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Women Pradhan Participation in Panchayat

Research proposal submitted to

Department of Political science

Jamia Millia Islamia

Jamia Millia islamia

(A central university)

In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the admission in PHD

BY
Tuba Qureshi
Category: Entrance Based
Roll No: P0213096
Application No: JMI08315244PH1
[Link]: 29
Jamia Millia Islamia
New Delhi- 110025
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Table of Content
Page No:

Introduction 3-4

Literature Review 4-5

Research Gap 5-6

Statement Problem 6

Research Question 6

Hypothesis 7

Objectives 7

Research Methodology 7

Conclusion 8

References 9
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INTRODUCTION
The world of science agrees that the poor and marginalized people in the Third World lack most of the
attributes needed to really be able to make a difference, both for themselves or for their community.
Not being able to participate or make your voice heard, due to due to oppression, caste, gender or just
lack of strength, is something that does not go well together with a democratic society. It is also agreed
economic growth is lagging due to not including the masses. The old modernization theory, where the
development of backward countries was to be done through transforming them into modern and
westernized economies with the assumption that growth and increased income would benefit
everybody, is not a good enough assumption now when we have entered the 21stcentury. Lately, with
the emergence of stronger female voice, the world of science has realized that we must not only focus
our attention on the poor and rural inhabitants of the developing world, but also especially on the
women.

Furthermore, the World Bank has identified empowerment as one of the key constituent
elements for poverty reduction, and as a primary development assistance goal. There is an
agreement that there should be a promotion of women’s empowerment, the reason being
twofold: it promotes growth, reduces poverty, and promotes better governance. Furthermore,
the social justice aspect alone and its importance for human welfare make women’s
empowerment worth pursuing. My intention in this paper is to study women in one of many
areas where their empowerment is necessary, in the decision-making area i.e. in the political
world.
A report from the World Bank states that women’s political participation is increasing, albeit
slowly, but that men still wield control. According to statistics for the year 1995 women
occupied only 111.3 percent of the world’s parliament and it rose to 26.5 percent in 2022. The
World Bank report also concludes that of all factors that determine women’s political
participation, e.g. political will, the strength of national women’s movement and a continuity in
working for gender equality and women’s empowerment, no tool is as powerful as gender
quota systems.

Reservation have long formed a fundamental tenet of affirmative action in India. Quotas for
representation of various disadvantaged groups – stratified along lines of caste, economic
status, linguistic identity and gender – proliferate across public educational institutions and
government jobs. However, elections to public office have largely escaped such quotas, except
those that are caste-based. A major shift in this status quo occurred in 1992, when the
incumbent coalition government passed the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution, thereby
establishing the Panchayati Raj system of grassroots governance. This institutionalized a Third
level of governance in India, below the existing national (Lok Sabha) and state legislatures. In a
landmark move, article 243(D) 33% of all seats under Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) were to

1 Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Women in parliament”

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be reserved for women under the 73rd amendment. Another constitutional amendment passed
in September 2009 increased PRI quotas for women to 50%. By the general elections in 2014,
19 of 28 provinces and union territories had implemented the 50% reservation.
All the actions were taken by the government to empower women in public life. By elevating
women to positions of political power Since "personal is political," women who represent
themselves in public can also take a stand in their private lives. This allows them to enhance
both aspects of their lives. They can break vicious circle of male dominance. However, is this
actually taking place? Can they represent themselves appropriately even after being granted
political space or a reservation? To study whether these women have become empowered or
not, one needs to understand what women representation is? and at what extent women
represent themselves independently especially at rural level?
What is women representation? Women's representation refers to the presence and
participation of women in various fields, such as politics, business, academia, and other areas of
public and private life. It involves ensuring that women have equal opportunities, rights, and
visibility in decision-making processes and leadership positions. It is therefore vital to give
women reservations for representation while considering India's patriarchal society. So, does
this imply that after reservation woman Pradhan in panchayat have a visibility in decision-
making process? Despite the documentation of women’s participation levels and leadership in
panchayat, the belief that women in the reserved seats are there by proxy and that their
husbands and male relatives exercise power. Women’s participation in panchayats is still not
accepted by large sections of society. It is more appropriate to say that it is tolerated rather
than wanted.

