Social Roots of Local Politics: Women Contestants in the Panchayat Elections of Uttar Pradesh (2015)

Introduction

Recent gram pradhan (village head) elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP) have witnessed intense competition and a sharp rise in women contenders. Village heads command high respect as holding the position is a matter of prestige and honour in rural India. To exercise such power, lately, women have joined the race to become village heads or pradhans in large numbers. In a scenario of heightened competition, does the rise in the number of women contenders and winners reflect a trend towards genuine feminization of power politics at the local level? Considering the voter’s perspective on establishing closer association with the village head, do women appear more approachable than men? From a contender’s perspective, do political families feel that they are more likely to win the elections with women candidates? What is the political background of women who have contested or won unreserved seats? Addressing these questions related to women’s representation in UP’s village head elections, the article attempts to discern the importance of the part played by women’s subjection to patriarchal norms and practices in rural political institutions.

Grassroot Democracy and Electoral Politics

The democratic potential of the nation lies in re-creating villages as the basic units of power and administration. Villages are thus the basic theatres of governance and politics. The thrust towards village empowerment also came from the idealist goal of strengthening grassroots democracy. The ideological motivation for establishing village level bodies as local units of power and autonomy can be traced to the Gandhian philosophy of effective participation at the grassroots. Furthermore, the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution gave constitutional status to gram panchayats (village councils) and urban bodies with an emphasis on the empowerment of marginalized communities and women at the grassroot level. The Amendment provided for reservation of one-third of seats available in panchayats and urban civic bodies to women. This piece of legislation marked a significant development in strengthening local democracy and ensuring the participation of women.

Despite rapid urbanization, a large section of the Indian population still resides in villages and depends on agriculture for a basic livelihood. According to the Census of India 2011, ¹ the rural population comprised 68.84% and the urban population comprised 31.16% of the total population of India. UP has the largest percentage of people living in rural areas. The three states with the lowest percentage of rural population (0.1%) were Sikkim, Mizoram and Goa. As rural residents constitute the largest section of voters in India, from the perspective of electoral democracy, political parties depend largely on rural votes to win elections. Conversely, any party with a weak rural base may find it difficult to win elections. Therefore, the central focus of every party’s manifesto and campaign strategy is to mobilize rural votes. In the election season, political parties give prime importance to rural mobilization. To give an example, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in addition to massive rallies led by the Bharatiya Janata Party in cities, an intensive mobilization was carried out in villages with the help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharaks (lit. preachers/volunteers).

Three theoretical perspectives are particularly discernible in studies on grassroots politics and democracy in the post-Amendment period. There are (a) survey method-based studies on elections and democracy at the grassroots, (b) studies based on an institutional approach to decentralization and (c) studies looking through the gender lens. Inadvertently, the three genres of studies were not meaningfully linked. Writings on decentralization have been confined to a formal institutional focus with a public policy thrust excluding an analysis of electoral politics and the social processes underlying it, while election studies have primarily rested on a quantitative investigation of national and state elections.

Methodologically, decentralization studies have been largely historical and descriptive while electoral studies have relied on survey methods of research. The latter prescribes a top-down model of understanding elections and their social dynamics, which has been the dominant paradigm. Confining the analysis to state and national-level elections, scholars have theorized democracy and politics in India. For example, the theory of democratic assertions and upsurge put forward by Yogendra Yadav is based on a macro-analysis of lower caste mobilization by mass-based parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). These mass parties are identified with their larger caste groupings, SP with the Other Backward Castes (OBCs), particularly the Yadav community, and BSP with Dalits, the Jatavs more specifically. Broad generalizations of this type tend to fall short of explaining the democratic deficiencies of grass-root politics. For instance, the subdued status and perceptions of women village heads from marginalized communities in panchayats suggest that although democracy may have trickled down because of institutional incentives and legislative interventions, rural society is still far removed from the democratic process. Linz and Stepan’s (1996) theory of democratic transition and consolidation opines that democratic consolidation entails an overarching behavioural change which is so far absent at the grassroots in India. In their words, ‘With consolidation, democracy becomes routinized and deeply internalized in social, institutional and even psychological life, as well as in calculations for achieving success’ (Linz & Stepan, 1996, p. 5).

