no role in decision making. “They attend the meetings but do not even sit.

15
When we went to those areas, we realised how poor, illiterate and unaware they
were. Furthermore, caste continues to play an ugly role in politics.”

Vibhuti Patel, an economist at the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of


Mumbai, was part of a gender audit of the budget. She says, “We have repeatedly
seen that elected women leaders look into issues such as construction of schools,
area development, immunisation, garbage collection, marriages – anything that
affects the family and daily life. In most cases, there was no corruption, and funds
were used wisely and not diverted to irrelevant activities.”

Even before reservation for women was enforced in 1993, Maharashtra had initiated
a 30 per cent quota for women in municipal councils. It was among the first few
States to have an all-women panchayat body. There are 13 such in existence today.
Seemingly, the State is among the progressive ones, yet there are areas untouched
by this progress.

EXPLOITED AND IGNORED

S. Nagesh Kumar in Hyderabad

In a State that has made rapid strides in the thrift movement with the highest
number of SHGs successfully managing their day-to-day affairs, women
representatives of PRIs continue to struggle to gain control over the offices they
occupy. The absence of awareness among the women about their role and
responsibilities is largely owing to the lack of formal education.

The 33 per cent reservation extends to 21,934 gram panchayats, 2.20 lakh wards
in gram panchayats, 1,104 mandal parishas and zilla parishad territorial
constituencies, 16,161 mandal parishad territorial constituencies and 22 zilla
parishads.

R. RAJU

At a meeting of self-help groups in an interior forest area of Adilabad


district of Andhra Pradesh.

The Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women headed by Margaret


Alva, in its report in 2002, noted that it was the absence of training programmes for

16
women that was largely responsible for the poor participation of women in
panchayats.

It recommended “continuous, participatory and interactive” training for women.


Notwithstanding the panel’s observations, illiteracy among women representatives
continues to fetter their performance.

G. Anitha, Nizamabad Zilla Parishad chairperson, says, “There have been instances
when officials made sarpanches, mandal parishad chiefs or members append their
signatures to some document. Having no clue about the purpose, the elected
members sign and often land in trouble.” Y. Babu Rajendra Prasad, the president of
Andhra Pradesh Panchayati Raj Chamber, cites the case of the sarpanch of
Mylavaram Major gram panchayat, O. Hemalatha, who was sacked by the Krishna
District Collector after a complaint was lodged that a road levelling work was done
without the passage of a resolution by the panchayat. “The fact is that the
sarpanch’s husband had undertaken the work without approval,” he said.

Even officials acknowledge this problem. Adilabad Zilla Parishad chief executive
officer Puli Devaram said illiteracy was high among women at the grass roots. The
husband dominates the scene because of the wife’s illiteracy, making a mockery of
women’s reservation and defeating the purpose of empowerment of women.

A senior official of the Rural Development Department concurred with this view:
“We have seen instances of husbands chairing the gram panchayat or mandal
parishad meetings in the presence of officials.”

Nagubandi Satyanarayana, chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Panchayati


Raj Abhiyan, cited an incident in Srikakulam district where a poor, tribal sarpanch
was in tears because the village secretary asked her to sign certain files and told
her to take Rs.2,000 every month. She lamented that she did not understand the
secretary’s language and felt helpless as she was in the dark about the funding for
development works in her village.

Women representatives in Adilabad are even less aware of government


programmes, according to Puli Devaram. “Women belonging to the S.C. [Scheduled
Castes] and S.T. [Scheduled Tribes] communities are the most exploited as officials
completely ignore them and the village elders look upon them with contempt,” said
Rajendra Prasad, a Member of the Legislative Council.

Mallepalli Laxmaiah, coordinator, Centre for Dalit Studies, said gender and caste
discrimination was visible in PRIs. “There have been instances when elected
representatives joined hands to oust Dalit sarpanches and mandal presidents,” he
said. The president of Elkathurthy mandal in Karimnagar district was ousted after a
no-confidence motion was moved by members who were irked by her
outspokenness and eagerness to undertake public works, he said.

D. Sujatha, a research scholar in Hyderabad Central University who has done a


study on Dalit women sarpanches in East Godavari district through the Anveshi
Centre for Women Studies, Hyderabad, agrees that women are still dependent on
their families to carry out their responsibilities. However, in East Godavari disof
women representatives. When they have to meet officials or elected representatives
in the town, women representatives are forced to take their family members along,

17
which makes them appear dependent on others to get their work done, she
observed.

But there are notable exceptions. D. Gowri, sarpanch of Iluru village in Totlavalluru
mandal of Krishna district, for instance, has often taken on local revenue officials
for failure to redress people’s grievances.

Gowri has been demanding that the public distribution system be extended to
islands on the river Krishna falling under the Iluru gram panchayat’s jurisdiction.
She caught the local ration shop dealer charging Rs.3 a kg for rice supplied under
the subsidised Rs.2-a-kg scheme. She lodged a formal complaint against the dealer
but the tahsildar did not act. The dealer started exerting pressure through
politicians and even threatened ration card holders that they would lose their quota
if the complaint was not withdrawn. “Although a senior official has directed the
tahsildar to take action against the dealer, he continues to threaten the card
holders,” she said.

Officials point out that there have been exceptional cases where even illiterate or
semi-literate women representatives excelled in their duties. Panchayati Raj
Minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy suggested fixing a minimum qualification for
candidates, but the move received little political support.

FEMINISATION OF PANCHAYATS

R. Krishnakumar in Thiruvananathapuram

An early lead in education, health and social welfare helped women in Kerala attain
a better quality of life than their counterparts in other regions of the country.
Gender relations as they exist today have evolved over a century and a half as a
result of social and religious reform movements, class struggles and administrative
measures taken by governments that came in the wake of these. But even such a
progressive State has failed to create an acceptance of gender equality or of
women in leadership roles.

It was in this context in Kerala that the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments
set the agenda for a considerable degree of feminisation of political leadership at
the local level. The newly elected Left Democratic Front government in 1996 set out
to implement it as part of a mass mobilisation movement for democratic
decentralisation (what was called a “People’s Campaign for the Ninth Plan”) that
had women’s empowerment and the creation of a new democratic civic culture at
the local level as its important objectives.

For the first time in India, a government set apart 35 to 40 per cent of a State’s
(Ninth) Plan outlay for projects and programmes to be implemented exclusively by
the local bodies (where women were to get a major role in decision making) and
launched a mass movement to equip the local self-governments and its new leaders
to deal with this big-bang devolution.

The goal was to integrate gender issues at each stage of the campaign, from the
convening of the gram sabhas (where women’s neighbourhood groups and their
leaders soon began to play a major role) to the implementation of the popular plans

18
that almost always were sensitive to the aspirations of local women (as espoused
by the agency of neighbourhood thrift and credit women’s collectives).

Thus, within a year of their election in 1995, nearly 6,000 women, the majority of
whom were reluctant new entrants (and of whom 75 per cent were in the gram
panchayats) and their male colleagues were subjected to continuous training
exercises that eased them into public office. Today, two elections later (in 2000 and
2005), many of those who received training have left office, but the training
exercises have been institutionalised and Kerala has surged ahead of most other
States in continuing to empower women at the local level. The crux of this
achievement, unlike in other States, is the placement of the exclusively women-run
neighbourhood groups and their federated structures at the heart of the
decentralised governance structure. They include the ward-level Area Development
Societies and the local self-government (LSG)-level Community Development
Societies, all of them highly effective leadership training camps for women, and
their apex organisation, Kudumbashree, the State Poverty Eradication Mission.

