Issue for October - December 2011 - National Institute of Rural ...

452 B.B. Malik and Jaya Shrivastavawomen as voter, women as members ofpolitical parties, women as candidates, womenelected member of PRIs taking part in decisionmaking, planning, implementation andevaluation (Narayan, Usha.1996).The 73 rdamendment of the Indian Constitutioncontains guidelines for the State to put inplace three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions,which generated a lot of hope aboutempowering the weaker sections. For the firsttime it provided the statutory reservation ofelected posts in local bodies for women,besides the scheduled castes (Dalits) and thescheduled tribes. It was a turning point in thehistory of local governance with far reachingconsequences for Indian federalism,decentralisation, grassroots democracy andpeople’s participation in planning fordevelopment, gender equality and socialjustice.Before the amendment, the Indiandemocratic structure through electedrepresentatives was restricted to the twohouses of Parliament, state assemblies andassemblies of union territories. Thisconstitutional change represents an importantmilestone in the history of democracy in India.It mandates regular elections at local level,with special provision to protect the rights ofwomen and of scheduled castes andscheduled tribes. The democratic processes atthe village level in many cases have not giventhe strength and power to the participants ofthat process, particularly, the dalit community.The local bodies’ elections are a nightmarishexperience for the Dalits. It should be notedthat empowering Dalits and marginalisedgroups through ensuring their participation inthe decentralised mechanism was one of thestated objectives of the central act. However,the ground reality reflects some negativetrends too. It is commonly observed throughmedia reports and CSOs studies that peoplefrom dominant groups resorted to variousmeasures to dilute or sabotage the attemptsto empower marginalised groups especiallyDalits.Women in general and Dalit women inparticular face multiple hurdles and find itdifficult to participate in the political processthat has hitherto been in a male bastion. Theyare not adequately represented in ourlegislative body which is a serious lacuna ininitiating good governance. This underrepresentationis not simply a democraticdeficit but also an experiential deficit. Thelegislative process required taking intoaccount all the relevant experiences of thediverse social categories in a society(Oommen, 2003:132). The reasons for this aregender-specific. Women have less mobilitythan men. They have domestic responsibilities,which puts limits on the time they can spendin such processes. They are subject to theauthority of the men in the family. This visionof the family in Indian traditional society oftenprevents the women from taking part in publicfora (Adhikari et al., 2004, Bondi and Davidson,2004). It is important to underline thatwomen’s marginalisation is not onedimensionali.e. caused only by gender. It is,instead, an outcome of the intersection of thesubordination conferred by caste, class andethnicity, as well as gender (Agrawal 1997;Agrawal and Gibson 2001).This is apparentlyvisible in Indian villages, which are highlystratified by caste, class, ethnicity and gender.In Indian rural contexts, therefore, women arelikely to be disadvantaged additionallybecause of their caste and class locations. Thehigher stratification of society, the more layersupon women, and hence the more difficult itis for them to be involved in participatoryprocesses. The means by which women areexcluded may echo and reinforce hegemonicgender norms, as well as replicate patterns ofgendered exclusion that have widerresonance (Larson and Ribot, 2004).Recognising the limitations of caste andgender, Government of India has passed lawsJournal of Rural Development, Vol. 30, No. 4, October - December : 2011