In studies on Indian democracy and elections (Gopal, 2007; Kohli, 1990; Palshikar et al., 2008; Yadav, 2010), democracy is mostly also understood in terms of Centre and State politics, thereby losing sight of the subtleties of local elections that may follow their own logic, presenting a distinct picture of Indian democracy at the local level. An analysis of the local dynamics of participation, policy action, political economy and patriarchal norms and values based on cultural traditions would therefore be extremely useful. Oldenberg (2009) has observed that at the grassroot level, the state functions differently; so does politics.

Major studies on panchayats and decentralization have broadly focused on the following three themes: historical trajectory; administrative organization; public policy and their implications for local development. The most significant amongst these are the writings of Mathur (2013) and Jayal et al. (2007). Mathur (2013) in his structural analysis of panchayats observes that the 73rd and 74th Amendments merely constituted devolution rather than any real decentralization of power. They were the decisions of national elites who found decentralization necessary from the standpoint of management and governance.

Mathur observes that,

The experience of Panchayats in this period (the post-reform period) has also been greatly influenced by the changing understanding of the role of state in a neo-liberal globalized scenario in which decentralization is understood more in the language of management than that of democracy. (Mathur, 2013, p. 25)

Feminist literature on local governance has created new concepts to understand the local dynamics of patriarchy and its implications for women’s participation and decision-making. Rai’s (2013) study of political empowerment of women in local institutions of Bihar has looked beyond the conventional wisdom of confining empowerment to quotas by citing and describing social and operational obstacles to women’s participation as office holders. The notion of empowerment has also been expanded to include new variables like political knowledge, political interest, political trust and contacts, attitudes and confidence. Nilekani’s (2010) study of women sarpanchas (village heads) in Karnataka shows how reservation has empowered women, yet has not tangibly translated into gender-centric policies and practices. The study offers facts contradicting the positive correlation between reservation of seats for women and quality of governance in Karnataka gram panchayats. It also shows the impact of randomized reservation on leadership, participation and decision-making by women representatives. In randomized reservation, the seats which are to be reserved are randomly allocated. Applying quantitative tools, the study confirms that the difference in the impact of reserved or unreserved seats on governance is negligible. Nilekani shows through her findings that, ‘The results show very weak effects of reservation on the available governance indicators….These null results are contrary to the results showing that reservation influences public goods provision and governance’ (Nilekani, 2010, pp. 36 and 38).

A more comprehensive approach to women’s empowerment in local bodies was taken by integrating political, social and economic components in a study set in Allahabad, UP (Lal & Kumar, 2007). The study clearly shows the suppression of women village heads in decision-making in a setting where illiteracy was seen as an impeding factor. Women placed in such socially constrained and shielded roles are called political proxies. In her study of women in urban local bodies, John (2007) observes the presence of proxy women that vitiates the purpose and objective of women’s reservation. Buch (1999), in her study of women representatives in panchayats of UP, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, offers a mixed picture of women’s participation and empowerment in local politics. In the light of her studies in these three BIMARU ² states, she clears the myths of women’s passivity, lower participation of women from marginalized castes and women proxies and shows how the women representatives are assuming a new role with greater assertiveness, recognition and learning potential in the empowering process (Buch, 1999).

Feminist studies on local women representatives approach the political and social structures critically by shedding light on the constraints that women experience even after assuming the highest political office at the local level, functioning only as political proxies of their male relatives, husbands and sons. These studies tend to view the situation as the glass that is half filled. But, while generalizing on trends in gendered behaviour, the studies underrate the variations in political action and assertiveness of women socialized differently. The present study takes optimistic note of successful interventions by even uneducated women representatives against social circumstances that would have otherwise undermined their political presence. Yet the patriarchal trap reinforces cultural factors like family prestige and values in shaping the assertive capacities of women.