FAR-SIGHTED MOVE

Kerala has once again shown the way for women’s empowerment at the grass roots
through its far-sighted move to integrate the Kudumbashree SHG movement
(including its intensive leadership and skills training programmes) with the local
bodies, creating leaders out of ordinary women. At every local body in the State,
thus, there is today an exclusive female community organisation giving strength to
the elected women representatives in their fight against established political and
patriarchal power structures. According to official sources, of the women leaders
elected in the last local body elections, for instance, over 20 per cent had come up
through the Kudumbashree neighbourhood groups.

“Results from nearly a hundred gender status studies indicate that such a
feminisation of panchayats is perhaps the most important achievement of the
decentralisation programme in Kerala,” Jos Chattukkulam, director of the Kottayam-
based Centre for Rural Management, said.

“The Kudumbashree organisational structure and the local bodies are a source of
strength to each other now. You will not see gender discrimination of the traditional
kind as a factor limiting women’s advancement at the local level. A second
important result of women coming into local leadership in such a big way is the
noticeable reduction in corruption in local bodies,” Local Administration Principal
Secretary S.M. Vijayanand told Frontline.

Now, while many States in India struggle with the “first generation problems”
following reservation of seats for women, Kerala is facing a different set of issues of
empowerment at the local level.

Rather surprisingly for a State that has achieved so much, the three elections since
1995 have shown that women candidates winning elections continue to be only
around 35 per cent, a little more than the mandatory 33 per cent. Very few women
win seats outside their reservation quota. Since local body elections are fought on
political lines, it shows traditional patriarchal values still hold sway in the decisions
of political parties in Kerala.

19
Moreover, because of the rotation of reserved seats for women every five years,
women representatives lose interest in their constituency after the initial few years
and “shadow candidates”, mostly party colleagues, begin to take charge.

Despite such an influx of women into panchayat bodies in the State, it is a moot
point whether the local bodies and even their women representatives are
adequately gender sensitive when it comes to planning and implementing
programmes or dealing with day-to-day issues, says T.N. Seema, State president of
the All India Democratic Women’s Association.

D.B. PATIL

At the general body meeting of a zilla panchayat in Belgaum on March 3.

Ultimately, it seems, despite the reservation for women in local bodies, the most
important decisions are taken purely on political lines. Women members often are
forced to implement the decisions of their male-dominated political parties, even
though there is also a trend, in Kudumbashree meetings, of women’s group
dynamics blurring political identities of the participants.

However, it is important not to lose sight of the larger context of male domination in
the State,which offers a nagging counter trend to women’s enhanced role in the
public domain.

Kerala has a mere 5 per cent representation of women in its 140-member State
Assembly and just two women among its 20 Lok Sabha members. The State has
never sent a woman representative to the Rajya Sabha. At no time has the number
of women Members of Legislative Assemblies in the State crossed 10 in the 13
Assemblies from 1957 to 2006. No woman has become the Chief Minister,
Opposition Leader, or Speaker of the Assembly. Kerala never had more than one
woman Minister in the State Cabinet at a time. No wonder, scholars say that
“women may do more things in Kerala than elsewhere in India, but they do not
enjoy equality with men [in the public sphere]”.

ROBUST PARTICIPATION

S. Bageshree in Bangalore

20
Karnataka has 42.9 per cent (as on December 2006) elected women
representatives in the three tiers of the panchayati raj system, far above the
national average of 36.7 per cent and second only to Bihar, which has 54.1 per
cent. This large presence of women in grass-roots governance is partly owing to
Karnataka’s early initiation into the system. Karnataka was the first State in the
country to implement the Panchayat Raj Act, which mandated 25 per cent
reservation for women, in 1987, even before it was constitutionalised. As many as
14,000 women were elected in the first elections held to the PRIs in 1987.

Activists and experts believe that despite stark regional variations, there are clear
signs that over the past 20 years rural women of Karnataka have learnt to translate
political representation into real empowerment by taking control of decision
making. D. Rajasekhar from the Centre for Decentralisation and Development,
Institute for Social and Economic Change, says that this was palpable in the
district-level workshops the centre conducted for women in Madhya Pradesh,
Uttarakhand and Karnataka.

“The participation of Karnataka women and their articulation were remarkably more
robust,” he observes. He however believes that empowerment is not uniform and
that women representatives of Bangalore and its surrounding areas and the coastal
and Malnad belts are more confident than their counterparts in the rest of the
State.

Another significant part of the panchayati raj experience in Karnataka is the large
presence of Dalit women in the system. During a visit to the State in August 2007,
Union Minister for Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar said Karnataka was able to
make rapid strides in the PRIs mainly owing to the increasing representation of
Dalit women in the system.

There is one line of argument that says women’s entry into the bad world of politics
will corrupt them and render theie empowerment counterproductive. While it would
be fallacious to think women are beyond the pervasive corruption of realpolitik,
there are indications that a woman’s presence can inject a sense of accountability
into the system. An interesting study titled “Community lighting at what cost?” by
Dr. Rajasekhar and R. Majula on streetlight services by gram panchayats in
Karnataka corroborates this argument. Data collected from 5,212 gram panchayats
showed that if a woman president headed a gram panchayat, the expenditure on
streetlights came down by six paise for every rupee of expenditure. In other words,
women bring down the expenditure by 6 per cent. “This suggests that the GPs
[gram panchayats] headed by women tend to be efficient. The policy implication is,
therefore, to provide more encouragement to women to contest for GP [gram
panchayat] executive positions, and review the current policy of rotation of GP
[gram panchayat] presidents once in 20 months,” the study says.

In an effort to curtail the powers of panchayat representatives (and thereby the


large number of women who are part of it), a Bill was passed in 2006 by the State
legislature to empower legislators in the distribution of Ashraya sites and houses to
the beneficiaries, thus taking away the power given to the panchayats. However,
owing to enormous civil society pressure, the then Governor T.N. Chaturvedi
returned it for reconsideration. The Bill’s quiet burial has been a victory of sorts for
the panchayati raj system.•

21
COVER STORY

A silent revolution

S. VISWANATHAN
Interview with Union Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.
R. RAGU

Mani Shankar Aiyar: “The credit must go to Bihar for being the first State
to have legislated that reservation for women will go up from 33 per cent
to 50 per cent.”

IT is significant that while the women’s reservation Bill providing for reservation in
Parliament and State legislatures had to wait for over a decade to get introduced in
Parliament, one-third reservation for women has been in vogue for nearly 12 years
in panchayati raj institutions.

The tremendous response that the reservation system has received from women
and also large sections of men has enabled some States to raise the percentage of
reservation. This apart, women in significant numbers are getting re-elected to
posts in several villages across the country. Election of women from general
constituencies in substantial numbers has also been reported from many States.