Literature review
Dr Puneet Pathak and Bharti (2021) in their paper entitled “women Empowerment through Reservation
in local self-Government" express that reservation provides women to a window to meet the problems
in the sphere of their political problem. Women empowerment through panchayats strengthens our
democracy.

Minni Thakur (2010) in her book entitled “women Empowerment Through Panchayati Raj Institution”
tries to study the problems and prospects of women in the changing rural social and political system.
The author believes that the basic idea behind local government is to involve people in their own
development and to train local leadership to assume higher responsibilities and serve people with
efficiency. Through data she tried to compare women participations before and after 73rd amendment.
She believes that this Act is a milestone in the way of women assuming leadership and decision-making
positions.

Bohra, O.P (2022) entitled his work “women in Decentralized Democracy” the researcher found that
there has been a noticeable revolution, Haryana's panchayat Raj, which looked at the success of roughly
100 elected women in four district. Eliminating gender biases and imbalances in authority within local
self-governance groups was the main objective of the 73rd Amendment Act. Article 243 (D) reserves
one-third of the seats for women, women are encouraged to participate in the decision-making process.
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Two women should be chosen to serve as panchayat samitis and village panchayats, according to
Balwant rai Mehta's Committee. Reservations for women started even before the 73 percent
Amendment Act in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and West Bengal. These states' experiences
show that women can influence panchayats to prioritize matters like clean water, female education, and
primary health care.

Kumar jyoti and ML sharma (2020) Entitled their work, “Training Participation of Women Sarpanches
Towards Rural Development in Bilaspur District of Chhattisgarh the research was carried out in the
Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh state in India during the 2015-16 academic year to examine the training
patterns and involvement of tribal and non-tribal women sarpanch. The results of the study showed that
the majority of respondents—21.43 percent and 17.85 percent, respectively—needed training in
agricultural and village development activities.

Anshu and Pratibha Bhardwaj (2019) in their work “Women Participation in Panchayati Raj in Haryana”
opined that reservations are not the only way to accomplish the goal of empowering women; other
social and demographic factors also have an impact on the EWR's willingness to actively participate in
local self-government. The way that women with disabilities are treated has been a major issue. They
are also not included in the decision-making process because of various societal policies and regulations.
Even though they already enjoy the same legal and constitutional rights as men in India, women still
have a long way to go. In a large and diverse subcontinent, political and administrative decentralization
is crucial. Every kind of political system—old or new, liberal or conservative, large or small—depends on
the involvement of their citizens.

Angoth Chandrakala and R. Limbadri (2022) entitled their work “A Study of the Women Participation in
the Panchayat Raj Institutes”. The purpose of this paper is to study women's participation in three-tier
PRIs in impoverished places like Mahbubnagar District and Telangana. This research employed a random
sample of 256 women from Mahbubnagar rural areas. The results show a substantial difference
between reality on the ground and popular perceptions about women's political participation at the
grassroots level. There have been several encouraging signs of women's political and social equality, but
they have not yet achieved the level of fulfillment that many would like to think.

Research Gap
Despite significant progress in increasing women's representation in panchayats, there remains a gap in
understanding the qualitative aspects of their representation. Thus far, the idea is that women Pradhan
will influence other women to open up at political level, but in reality, they influence males to dominate
women at political level by being proxy for their husbands and not taking decision by their own.
Researchers emphasize that reservation empowers rural women, and they represent themselves at
political level through which they can also improve their private lives. However, I found that even after
50% reservation they don't have visibility in decision making. Still “sarpanch Pati” consider as a real
leader and rural people are not ready to rule by the women.

