Reservation of Women in Local Bodies for inclusive growth

In any society women population is close to half of the total population.

Therefore, for any meaningful development of any society effective participation

of women become mandatory. This simple fact, though very obvious, has eluded

being addressed comprehensively for decades. No modern society can claim to

be progressive without the inclusive role of women in all walks of life, leading to

socio-economic change and development.

In a five tier political system in India – MP (Member of Parliament), MLA

(Member of State Assembly), ZP ( Zilla Panchayat), TP (Taluk Panchayat), GP

(Gram Panchayat) – all tiers must be effectively linked and cannot be viewed in

isolation as separate islands of power or representation, since the voters are

common to all the five tiers of people’s representation. In this context, the last

three tiers, namely, ZP,TP & GP, are the closest to the people, and constitute the

local bodies at the village level (similarly, we have the urban local bodies for

towns with urban and semi-urban population).

In order to ensure this effective linkage of all the five tiers, women’s reservation

(compulsory representation) becomes a necessity to bring the women population

to participate in the country’s developmental process in a time bound manner

with greater emphasis for local bodies, where women participation is more easily

available, and equally essential to address the socio-economic developmental

issues, since more than 60% of the country’s population still live in villages.

Against this background, the issues that need to be addressed to ensure greater

participation of women in the governance, administration and developmental

activities are as follows:

1. Reservation Policy and Electoral Reforms.

2. Gender budgeting

3. Elite Capture

4. Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their role – women empowerment.

5. Micro finance and banking

6. Regional Business Hubs (RHBs)

Reservation policy and electoral reforms:

The present electoral system must be fully in tune with the prevailing reservation

policy in order to ensure full participation of women in the political system. Today,

this is not happening. For example, at the GP (Gram Panchayat) level,every

State has its own electoral system to conduct elections. In Karnataka, the system

permits clubbing of constituencies into Double, Triple members (going up to five

members), where multiple member voting takes place in one single booth. If a

booth has three members to be elected, then each voter is allowed to vote for

three separate candidates; and if he chooses the voter can cast only one vote for

any one of the candidates without casting the vote for the other two

constituencies, thereby depriving the other two candidates of securing their vote.

In this manner, a voter can selectively avoid voting for one or two candidates

whom the voter is not in favour off, depriving such candidates of their legitimate

vote. This certainly is against the principle of the reservation policy. In a triple

member constituency where the seats are reserved for say, ST; OBC and

SC(W), the voter need not cast their vote in favour of a women candidate or any

other as the case may be.

Therefore, it is imperative to have a uniform electoral system throughout the

country for conducting Gram Panchayat elections by having one booth for every

constituency (as in the case of Taluk and Zilla Panchayat elections, which is

similar to MLA and MP elections). In a Gram Panchayat if there are say 15

members to be elected, the there should be 15 booths in that Gram Panchayat in

order to ensure that all the candidates get equal opportunity to get elected, which

will enable the reservation policy to be fully implemented without any bias. Failing

which the women representatives, SC/ST category of candidates are likely to get

sidelined, and purpose of reserving seats for the weaker sections of the society

gets defeated.

Strictly speaking, reservation for women is not required if we look at the

demographic break-up of women voters, since invariably every constituency has

close to 50% women voters. And if all the women voters cast their vote in favour

of women candidates standing for election in their area, every women contesting

should get elected. But, in practice, this does not happen, since women voters do

not mechanically vote for women candidates. The reasons for this being that that

either not happy with the women candidate, superimposed political party

affiliation, caste and community bias – a combination of these factors ultimately

influences the women voter while casting her vote.

Therefore, the reservation policy for women will insulate voters from having a

gender bias, and make the voters chose the best women candidate, who is

standing for the elections in the women’s reserved constituency.

Gender budgeting:

Though the percentage of women representatives in local bodies is more than

35% (in Karnataka it is close to 43%), the strength on women members at the

individual Gram Panchayat level is invariably small, and they are always in a

minority. This makes it difficult for women members to get adequate funds

allocated to them for development works in their respective wards. Therefore, it

has become imperative and necessary to allocate separate fund to women

representatives with special emphasis on women related welfare schemes in the

area of health, education, women & child welfare etc. It is also necessary to

design special schemes in this regard for women representatives, so that the

concerned Gram Panchayat body does not usurp funds/grants allocated for such

women related schemes and programs.