Union Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar told Frontline in an interview in
Chennai on May 9 that a comprehensive and scientific study of the functioning of
the panchayati raj institutions had shown that there was no inherent gender-related
reason that could stand in the way of women occupying at least 50 per cent of
posts of members and office-holders in these institutions. And so, he said, there
was no reason why at least 50 per cent of the seats in State Assemblies and
Parliament could not be reserved for women, reflecting their real share in the
population. “And therefore, his [Rajiv Gandhi’s] introduction of reservation for
women can justifiably be taken as a precursor for the revolutionary step that has
been taken in the Rajya Sabha to introduce reservation for women in Parliament
and State Assemblies,” he said. Excerpts:

As one associated right from the beginning with the shaping of the
panchayati raj institutions under the amended Panchayats Act and as the

22
Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, what do you think of the prospects of the
women’s reservation Bill in the light of the panchayati raj experience?

We have approximately 12 lakh women in the panchayats alone. As against the


reserved quota of 33 per cent, their actual presence ranges around 38 per cent.
This means that not only are we easily able to find women candidates to contest
some 12 lakh posts but also there is on an average three or four contestants for a
post. This means that approximately 50 lakh or 5 million women have been
liberated from the kitchen and the courtyard and brought into the public domain.
This is an extraordinary act of social and political empowerment.

I stress social empowerment, for political empowerment goes only to the women
who win, while social empowerment goes not only to all the women who contest
but also to all the women who find that people of their own gender can be
candidates. Moreover, in the gram sabha the women of the village are enabled to
directly contact women of their own kind who hold elected authority.

What is even more amazing, in my view, is that this extraordinary social revolution
has taken place in conservative India, in the most tradition-bound rural society,
with no tension and no tangible opposition from men. There may be individual male
politicians who have attempted to subvert the process, for example, by putting up
women relatives as their proxies. But, apart from this effort at the margin, there
has been no social tension of any kind.

Today, India can honestly boast that there are more elected women representatives
in India alone than in the rest of the world put together. This revolution is without
precedent in history and without parallel in the world, and yet remains a completely
silent revolution, largely because the male population has either been acquiescent
or wholeheartedly accepted this process. Therefore, this empowerment of women
reflects a deep sense of social justice in the processes of social engineering going
on in contemporary India, and it also reflects the very deep democratic spirit that
prevails in our social, political and economic ethos.

What made it possible?

The person singularly responsible for bringing about this unprecedented gender
revolution is Rajiv Gandhi. I had the privilege of being associated with Sri Rajiv
Gandhi, as his Joint Secretary in charge of this project in the Prime Minister’s
Office. And I was present when very senior political leaders told him from the
depths of their experience that he would not be able to find sufficient number of
women candidates even to contest the polls. Indeed, there was one Chief Minister
of a border State who, perhaps in an excess of rhetoric, threatened me that if we
brought in women’s reservation in his State, his State might be obliged to secede
from the Union.

When this was the wise counsel coming from very senior political leaders, it took a
certain element of deep conviction on Rajiv Gandhi’s part as well as deep
commitment to gender justice to persist and say that we must have a minimum of
one-third reservation for women in our panchayats. And I think I must give the
credit to Sri V.P. Singh for having added the concept of one-third reservation for
posts in the panchayati raj system.

23
What has happened in consequence of this is perhaps best illustrated by the
example of Karnataka. In the village panchayats of Karnataka, we have one-third
reservations for S.T. [Scheduled Tribe] women in reserved S.T. positions. The actual
share of S.T. women in those positions is 65 per cent. Among S.C. women the share
in actuality is 54 per cent. So, this shows that, typically, social and economic
empowerment is most effective among the most oppressed gender of the most
depressed classes.

What was the response from men in general as also from administrators to
this process of empowerment of women?

I want to give you an example of what this means for the empowerment of women
among the minorities, specifically Muslims. I give you the example of Neem Kheda
village, which is in a heavily minority-dominated area in Mehwat district of Haryana.
Here, in the process of rotation, the panchayat president’s post was reserved for a
woman. The men of the village got together and decided that none of them would
contest the polls because none of them could bear the thought of having to
necessarily serve under a woman, with the result that for this very bad reason India
got its first all-woman panchayat.

The men, however, had conspired with the local administration, and the local
administration would only listen to the men and ignore the fact that there was an
elected all-woman panchayat. But what the men had not reckoned with was that
the women of the village would certainly converse with the elected women
representatives and that they would keep telling them, “Oh, what is the point of our
having wasted our votes on you? You are doing nothing for us.” So, these women
decided in May last year to resort to “Gandhigiri”. They jointly submitted their
resignation letter. Then, inevitably, the story hit the headlines.

G.P SAMPATH KUMAR

Mani Shankar Aiyar with participants at a workshop for women presidents

24
and vice-presidents of zilla, taluk and grama panchayats in Karnataka, in
Bangalore in August 2007.

I then brought it to Sreemathi Sonia Gandhi’s attention, who immediately ordered


me to send an investigative team to the village and check with the local
administration. I did it. The team talked with the local authorities, and I had a word
with the Chief Minister. The net result was that the women withdrew their
resignation. The administration started cooperating with them.

If this can happen in the wink of an eye in one of the economically and socially
most backward parts of India, then clearly the degree of effective empowerment all
over the country is much greater than the episodic instances of discrimination
against women panchayat members reported in the media.

Let me give another example. The Constitution says that reservations for women
must be not less than 33 per cent. Which means it can be more. Usually, Bihar is
spoken of as a very feudal, traditional, socially backward backwater. But the credit
must go to Bihar for being the very first State to have legislated that reservation for
women will go up to 50 per cent. In the last elections, 55 per cent of the candidates
elected to the panchayats were women. Not only had the percentage increased but
the actual number of women elected was larger than the reserved quota in a State
like Bihar.

So, it is not surprising that the example set by Bihar has now been picked up by
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. All these States
have raised their reservation quota to 50 per cent. Sikkim has raised it to 40 per
cent.

Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are States with very low human development
indices and a very high S.T. population. Rajasthan has various economic and social
problems. The same Rajasthan that was associated with sati is today associated
with 50 per cent reservation for women [in panchayats]. Himachal Pradesh, which
probably had the lowest female literacy rate at Independence, now has one of the
highest and has become the State that has moved forward the most. And the latest
State to join the Indian Union, Sikkim, whose experience of democracy is only 33
years compared with 61 years for the rest of the country, has moved ahead of
many other States. If this is so, we must recognise that there is a very positive
angle to the reservation story in the panchayats. This is not a negative story at all.

But there have also been stories of vested interests manipulating things to
suit their needs and trying to undermine the system in several ways …

Finding a negative story is not too difficult and there is a mixing up in the public
mind of the caste panchayats, called khap-panchayats, in parts of northern India
and the katta-panchayats in Tamil Nadu with the constitutionally sanctioned
panchayati raj system. Khap-panchayats and katta-panchayats have nothing to do
with the panchayati raj system. But even so, there are many instances of illiterate
women being elected and holding office and women acting as proxies for their
husbands, of discrimination by male members of the panchayat against women
holding office, of misuse of the no-confidence and right-to-recall provisions and of
the two-child norm in some States to get rid of women representatives.

