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

458 B.B. Malik and Jaya Shrivastavaand 18 per cent DWERs accepted that gender,poor education and lower caste identity,respectively are the main reasons for notcommunicating with higher officials.Others Who Communicate : When theDWERs were asked ‘who communicate withthe higher officials on behalf of them’; morethan half of them answered that their husbandsused to communicate with higher officials.Some of them told about their sons/father-inlawrepresenting them. This fact indicates thedomination of male in a traditional socialstructure. A study conducted by BidyutMohanty (2002) also asserts the same result. Itis alleged that since many of the women arefirst timers and are illiterate, they depend upontheir menfolk for conducting the panchayatactivities first; the husbands for DWERs willshield them from the panchayat secretary,B.D.O if they try to harass the women. In fact,some of the state governments have passed arule that their male relatives could accompanythe women elected representative to thepanchayat. This is because in some cases, thesecretary of the panchayat tried to implicatethe inexperienced DWERs in the scams byasking them to sign on blank cheques etc.Some of the DWERs were punished becauseof those fraudulent acts. An interesting findingcame out from the above field experience.Even if DWERs depend on relatives, the powerrelation between husband and wife has alreadychanged due to the reservation for women,the woman’s husband gets a chance to cometo the public sphere because of the wife andparticularly no longer monolithic structure isseen in family relation.ConclusionThe conclusion derived on the basis ofthe empirical study is that political participationof elected dalit women in panchayat suffersfrom tripartite discrimination based on caste,gender and patriarchy. The other factors actingas a barrier are their poor socio-economicbackground and lack of education andinformation pertaining to the system. So, itwould be concluded that the provision ofreserved seats in PRI’s has merely inductedDalit women in the political process and raisedtheir status without showing any desirablesigns of their active participation in decisionmaking. It is indeed disheartening to note thatDalit women have won their seats not becauseof any political consciousness but because ofthe vested interest of either their husbands ordominant castes of the village. They work asdummy surrogate representatives. Thus for allpractical purposes their condition is similar toa puppet working at the command of itsmaster who may be male member of theirfamily or member of the dominant caste. Thestudy shows that significant number of DWERsattended meetings but few members have fullfreedom of speech and expression in thepanchayat meetings. The major reason behindthis is patriarchal set-up and thereby noncooperation.Hence, only providing reservationto Dalits for their participation in democracyis not enough. Capacity building and training,positive, cooperative and proactive attitude ofthe government officials and family membersare required. A lady panchayat secretary shouldbe appointed where elected representative isa woman. To some extent this will make thewomenfolk a bit confident; the fear of sexualityand hesitation will be minimised. As a result, itmay have a positive impact for the politicalparticipation of Dalit women.Notes1. The term ‘Dalit’ has been usedthroughout the study interchangeablywith the legal term ‘Scheduled Caste’.2. Committee on the Elimination of RacialDiscrimination/C/IND/CO/19, 5 May2007.Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 30, No. 4, October - December : 2011