Elite capture:

Today, local bodies and elite capture are synonymous. This is because the

concept of decentralization and empowerment (especially women empowerment)

is against the natural instinct of communities in the villages, who have, for

centuries, lived on an artificially built edifice of caste, creed and gender bias,

which is deep rooted in our ancient culture that was nourished to flourish for

centuries, until India got its independence and adopted the path of modernization

with secular values, equality and social justice.

Therefore, elite capture is like pollution. It is always there and will continue to be

there. One cannot wait for it to disappear; it will never. So, one has to learn to live

with it by becoming stronger and, thereby, reduce its effect on all concerned,

especially women representatives, who are most vulnerable targets and victims

of such elite capture.

Hence, at every stage we have to ensure that adequate steps are taken to

empower and strengthen the women representatives – this is a process, and not

an event. The first two steps are mentioned above, namely, Electoral reforms

and Gender budgeting. The third aspect is capacity building, which encompasses

education, health care and training. A women representative needs to be

properly educated with proper health care system available at the village level, so

that she could look after her children and herself before she is ready to under go

training in different areas of administration and development related activities.

Anemia and malnutrition are two biggest areas of rural health that needs

constant attention and improvement by all concerned.

Having said all this, one is likely to ask what exactly is meant by ‘elite capture’;

and whether it is good or bad. Broadly speaking, elite capture is the degree of

freedom an elected representative, especially women representative have.

When there is no elite capture, then one has maximum freedom to participate

and function in the day to day administration of the local body and its associated

development works, implementation schemes and programs etc. However, in

practice this does not happen. For women representatives’ elite capture starts at

home with their respective husbands constantly dictating and interfering in the

administrative matter related to the local bodies. And this gets extended to male

representative, who are elected to the same body or from higher local bodies,

and even MLAs /MPs. On the other hand, if elite capture facilitates capacity

building at the local body level and accelerates development work in their

respective areas, then one could say that it is a positive elite capture and not

negative, though it curtails one’s freedom to that extent.

Therefore, one could summarize by saying that if ‘elite capture’ does not interfere

in the way of empowerment, especially of women representatives, and ‘elite

dominance’ does not mitigate empowerment, the one could live with it rather than

idling indefinitely till it disappears, which will never happen.

Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their role – women empowerment:

Any inclusive growth cannot take place without the active participation of women,

who contribute close to 50% of the total population. Therefore, it is imperative

that adequate steps to empower them – both individually and collectively.

Collective empowerment accelerates this process with much better reach and

spread.

Keeping this approach in mind, the Central and State governments over tha past

decade have made an visible impact in this direction by bringing in the concept of

‘Stree Shakti’ groups and ‘Self Help Groups’ (SHGs) in general for women,

mainly living in rural India. Women SHGs typically consist of about 10 – 12

women members that are recognized and supported by the government through

separate allocations made through Women & Child Development propgrams.

Today, the concept is well established in each and every taluk, where one can

find about 1000 women SHGs with a cumulative membership of about 10,000

women per taluk. This is a sizable representation that can be easily identified and

tapped for any women related beneficiary schemes that need to be delivered at

the village level to the ultimate beneficiaries.

The women SHGs do form a manageable size for any cluster related activities

and programs for imparting effective training for capacity building at the grass-

root level. The stronger the group becomes the more confident they are in

participating to ensure effective implementation of govt. schemes and programs,

since they become more assertive in the day to day administration of local

bodies, resulting in greater participation in various socio-economic schemes.

Visible women SHGs enable govt. shemes to be implemented through them,

especially in the area of health and education. For example, there is central govt.

scheme called ‘ASHA’ – Accredited Social Health Activist. The National Rural

Health Mission has evolved this important rural program. An ASHA – a married,

widow or a divorced person, and preferably in the age group of 25-45 years with

formal education up to 8th std. The general norm would be to have one ASHA for

every 1000 population. They will educate villagers on nutrition and health;

counsel women on pregnancy, breast feeding etc. Here women SHGs are ideally

placed to take part in such a government scheme, where ASHA workers can

easily be identified among the SHGs at the taluk level.