25
Since there is a lot of episodic reporting of these negative features, I thought we
should do an objective and scientific survey of the status of women in our States.
And, to this end, we commissioned the polling survey company A.C. Nielsen
Company-ORG Marg to undertake a survey on a sample of nearly 20,000 women in
panchayats in different States. We put together an academic advisory committee
headed by the Nehru scholar Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal of Jawaharlal Nehru
University to analyse and write the results of the survey. This study was unveiled by
Sreemathi Sonia Gandhi on Panchayati Raj Day, April 24, at the national convention
of district and intermediate panchayat presidents held in Delhi.

What has this study found?

The first of the main conclusions one can draw from this is that there is no inherent
gender-related reason to stand in the way of at least 50 per cent of all panchayat
members and office-holders being women. And, for that reason, there should be no
grounds for standing in the way of at least 50 per cent of the seats in the State
Assemblies and Parliament being reserved for them. Their share in the population is
50 per cent. Panchayats have already shown that the 33 per cent of reservation for
women can be taken to 50 per cent.

And so the women’s reservation Bill now introduced is a positive move in the
direction of building at higher levels on the empowerment path that has been
indicated by Rajiv Gandhi’s panchayati raj. I say Rajiv Gandhi’s panchayat raj
because reservation for women was not part of the panchayat system that was
envisaged by even Gandhiji or Pandit Nehru.•

COVER STORY

On being a woman in Parliament

MALINI BHATTACHARYA
“We need more women in Parliament not just to highlight women’s issues
but to strengthen our democratic process.”

26
C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Malini Bhattacharya: “I found there was a tendency in Parliament… to


push women into certain corners.”

WHATEVER I have to say on women parliamentarians has a link with the question
why we consider the women’s reservation Bill to be so important. When I first went
to the Lok Sabha in 1989, the number of women members was, as usual, very
small; I think at that time it was 7.5 per cent – in fact the highest percentage
women ever had was a little over 8 per cent. But, as a woman parliamentarian, I
think we need more women in Parliament not just to highlight women’s issues but
to strengthen our democratic process.

For instance, how many male parliamentarians represent their constituency


consistently and articulately in Parliament? If a male parliamentarian takes leave of
absence constantly, or spends time in Parliament without ever uttering a word, no
one has anything to say against him. It is only in the case of women that questions
of efficiency and effectiveness are raised. There is a lacuna in our visualisation of
the representative process, which leads to our raising these questions as soon as
the issue of giving higher representation to women in Parliament arises.

Effectiveness, of course, is to some extent a personal matter – it relates to personal


efficiency – but I also think that for a parliamentarian, male or female, there is a
process of learning. For instance, I had been a teacher for almost all my adult life
and had been lecturing in classes for a very long time. But when I contested the
Jadavpur (in South Kolkata) Lok Sabha seat, for the first time I had to speak at an
election rally and there was a sense of embarrassment and of feeling exposed
before the eyes of the public, which made me very uncomfortable.

27
But with rally after rally, I was able to train myself to approach the constituency
through such rallies. This is something all parliamentarians have to learn. In the
case of a woman, it is somewhat more difficult because of the age-old division of
labour, which lays down that women belong to the domestic sphere and men to the
public domain. It is the same problem at the panchayat level also.

If there are more women in Parliament, interaction between men and women,
which I think is very important, will happen much more in the public sphere. This is
the democratic value I have been speaking about, which would probably be
enhanced if we have more women members. As I said, they will be there not just to
raise women’s issues more but also to promote greater interaction between
women’s issues and the general public and between men and women. This, I find,
is of great democratic value and so I started my intervention with reference to the
women’s representation Bill. It is good not only for women but for all of us.

Parliamentary skills

After one is elected, one finds in Parliament a huge system, which, even when one
has physical access to it, needs more time for intellectual access. This is required
by both male and female parliamentarians. There is a way of speaking in Parliament
if you want to make yourself effective. There are certain methods – you can raise
an issue in the zero hour, you can ask starred questions, and have other kinds of
intervention under various Acts, rules and regulations. These you have to learn, and
for this it is necessary to have support from the constituency and from people
outside Parliament dealing with certain issues. At the time when I was in the Lok
Sabha, we were discussing what was then called the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques
(Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Bill; later it became the Preconception and
Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act. It was brought to
the Lok Sabha around 1992, during the prime ministership of P.V. Narasimha Rao. I
was part of the Joint Select Committee.

I did not know a great deal about how sex selective practices were being promoted
through certain new medical technologies. But when I became a member of the
Joint Select Committee I had discussions with women’s organisations and health
activists who had been dealing with this issue for a very long time. This gave me a
perspective of not just the demographic problem but also the problem of
reinforcement of social prejudices that modern medical technologies allow.

I benefited a great deal from my experiences on that committee. Finally we found


that the lobbies that were active to see that this Bill would not be an effective one
succeeded in pushing through some of their concerns in it. When we (three of the
women members, Gita Mukherjee, Sarla Maheswari and I) found that after the
discussions we could not change the perspective of the committee, we decided to
give a note of dissent. That note became part of the proceedings, and I was told
that when the Bill was looked at once again, this note of dissent came up for
discussion. So you see, even a note of dissent can become historic. If it becomes a
part of the parliamentary proceedings, even if it is not effective immediately, it can
be taken up again later on so that the struggle continues.

Women’s role

Another thing I found is that there was a tendency in Parliament to push women
into certain corners. Just as in social life you put women into certain niches saying

28
“this is the space that women must inhabit”, in Parliament also women are pushed
into certain spaces saying “this is where women should intervene”.

Almost every year in Parliament, as a matter of routine there is a discussion on


atrocities on women. Generally, only women from every party are expected to
speak on this issue. I found this to be a kind of stereotyping of a woman’s role in
Parliament and did not like it at all. So I tried to interest myself in issues that are
not generally thought of to be women’s issues.

At that time we were discussing the Dunkel Draft, and I found that a very great
change was being perceived in not just our economic policies but in other kinds of
policies as well. I thought it was necessary that I should learn about these changes.
In fact, in spite of being a woman I was one of the spokespersons of my party on
the Dunkel Draft when it was raised in Parliament. Once again, I was in touch with
people such as economists and health activists who were working on these issues.
So it was possible for us to intervene effectively on the Dunkel Draft and
particularly on the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) issue. Very often I found that
Gita Mukherjee and I were the only ones who raised these issues on our own.

V. SUDERSHAN

Home Minister Shivraj Patil with an all-party delegation of women


parliamentarians in August 2005 after a meeting on the women’s
reservation Bill in New Delhi.

When I was in Parliament, the demolition of the Babri Masjid took place. We had
seen it coming for a long time and had raised the issue in Parliament. After the
demolition, I was one of the spokespersons from my party. What I am trying to
underline is that even when women are there in Parliament, very often they are
excluded from important discussions partly because they are few in number and
also because of a kind of social sanction on what is a woman’s issue and what is
not. That barrier has to be broken.

I would say that we have had some excellent predecessors, such as Renu
Chakraborti, Phulrenu Guha, and others, in this respect; so if you think of all these
women who have intervened successfully in Parliament, they have not confined
themselves to women’s issues but have also been articulate on general issues.

29
Money power

Another thing I would like to deliberate on is the whole process of elections. The
Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations on this were never implemented. What
seems to be rather alarming to me is that now contesting and winning a
parliamentary seat seems to have become a kind of investment.

