Putting
Her Best Foot Forward
By Rinku Pegu
4 May, 2003
Soon after dates for the
panchayat polls were announced in Uttaranchal, 48-year-old Maya Devi
readied to contest for the post of pradhan in her gram panchayat of
Chak Jogi. But she was not prepared for the treatment meted out by the
villagers, once her candidature became public knowledge. Overnight,
Maya Devi, a popular women's activist, became an outcast in her community
for daring to challenge the male incumbent, 70-year-old Khorg Bahadur
Singh.
Says Maya Devi, "The
men argued that if I did not withdraw, the third candidate belonging
to a different community would be victorious." To break her resolve,
some villagers began boycotting her and the family-owned shop.
But if it was merely an issue
of community pride in an uneven contest why was no pressure exerted
on the incumbent to step down? Particularly when Khorg Bhadaur Singh
has been the pradhan for over 20 years. The bogey of community in peril
was falsely raised to keep the constituency within the preserve of male
candidates. Maya Devi took a defiant stand against patriarchal standards
and fought the elections. But not before undergoing huge psychological
turmoil.
Maya is not alone. Undeterred
by the chauvinist male attitudes that seek to confine women only to
the reserved seats, women in the villages of this hill state are waging
their own political battle of assertion and articulation of their identities.
Seven years after first going
to ballot, armed with 33 per cent reservation, the women have strategised
on effectively increasing their political participation by taking the
fight right into the men's domain. Not content with the 2,496 seats
earmarked for them, over 350 women in 12 districts (barring Haridwar)
have contested in general constituencies in the recently concluded Panchayati
elections.The significance of holding local elections for the first
time in a nascent State is not lost on the women. In village after village,
enthusiastic women voters aged between 18 and 80 gathered in droves
to learn and understand how to exercise their votes correctly. Several
NGOs working in these areas were roped in by the Central Government
to educate women voters on how to retain the validity of their votes.
Motivated women are not letting
even long-held traditions come in their way. Take the case of Natho
Begum, the incumbent pradhan of Enfield Grant gram panchayat. Though
she will be in confinement for six months as she was widowed recently,
Natho Begum has not shied away from contesting the elections. Family
members and friends are campaigning for her.
The women were effectively
using the campaign trail to unfurl their agenda. In block after block
one could hear the women canvassing on issues that affect their daily
lives like safe drinking water, schools, health centres, roads. Indeed,
among the pressing problems faced by villagers in Uttaranchal are access
to water and timely medical aid due to the hilly terrain. Women are
the worst sufferers given their anaemic condition and the complications
that arise during pregnancy.
But some women have taken
the agenda much further by displaying a mature understanding of the
context in which the political economy functions. Meena Kumari from
Kuwawala in Doiwala Block, who has contested for pradhan post, asserted
that her top priority, if elected, would be to redistribute land to
the poor and the landless. Asked how she would go about it, Meena Kumari
promptly replied, "by retrieving the panchayat lands which the
factory owners have appropriated on the outskirts of our village".
In the last two years, poverty has increased dramatically in Kuwawala
as two factories that employed over 80 per cent of the villagers were
shut down on environmental grounds. There is also a growing realisation
among the women that local elections are a means to bring positive change
in their lives. Otherwise how can one explain the phenomenon of a group
of 70 women self-help groups (SHG) coming together in Jaunpur Block
of Tehri district and putting up a joint candidate for the post of Zilla
Parishad member? Many women's organisations, not backed by any political
party, have taken on the challenges of even a district level Panchayati
election. In a professional manner they have set up election committees
to take care of activities, right from collecting funds to planning
the campaign details and actual canvassing. While their enthusiasm is
unmistakable, their journey has been far from smooth. There have been
reports from a few districts about the various attempts to sabotage
the candidature of women candidates by withdrawing their nominations
secretly. In the instances where women candidates enjoyed a strong showing,
the husbands were offered various posts as a bribe to get their wives
withdraw their nomination. Indeed, entrenched male attitudes have not
taken kindly to the increasing vocal assertions by the women of their
political rights. It has been reported from Attakfram gram sabha how
women supporters of Pushpa Rana who has stood for pradhan, were threatened
with ostracisation if they openly canvassed for her.
The experiences of women
members reveal their problems. To draw the pradhan's attention on an
issue, the women members had to try doubly hard while their nominees
for schemes like houses under the Indira Awas Yojna were often ignored.
Many were told that their role was confined to signing on the dotted
line as instructed by the male sarpanch. And if the sarpanch happened
to be a woman, the male members would express their hostility at times
by taking them to the courts. In Dehra Dun district alone, the courts
rejected 10 out of 11 no-confidence motions passed against women pradhans.
However, conservative male
attitudes were not confined to the village level. Often elected women
members were treated shabbily by the block level officers. Shaila Rani
Rawat of Agatysa Muni Block in Rudraprayag district recalls how she
was never offered a chair at the Block office. Or how a junior engineer
threatened to take away a particular road project from Tunwala village
if, Mithilesh, a kshetra panchayat member, made an issue of the fact
that local villagers were not being employed by the administration.
Under the Panchayati Raj scheme, it is mandatory to employ local labourers
for generating jobs.
If anything, the strong showing
of the women aspirants in Uttaranchal have put paid to the criticism
of the reservation policy, that it would be exploited only by the politically
connected and vested interests.
The process of politically
empowering women through reservations in the local elected bodies has
helped in the wider mobilisation of women. On many occasions they have
provided the leadership for collectively organising women to get their
legitimate demands fulfilled, like electricity connection or implementation
of widow pensions. The village women are able to make common cause from
the midst of enforced social backwardness because of the helping hand
lent by the various NGO's working with an engendered approach.
While in their first term,
elected women members learnt to negotiate their new found positions
in an inherently male dominated system, the task before them in the
following term would be to confront adverse institutionalised practices,
like corruption. And if the motivation and enthusiasm of the women in
Uttaranchal are an indication, the promise of firm strides from small
beginnings is visible indeed.