Mid-day meal program is one more scheme that is ideally suited for women

SHGs. Today, in every school mid-day meal is prepared. Every village has at

least one school and 2-3 women SHGs. So, the task of preparing and cooking

the meal can easily be assigned to the SHGs who, in turn, can take the

responsibility of cooking with one SHG being assigned the task of cooking for six

months before the next women SHG group is given the task in rotation. The local

authorities need not employ a cook and a helper for each school. The salary

amount thus saved could be given to the SHG for providing this service of

cooking mid-day meal for the children.

This will ensure better quality of food that is prepared in the school premises,

where the children will get clean, fresh and hot food. The ration suppliedwill be

better utilized, since a group is now responsible to look after the ration and use it

without wastage and pilferage. The women, who are involved in cooking, have a

stake, because invariably their children will be studying in the same school.

Similarly, the local bodies can identify such service related opportunities,

especially in the area of health and education and social forestry, where women

SHGs could be made to participate to ensure better utilization of available

services, resulting in greater involvement of women in the socio-economic

developmental activities related to local bodies.

Micro finance and banking:

The biggest impediment to inclusive growth is the lack of banking facilities to the

people in the rural areas, especially women, who have hardly any access to easy

finance to meet their day to day household needs. No commercial bank is in

apposition to meet this acute need in a simplified and prompt manner.

Today, women SHGs do have their own strengths when it comes to savings,

generating income through their own cottage industries that support SHGs. But,

these financial transactions are more informal in nature, lack proper financial

guidance and management. As a result, most of the women SHGs tend to keep

funds at home for use at short notice. As a result, women SHGs at the taluk

level, on an average, have about Rs. 40 – 50 lakhs in circulation cum savings

within the groups. This is a sizable amount to be left loose, which can easily fall

into the hands of local money lenders and other vested interest groups.

Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to have an all women’s cooperative bank

that is run and managed by women members to fill this vacuum of micro finance

and its management to support the fund requirement of these women SHGs.

Recognizing this vacuum and the need to financially empower women SHGs for

better inclusive growth the idea of setting up a ‘Mahila bank’ was conceptualized

in the year 2002 in Bellary ZP (when I was presiding as the ZP President of

Bellary), and the first ‘Mahila Bank’ at the taluk level was established in 2003 in

Sandur taluk of Bellary district – the first of its kind in Karnataka. This model was

to serve as a working model to set up such banks in every taluk.

This ‘Mahila bank’ that started with an initial share capital of about Rs. 6 lakhs

has today about 13,000 women members covering about 900 SHGs and is today

grown to a size of about Rs. 3.00 cr. in its business activities.

Regional Business Hubs (RBHs):

Outsourcing may appear to be a purely a commercial concept prevailing and

practiced in the corporate world. But this can easily be tried out and implemented

in the rural area as well through what is known as Regional Business Hubs. For

inclusive growth to be complete it is absolutely essential to reach out to the rural

areas, where both men and women participate in the appropriate industrial

activities – Cottage industries, Handicrafts, Textiles, Food processing etc. This is

where women SHGs become a natural layer of this business hub at the village

level.

It is not enough to set up women SHGs and give them annual grants. They need

constant business opportunity to produce and market their products. For this they

require various inputs – manpower, training, technology, maintenance & service,

supply of raw material – and, finally someone to market their produce. Only then

can we see a healthy inclusive growth on a sustainable basis that ensures

economic security and improves the quality of life in rural India.

Conclusion:

Reservation for women to ensure better inclusive growth in the country’s socio-

economic activities is not a one time quantitative phenomena through

government legislations. No doubt this is necessary and is the first step that the

government needs to take and make it irreversible. But the real issue is the

qualitative nature of women’s empowerment, which is a continuous process that

needs to be sustained by all concerned stake-holders.

V. R. Ghorpade

Email : vrg_279@yahoo.com July 5, 2010