When I first contested elections I did not spend a single paisa from my own purse,
except for the contribution that I made as a party member to the electoral fund.
That is true not just of me but of other members of the Left parties. But I was
shocked when many colleagues in other parties, including women, told me how
they had to collect money even to get the party ticket. . That means even if you are
a woman with certain abilities, you cannot get into the electoral process at all
unless you can invest something.

I think this is a rising trend, and the greater incursion of money and muscle power
into politics in the past 10-15 years is something that is definitely going to go
against women representatives in Parliament. If there is a rise in violence so far as
the parliamentary process is concerned, it would be difficult for women to play an
effective role even if they enter the fray.

I was on one of the panels of chairpersons in the Lok Sabha for quite some time
and have managed the Lok Sabha as its chairperson on various occasions, some of
them quite turbulent. But when I look at the face of the Lok Sabha today, I doubt
whether I would be able to sit in that chair and manage the House…. This increase
in violence, just as it hurts democracy in other ways, makes it difficult for women to
operate within the parliamentary process.

Effectiveness

If you ask me how women have fared in Parliament, I will say that in spite of the
fact that they have got a raw deal in certain ways they have been able to push
through some of their agendas. Early in 1990, we managed to get tabled the Bill on
the National Commission for Women – something the women’s movement had been
asking for, for a long time. When the Bill was tabled, however, we found it did not
contain some of the most crucial powers we had expected the commission to have.
It was more of an eyewash.

So women parliamentarians, irrespective of their parties, got together and met the
Prime Minister. Some of the women members took the initiative and met the other
women members and convinced them about the need to work together on the
issue. Eventually, we were able to convince the Prime Minister that it was a
different Bill that we needed. The Bill was withdrawn and after a national discussion
and various rounds of consultations we were able to pass the right Bill. I think that
was a big boost for women parliamentarians.

Another example that comes to mind dates back to 1974 when, during the prime
ministership of Indira Gandhi, the government formed a committee to determine
the status of women in the country. The committee was headed by Phulrenu Guha,
and had many experts on it. Women parliamentarians with the help of women
activists and experts on women’s issues prepared an excellent status report called
‘Towards Equality”.

30
I am not saying that the women parliamentarians alone did it, but they did play a
very important role in it, which was not an echo of whatever the government was
doing. It had a fiercely independent perspective, was also a critique of the
government wherever necessary, and gave a very honest view of the actual position
of women after so many years of independence.

Why go so far back. Think of the women’s reservation Bill. I was not in Parliament
when Gita Mukherjee initiated the process and was able to get together other
women parliamentarians to support the Bill. That is the only reason why even
today, in spite of many people wanting to, they could not kill off the Bill; I think it is
because of that initial push given by very eminent and illustrious parliamentarians
like Gitadi.

Just decorative

Very often women members are just decorative – here don’t ask me names, please.
We don’t find them speaking up or visiting troubled spots or intervening in debates.
And I think many male parliamentarians are satisfied with that. On the issue of
reservation for women, I have heard people saying, “Why should an MP who is
working well in his constituency leave it for a woman whose credentials have not
yet been proven?” But an MP is not a feudal Mansabdar. They are democratically
elected representatives and have to remember that their constituency is not
something that they control as a kind of feudatory area.

I would like to end with a very pleasant memory. I met a former colleague
sometime after I had left the Lok Sabha, and he told me: “The waiters in the Lok
Sabha canteen often ask after you and say they miss you.” [Smiles.] I thought that
was the highest compliment I have ever had in my career as an MP.

(As told to Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay.)

Dr. Malini Bhattacharya was a Lok Sabha member of the CPI(M) from 1989 to 1990
and from 1990 to 1996. She is a former member of the National Commission for
Women, and is currently Chairperson of the West Bengal State Commission for
Women.

31
COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Dr. Lakshmi Sehgal

BUSINESS LINE

CAPTAIN LAKSHMI. She was India's first woman presidential candidate.

DR. Lakshmi Sehgal - Captain Lakshmi to generations of Indians - has been part of
the great historical transition India has seen from colonial subjugation to freedom.
A freedom fighter, a dedicated medical doctor, an outstanding leader of the
women's movement in India, and a presidential candidate at the age of 87 in 2002,
Captain Lakshmi represents the progressive and secular traditions of the freedom
movement and the struggle for democracy, women's emancipation and socialism in
free India.

Born Lakshmi Swaminadhan on September 24, 1914, to S. Swaminadhan, a lawyer


from Chennai, and A.V. Ammukutty, a social worker and campaigner for women's
rights, Lakshmi threw herself into the freedom movement at a young age,
participating enthusiastically in the nationalist programmes of burning foreign goods
and picketing liquor outlets. She chose to study medicine and received her MBBS
degree from the Madras Medical College in 1938.

When Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940 where she established herself as a
successful and compassionate doctor, little did she know that the most momentous
period of her life was near. In 1942 came the surrender of Singapore by the British
to the Japanese. She joined the Indian National Army and was subsequently chosen
by Subhas Chandra Bose to raise and lead a women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi
Regiment. Heading a well-trained fighting force of women recruits, she saw active
duty on the Burma front. She was captured and brought to India in March 1946,
where she was given a heroine's welcome.

Captain Lakshmi became active in left politics in the 1970's, first in the trade union
movement and then in the women's movement. When the All India Democratic
Women's Association (AIDWA) was established in 1981, she became its
vicepresident and has since then been active in the campaigns and struggles -

32
including the campaign for the introduction of the women's reservation Bill - of the
largest women's organisation in India.

In 2002, Captain Lakshmi agreed to contest as a candidate of the Left parties in the
presidential elections against the candidate supported by the National Democratic
Alliance, A.P.J Abdul Kalam, the first woman candidate to contest for the country's
highest constitutional post. She used the campaign and the all-India platform it
created for her to campaign for issues that were dear to her heart - the issue of
social and economic justice, women's empowerment, the secular traditions of the
country and self-reliance.

At the age of 94, Captain Lakshmi still attends to patients at her clinic in Kanpur
every day. Her inspiring crusade has not ceased.

Parvathi Menon

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy

THE HINDU

33
Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy. She rose in revolt against child marriage and the
devadasi system.

A multifaceted personality, Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy (1886-1968) was one of the


outstanding Indian women of her time. She had several firsts to her credit: she was
the one of the first woman doctors of the country (1912), the first woman member
of the Madras Legislative Council, the first woman to be elected as its Deputy
Chairperson, the first president of the Women’s India Association, and the first
woman to be elected as alderman of the Madras (now Chennai) Corporation.

Muthulakshmi Reddy was concerned about the plight of women and deeply
interested in liberating them. She fought for their upliftment in several fields. When
one of her cousins died of cancer, she took an interest in cancer studies and
pursued it at the Royal Cancer Hospital in the United Kingdom. She was
instrumental in starting the Cancer Institute in Adyar, Chennai, and founded the
Avvai Home for the benefit of destitute women.

At the top of these achievements, she is known for her political activism in respect
of social issues. First she rose in revolt against child marriage and the devadasi
system. (Under this system, parents “married” off a daughter to a deity or a temple
before she attained puberty. These girls became dancers and musicians and
performed at temple festivals.)