One might argue that in the political arena, being empowered simply means being included i.e. to
participate in the decision-making. However, there is a need to differ between empowerment and social
inclusion:
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Empowerment is defined as:

“The enhancement of assets and capabilities of diverse individuals and groups to engage, influence and
hold accountable the institutions which affect them”

Social inclusion is defined as

“The removal of institutional barriers and the enhancement of incentives to increase the access of
diverse individuals and groups to assets and development opportunities”

Social inclusion is about transforming institutions at the system level, whereas empowerment
concentrates on the individual or group, at the micro level. Thus, if there is a social inclusion without
women taking advantage of this, there is no empowerment.

So, the reservation bill is in itself not empowerment, it is merely removing barriers, in the Indian case
guaranteeing women a place within the political sphere, creating the opportunity for women to be
involved in the decision-making. It is up to the individual whether women get empowered by this.
Without being educated, a woman will have a hard time empowering herself, both due to the lack of
awareness that comes with illiteracy but also not taking decisions by their own.

Statement problem
I have argued throughout this proposal that the reservation bill is an enabling factor, education is a
determinant, and the social norms and history are a hindrance to empowerment. I'm not referring to
10+2 education here, rather I mean critical thinking. there must be 6 -month training before panchayat
election for the development of critical thinking of women who are going to be contest Pradhan
nomination. Their husbands won't be able to manipulate their decisions once they have a foundational
understanding of critical thinking. by doing so they will empower themselves and as a woman gains
empowerment, she learns how to advocate for herself, both personally and politically. How will it be
ensured whether they will be sent for training or not? In order to do this, the reservation bill ought to
make participation in this training mandatory before granting authorization to hold nomination.

Research Question
1. Are the Pradhan leaders? If they are then does that mean that they are empowered and how do we
know whether they are leading or not?

2. After becoming a responsible Pradhan, would a rural woman be able to break the patriarchal system
in her private life?

3. What are her thoughts and experiences of the matter? What does she think of being elected through
a quota? Does it matter? Is she aware of her powers and position and does she wield it? Is she
empowered?

4. Do the village people ready to rule by the women? What are their views of having a female leader? Is
it preferable to them or just outright wrong to use a quota system for political positions?
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Hypothesis
Based on literature, I have outlined the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis one:

Given the social and cultural norms in India on gender issues, and the high degree of female
illiteracy, as evidenced in the current literature, it is expected that the quota system may give power
only formally.
Hypothesis two:

The policy makers implement schemes/programmers before the village people and GP offices
are ready for them. The reservation bill may therefore be premature, and the villagers will not
accept women as leaders.

Objectives
My main objectives are:
1. To Study how the political empowerment of women viewed as a process has been affected by it.
Does increased political participation for women lead to empowerment?
2. To assess how many women Pradhan attend meetings or Sabha without their husbands or any
male relatives.
3. To study do women Pradhan work with awareness and confidence.
4. To analyze, do they feel respected as political leaders by fellow, co-workers and villagers.
5. To Study who follows the women Pradhan.
6. To study quality of decisions taken by educated women Pradhan and representation of those
who are illiterate.

Research methodology
This study is descriptive and analytical in nature. In this proposal an attempt has taken to analyze the
representation of women Pradhan in rural area. Conduct a comprehensive review of existing literature
on women participation in rural areas and impact of reservation in Panchayat. The study include both
empirical and theoretical, but specifically dominate by the theoretical aspect. I applied qualitative data,
Since this study is centered on the theme of women Pradhan participation in panchayat, would not be
justified by quantitative data, which simply shows the percentage of female elected in the Panchayat.
Thus, I cannot measure this in number. The data used in it’s purely from secondary sources according to
the needs of this study.
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Conclusion
Equality is one of the basic elements of democracy where both men and women are regarded
equal and independent in various aspects of their day-to-day life. Similarly, equal political rights
conferred upon men and women are expected to address various structural challenges.
However, gender norms and social structure have influenced upon the women representatives
elected to local government bodies. Ongoing gender norms seem to function in the mindset of
these women representatives. Men are the political architects at the local level where gender
norms are embedded to leave minimal political space for the women. Women are asked to
accept and follow decisions largely taken by the male counterparts. The sense of powerlessness
of the women contributes to reinforcement of patriarchal tactics of dominance and control.
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