In 1930, Muthulakshmi Reddy introduced in the Madras Legislative Council a Bill on


the “prevention of the dedication of women to Hindu temples in the Presidency of
Madras”. The Bill, which later became the Devadasi Abolition Act, declared the
“pottukattu ceremony” in the precincts of Hindu temples or any other place of
worship unlawful, gave legal sanction to devadasis to contract marriage, and
prescribed a minimum punishment of five years’ imprisonment for those found
guilty of aiding and abetting the devadasi system. The Bill had to wait for over 15
years to become an Act.

While progressive persons supported the abolition of the system, many


conservative nationalists opposed it. While the then Tamil Nadu Congress
Committee president C. Rajagopalachari, in the words of Muthulakshmi Reddy, “was
not very much in favour of abolition of the pernicious practice”, another Congress
veteran, S. Satyamurthy, argued that the devadasi system needed to be protected
because it was essentially a part of the indigenous Hindu/national culture.

The Bill, introduced by a nationalist, was blocked by nationalists themselves for one
reason or another until E.V. Ramasamy ‘Periyar’, leader of the Self-Respect
Movement and later the Dravida Kazhagam and one of the progressive nationalists
when the Bill was introduced, and Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar, another
veteran of the Self-Respect Movement, campaigned actively among the people for
the passage of the Bill.

Muthulakshmi Reddy could not get the support of a section of nationalist leaders in
spite of the fact that she got an endorsement from Mahatma Gandhi “for liberating
the women”. Her perseverance, unmindful of the resentment of some of the
influential leaders of the time, earned her laurels from progressive intellectuals.

S. Viswanathan

34
COVER STORY

The Pioneers: K.P. Janaki

K.P. Janaki. She won the hearts of thousands through her unwavering
dedication to the poor.

SINGER, actor, freedom fighter and communist – all rolled into one. That was K.P.
Janaki of Madurai. Affectionately called “Amma” by thousands of industrial and
agrarian workers, tenancy farmers, small cultivators and others, she waged many a
heroic battle against exploitation, social oppression, police atrocities and injustice in
all forms throughout her 60 years in public life.

Born in 1917 in a poor family, Janaki could not continue her school education
beyond Standard VIII. At the age of 12, she joined a theatre group as a singer and
actor. Nationalists were then using stage plays to mobilise support.

Janaki took interest in the freedom movement. She used to sing patriotic songs of
poet Subramania Bharati in Congress meetings. She married Gurusami, a theatre
artist and Congress worker, who took her further into the movement. The couple
soon joined the Congress Socialist Party, which started gaining strength in the mid-
1930s, and later the Communist Party. Janaki was perhaps the first woman to join
the communist movement in Tamil Nadu

Recalling those early days, N. Sankaraiah, chairman, Control Commission of the


Communist Party of India (Marxist), said: “We, the Socialists functioning within the
Congress, soon captured the Madurai District Congress Committee defeating
veteran Congress leaders A. Vaidyanatha Iyer and N.M.R. Subbaraman.”

He commended the role of Janaki and Forward Bloc leader Muthuramalinga Thevar
in 1938 in mobilising people for a massive reception for Subhas Chandra Bose when
he visited Madurai as Congress president and later in organising anti-imperialist
rallies in Madurai and Chennai. She was also the first woman communist to be

35
imprisoned along with a few others from Andhra. She was arrested when she
addressed an anti-war meeting in Madras.

Sankariah lauded the untiring efforts of Janaki in building trade unions and
organising the kisan movements and agricultural labourers’ unions in Madurai
district. She could bring a large number of women into the working class
movement. “It was not an easy job in those days,” Sankaraiah said. Although
Janaki played a commendable role in industrial workers’ struggles, much of her
work was in villages, on the agrarian front. She was in the forefront of protecting
the interests of tenants and agricultural workers. She intervened in innumerable
cases relating to the eviction of tenants by landowners and was keen on restoring
tenants’ rights. She led numerous struggles by peasants and labourers. She was
keen on securing equal wages for men and women.

Janaki intervened even in social disputes involving women. She used to mediate in
such cases and protect women’s interests. In solving people’s problems, she had
her own methods. “First she would understand the concrete nature of the issue and
then work on a strategy to resolve it. She was very particular that the victim got
due relief. She was always available to hear grievances and solve them in meetings
with those concerned – Ministers, officials and others – and convince them of the
justness of the cases,” Sankariah observed.

Janaki held several elected posts. She was Municipal Councillor, District Board
member and a member of the State Assembly (1967-71). As an alert MLA, she
raised issues relating to the tenancy law, land reforms and farm wages, besides
gender issues as she was also heading the Tamil Nadu unit of the All India
Democratic Women’s Association. She was respected by successive Chief Ministers,
from K. Kamaraj to M. Karunanidhi.

Above all, Janaki, simple and unassuming, won the hearts of thousands of poor
people, whose causes she always championed. That was evident in the huge funeral
procession for “Amma” on March 2, 1993.

S. Viswanathan

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Mallu Swarajyam

36
K. RAMESH BABU

Mallu Swarajyam. She was influenced by Gorky’s ’Mother’, which she read
at the age of 10.

THE Telangana armed struggle is a crucial chapter in contemporary history. But, the
heroic role played by some of its commanders, including a woman who carried a
prize of Rs.10,000 on her head, remains unsung. The woman commander’s name is
Mallu Swarajyam.

Born into a semi-feudal family in the backward Nalgonda district in 1931, she
transformed herself into a revolutionary, mobilising people against the Nizam’s
Razakars. At the age of 10, she happened to read Maxim Gorky’s Mother, and that
proved to be a source of inspiration.

Reading was part of a tradition in Nalgonda. “Brahmins and other educated people
used to read the Ramayana and other epics for the women in their homes. This is
how I and a few others in the village came across Mother,” says Swarajyam, whose
family adhered to all Hindu traditions. Excerpts of the novel were imported into the
district by the Andhra Mahasabha.

She was named Swarajyam in deference to the wishes of several of her relatives
who participated in satyagraha in response to a call given by Mahatma Gandhi as
part of the struggle to attain swaraj (self-rule, or independence).

Her husband Mallu Venkata Narasimha Reddy and her brother Bhimreddy Narsimha
Reddy, who died recently, both doyens of the communist movement in the State,
had a profound influence on her life. “They were called Krishna-Arjuna in their
prime,” she said. While her brother was a military commander who was
instrumental in promoting the concept of dalam (a basic unit of fighters) to carry
out a war against feudal lords as well as the Razakars of the Nizam empire, her
husband, who was underground most of the time, was the brain behind expanding
the scope of the armed struggle from being a means to free bonded labour to one
that would take land from the zamindars and distribute it among the poor.

37
Her stint in public life began at the age of 11 when, in response to a call given by
the Andhra Mahasabha to end bonded labour, she defied the family norm and
distributed rice to bonded labourers hailing from different castes and communities.
“My own uncles were against my giving rice to bonded labourers. But, I was firm
that they deserved their share. And my gesture set a precedent in the entire area
where bonded labourers started demanding pay for their work,” she said.

She, however, makes light of her fame as a leader of the Telangana armed struggle.
It was a movement of the people, and she was only leading them. “A similar
uprising would have occurred in the present day had there been no division in the
communist movement. But the divide was unfortunate, and it denied the people an
opportunity to bring a Left government in Andhra Pradesh,” she said.

M. Rajeev

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Ahilya Rangnekar

K. PRAVIN

Ahilya Rangnekar. She is among the country’s first women politicians and
a leading light of the women’s movement.

LOOKING at the frail, slight woman seated on the podium at a public meeting, it
was hard to imagine that she was once the feisty woman who kept crowds riveted
with her tirade against injustice. Until a few years ago, no public meeting,
demonstration or sit-in led by the All India Democratic Women’s Association
(AIDWA) in Mumbai was complete without the presence of Ahilya Rangnekar.

At 86, Ahilya Rangnekar is unable to participate actively in public life but remains
deeply committed to and involved with various causes, say AIDWA members. Ahilya
tai (elder sister), as she is fondly called, played an active role in the freedom
struggle but is known more for her dynamism in laying a firm foundation for the

38
women’s movement. A long-standing member of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), she is among the country’s first women politicians.

Ahilya Rangnekar took up the struggles of women when India’s cry for
independence was at its loudest. 1n 1942-43 the freedom movement drew large
numbers of women, particularly from the working class. Ahilya Rangnekar realised
that women needed to participate in the freedom struggle and fight for their own
rights within this context. She and her comrades started the Parel Mahila Sangh,
comprising mainly wives of workers. It demanded maternity benefits and better
wages and eventually became the nucleus of the left and democratic women’s
movement in Maharashtra.

During this period, Rangnekar worked with other well-known women activists and
freedom fighters such as Vimal Ranadive, Malti Nagarkar, Maniben Patel
(Vallabhbhai Patel’s sister), Sofia Khan (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s wife) and Aruna
Asaf Ali.

All these women courted arrest, were on the run, were separated from their
families and faced violence as part of the freedom struggle and later as members of
political parties. The most noteworthy part is that they never lost direction; they
kept on with their work.

Ahilya Rangnekar’s journey in politics began soon after she finished college in 1943.
She grew up in a house full of reformists and liberals and the family supported her
political leanings. She was most influenced by her elder brother B.T. Ranadive, who
was a leading communist organiser. In 1961, she contested her first civic election
on the Communist Party of India ticket. Re-elected many times, she was a
corporator for 19 years in Mumbai. Along with her fellow-corporator and friend
Mrinal Gore she fought for the rights of hutment dwellers, contract labourers and
women who worked for no wages, and for better water supply and other basic civic
amenities.

Rangnekar and Mrinal Gore were many a time targets of vicious comments from
male politicians such as Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. Such moments only
strengthened their resolve to continue on the path they had chosen. In fact, they
formed a formidable duo as corporators.

Wherever there was a struggle, Ahilya Rangnekar was sure to be at the head of it.
In 1950, she was deeply involved in the Samyukta Maharashtra agitation, which
demanded the unification of the Marathi-speaking regions. In 1962, she was among
the many Communist Party members to be arrested after the border conflict with
China. She was in jail for three and a half years. In 1974, she was arrested for
participating in the nationwide railway strike. During the Emergency she was sent
to the Yerawada prison in Pune, where she continued to mobilise women and
carried on fighting for their rights.

In 1977, Ahilya Rangnekar contested the parliamentary elections on the Communist


Party of India (Marxist) ticket and won from Mumbai North Central constituency. In
spite of her political commitments, she never lost touch with the functioning of the
Parel Mahila Sangh and its agenda. Eventually, the organisation became the
Janwadi Mahila Sangh, which is the State unit of AIDWA. As a founding member of
AIDWA, Ahilya Rangnekar has been the working president and vice-president of the
organisation. In 2001, she became its patron.

39
Ahilya Rangnekar will always be one of Mumbai’s important and revered public
figures. She will be remembered for her selflessness and commitment to help the
poor and the oppressed. She is the kind of woman who will continue to inspire and
encourage women to carry on their struggle.

Anupama Katakam

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Suseela Gopalan

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

Suseela Gopalan. She made her mark in the Lok Sabha, to which she was
elected three times.

IN more ways than one, the political lives of K.R. Gouri Amma and Suseela
Gopalan, the only women leaders to emerge into prominence in recent times out of
Kerala’s patriarchal political climate, follow a similar trajectory.

Both were born in the politically fertile soil of Alappuzha into families whose male
members had played an active role in early communist struggles in the State. Both
joined the Communist Party in their student days and made their mark, initially, as
union leaders, organising farm workers and coir workers respectively. Both married
prominent communist leaders. While Gauri Amma was worse off for it, Suseela and
her husband, A.K. Gopalan, the great communist organiser and parliamentarian,
together made a rich and varied contribution to the communist movement.

Both women opted to be in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) after the spilt in
the Communist Party in 1964 and became leaders and legislators in their own right.
Both rose to such stature in the CPI(M) as to become Ministers in the State
handling important portfolios.

Suseela Gopalan was a member of a family that had played an active role in the
historic Punnapra-Vayalar struggle. By the time she joined the Communist Party in
1948 at the age of 18, she had already invited punishment from the college
authorities for trying to establish a students’ organisation. Very soon, she began
her political activity among coir workers in Alappuzha under the influence of her

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uncle, a Vayalar hero, and became well known as a trade union leader. In 1957, she
married A.K. Gopalan, whom she had come to know during his days of hiding in the
Alappuzha region.

In 1964, after the Communist Party split, Suseela became a member of the State
committee of the CPI(M) and won an election to the State Assembly in 1965 while
still in jail for her communist struggles. Throughout her life, she was associated
with the trade union movement and served for a period as the State vice-president
and later all-India vice-president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

She made her mark as a Member of Parliament, being elected in 1967, 1980 and
1991 from Ambalappuzha, Alappuzha and Chirayinkil constituencies respectively, all
in south Kerala.

Suseela turned out to be an outstanding parliamentarian, especially in her later


stints, playing a leading role, for instance, as a member of the Joint Committee of
Parliament to examine the working of the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 and later in
the enactment of the anti-dowry law.

She was always in the forefront of struggles for the rights of the working people,
especially of working women, and was one of the founders of the All India
Democratic Women’s Association, becoming its first general secretary in 1980. She
was president of AIDWA until her retirement in 2001 and a member of the Central
Social Welfare Board from 1980 to 1984 and of the Coir Board in 1984 and from
1991 to 1995.

In 1996, Suseela Gopalan contested the Assembly elections in Kerala. It was an


election marked by the defeat of CPI(M) leader V.S. Achuthanandan, then a strong
candidate for chief ministership, and the absence of E.K. Nayanar, a former Chief
Minister, from the fray following his planned appointment as State party secretary.
When the results were announced, Suseela Gopalan was the most prominent
among the successful CPI(M) candidates and was widely expected to be nominated
to the Chief Minister’s post. The party chose E.K. Nayanar, and Suseela went on to
become the Minister for Industries and Social Welfare in the Nayanar Cabinet. Later,
in an interview, Suseela said: “The media made an issue of my chief ministership. I
did not want to be one at all…. I was never in the picture.”

Unlike Gouri Amma, who acquired a reputation for being tough and brusque,
Suseela Gopalan was often perceived as a warm and friendly person. Suseela
Gopalan died in Thiruvananthapuram on December 19, 2001, after a long and
courageous battle against cancer.

R. Krishnakumar

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: K.R. Gouri Amma

41
S. GOPAKUMAR

K.R. Gouri Amma. She had to undergo “unimaginable torture” at the hands
of the police early in her career.

THE longest serving member in the Kerala Assembly, the one who has served in the
largest number of Assemblies in Kerala, the oldest member in the State Assembly,
the member of the first Communist Ministry in 1957 who (as Revenue Minister)
piloted the land reforms Bill, one of the ablest administrators Kerala has seen….
Such descriptions may seem a stark contradiction to scholarly conclusions drawing
on K.R. Gouri Amma’s political life, such as: “The pressures working against
women’s public political activity are as great in Kerala as elsewhere in India.”

In popular perception, there is no other person who epitomises women in public life
in Kerala today more than the diminutive 89-year-old Gouri Amma, a former CPI(M)
leader who is now chairperson of the Janathipatya Samrakshana Samiti (JSS), the
party she founded after she was expelled from the CPI(M) in 1994.

Gouri Amma has had an exciting and lengthy political career in Kerala as a student
leader, trade unionist and women’s leader and Minister in successive Left Front
governments. She came into the public eye in 1946 as a student activist urging the
then princely state of Travancore to join the Indian Union. She participated in
student struggles as part of the Quit India movement and became the first woman
from the backward-caste Ezhava community to graduate in law.

She went to prison in 1948, the year she joined the Communist Party at the behest
of her elder brother. Except in the first universal suffrage elections in Travancore in
1948 and in the 1977 and 2006 Assembly elections, Gouri Amma gained impressive
victories in all other Assembly elections. She was a Minister in communist-led
Ministries in Kerala in 1957, 1967, 1980, and 1987.

She was president of the Kerala Karshaka Sangham from 1960 to 1984 and the
Kerala Mahila Sangham from 1967 to 1976. Jailed on a number of occasions for her

42
political activities, she had to undergo “unimaginable torture” at the hands of the
police early in her career.

By the late 1980s, Gouri Amma’s reputation as a communist and a feisty, no-
nonsense administrator had reached its zenith. In March 1987, when the CPI(M)-led
Left Democratic Front won the Assembly elections, it was widely perceived that she
would be the party’s choice for the chief ministership. But the mantle fell on E.K.
Nayanar.

This event, among others, and the fact that she never rose to the central leadership
of her party in spite of her experience and ability are often cited variously as
examples “of the limitations of women” or “limitations of backward castes” in
politics in Kerala.

As a prominent woman member of Left Front Ministries, Gouri Amma’s private life
came under the public glare and she faced “criticism about women entering public
life”, especially after her marriage to the communist leader T.V. Thomas. When the
Communist Party split in 1964, the couple found themselves in opposing camps. It
was a trying period for her, balancing her private and public life, especially when
both wife and husband became Ministers representing the two parties in the
coalition Cabinet in 1967 and stayed in adjacent official residences in
Thiruvananthapuram.

In his well-known work published in 1992, Politics, Women and Well-being: How
Kerala Became a Model, political scientist Robin Jeffrey draws on the lives of four
Kerala women, among them Gouri Amma, to understand what lessons should – and
should not – be drawn from Kerala’s development experience. From his brief study
of Gouri Amma’s life, he concludes: “Though she has been the most prominent
woman in Kerala politics for thirty years… she has paid a price. She is unlikely to
gain the prizes which, had she been a man, she might have expected. Her career
stands as a warning against romanticising about the place of women in Kerala.”

Gouri Amma was expelled from the CPI(M) in 1994 for “anti-party activities”. In the
same year, she founded the JSS with a largely Ezhava support base in and around
her native Alappuzha district. The JSS soon became a partner in the United
Democratic Front coalition, and Gouri Amma, after over 45 years of being a
firebrand communist, became a Minister in the Congress-led Cabinet from 2001 to
2006.

R. Krishnakumar

COVER STORY

The Pioneers: Mrinal Gore

43
K. PRAVIN

Mrinal Gore. She earned the sobriquet ’Paniwali Bai’ for her efforts to bring
drinking water supply to Goregaon, a Mumbai suburb.

HAD she not been slowed by age and health concerns, 80-year-old Mrinal Gore may
have whipped out her rolling pin and led another famous “rolling pin” protest
against the rising prices of essential commodities. A decade ago, in a protest
against price rise, Gore led a rally of hundreds of women brandishing rolling pins
from Churchgate to Azad Maidan in South Mumbai. The first time she held a similar
protest on the issue was in 1972.

Mrinal Gore belongs to that special set of women who took to politics in a period
when it was virtually unthinkable for women to be involved in public work. Gore and
her contemporaries such as Ahilya Rangnekar are respected for their participation in
politics and for their work in the upliftment of women and the poor. It can be said
that their reformist agenda and efforts paved the way for the independent Indian
woman of today.

Gore quit her course in medicine and began a career in politics in 1947 when she
joined the Rashtriya Seva Dal, a voluntary organisation linked to the Indian National
Congress. She soon joined the Congress but left after a year and started the
Socialist Party with a group of youngsters. Gore was deeply influenced by Mahatma
Gandhi and threw herself into work involving the poor, women’s rights, civil rights,
communal harmony and trade union activities.

She and her husband, Keshav Gore, also a socialist, worked tirelessly on building
better civic infrastructure for the community in Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai.
Toilets, water connections, community halls, health and family planning centres and
schools came up as a result. They even managed to prevent builders from
demolishing slums in the area. During this time, the couple participated in the Goa
liberation movement as well as the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement. They were
occasionally jailed for leading protests and satyagrahas.

In 1961, Gore contested the civic elections and won a seat in the Bombay Municipal
Council. Fighting a hard battle, she eventually brought regular and adequate
drinking water supply to the area. For this she earned the sobriquet “Paniwali Bai”.
In 1972, Gore contested the Legislative Assembly elections on the Socialist Party
ticket. She won with the highest margin of votes in the State. As a Member of the
Legislative Assembly, she took up issues such as atrocities on marginal farmers,
Dalits, tribal people and women. At this time the prices of essential commodities
began skyrocketing – a result of the war with Pakistan that had just ended – and
Gore was at the forefront of the anti-price rise campaign.

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Soon after the Emergency, in 1977, Gore was elected to Parliament on the Janata
Party ticket. She continued to pursue issues relating to the poor and women.
Although she lost her seat when the party split, she remained immensely popular
with her constituents and the people she worked for. In 1985, she became an MLA
again. This time she took up the issue of banning sex determination tests, which
eventually happened.

Speaking to Frontline about women in politics, Gore says reservation has been
singularly responsible for bringing more women into politics at the local self-
government level. “They need to extend it to the Assembly and Lok Sabha levels
now.” She says people point out that she used to win elections from a general seat
and ask her, “Why can’t others?” “I was lucky. Not everyone is so fortunate. We
have to give women quotas to participate politically. It will be good for our country.”

While she may not be participating in marches, dharnas, picketing and public
fasting, Gore has not lost her drive in taking up issues, be it the Narmada dam or
Enron. Last year her non-governmental organisation, the Brihanmumbai Niwara
Abhiyan, embarked on a mission to provide low-cost housing to middle- and low-
income groups at a time when real estate prices in Mumbai were at unattainable
heights. She had earlier managed to get the government to build 6,000 units in
Goregaon for the same category of people. A pioneer and visionary, Gore is truly a
leader and will always remain one.

Anupama Katakam

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