Methodology

In the social sciences, it is difficult to invoke fundamental causes and advance universal explanations. The explanations about political consciousness and participation are therefore contextual and time bound. Field studies were conducted in two gram panchayats in Bhiswa and Gajaikol in Gorakhpur district and Saifai gram panchayat in Rampur. The first two constituencies were unreserved for women, but a woman candidate had won in each of them. Saifai was a constituency reserved for women. The selection of panchayats was purposive and insights about political consciousness and participation were gained through individual narratives. Also, the choice of villages from two culturally distinct regions of the state was deliberately made to examine whether there were common features in women’s participation in different settings. The researcher subscribes to Mill’s method of difference in which two otherwise distinct cases are studied to observe similarities with respect to a particular process or phenomenon. Given this methodological approach, the choice of Gorakhpur and Rampur districts was made to examine comparable patterns of women’s leadership and representation at panchayat level. The fieldwork was conducted in May 2016.

Three women pradhans were selected for interviews, two from the unreserved constituencies of Bhiswa and Gajaikol in Gorakhpur district and the third from the reserved constituency of Saifai in Rampur district. The pradhan of Bhiswa belonged to the OBC community and was illiterate while the one from Gajaikol was from a Scheduled Caste (SC) and also illiterate. In the reserved constituency of Saifai, the pradhan was a Muslim woman holding a master’s degree in computer science. Other than this, the sons of the women pradhans at Bhiswa and Gajaikol and the husband of the women pradhan at Saifai were interviewed. In addition, five participants (two men and three women) were selected for focus group discussions at Bhiswa and Gajaikol. A local Muslim resident at Saifai acquainted with the family of the gram pradhan was also interviewed.

Women’s Participation in Panchayat Elections: General Trends in UP

Women have emerged as major contenders in the electoral race. Results of UP Gram Pradhan elections in 2015 show that 43.86% of posts were won by women, 10% over the prescribed one-third reservations. Region-wise data in UP shows that women have won mostly in Muslim-dominated constituencies. The districts with a high concentration of women village heads are Moradabad (51%), Sambhal (54.5%), Badaun (50.5%) and Bahraich (49.6%) from different parts of UP. The constituencies with the least number of women winners are Mathura (36.7%), Agra (37%) and Hathras (39%) (The Indian Express, 15 December 2015). At Rampur, a Muslim-dominated district in the Ruhelkh and region, out of a total of 684 seats, women contestants won 125 unreserved seats in the 2015 village Pradhan elections. Women also won seats reserved for SCs and OBCs. Does this indicate deepening of democracy at grass root level only in Ruhelkh and or the whole of UP? Is this the result of the democratic thrust of the 73rd Amendment that was aimed at empowering marginalized groups in local politics? The Ruhelkh and results certainly indicate a regional pattern in women’s success in panchayats but this may not tell the full story of democracy that demands a high degree of visibility of candidates in the electoral arena, in campaigning, decision-making and mobilization. Nevertheless, women contesting and winning in unreserved seats is clearly a mark of upliftment and Ruhelkh and seems to be faring well in this regard. Purvanchal shows similar trends but the rest of UP does not.

Education and Participation

Education is often seen as a critical source of political empowerment for education and inculcates the confidence that helps in building social and political consciousness. But literacy and some level of schooling/education may still not be enough because of the workings of patriarchal norms and values in the women’s families. Dominant forces supporting old traditions and practices pose difficulties in social transformation. Old ideas supporting hierarchical structures continue even after formal democratic norms were established. Dominant groups find ways to preserve their authority by remoulding institutional rules in their favour. Male caste leaders in panchayats continue to maintain their authority through their female kin in constituencies reserved for women. In such a situation, even higher levels of education/schooling does not prompt independent thinking amongst women candidates and incumbents.

Overall, men outnumber women as village heads or pradhans. Table 1 shows that male pradhans are on the whole more literate as well as more educated than women pradhans. Interestingly, however, the number of illiterate women Pradhans exceeds that of their male counterparts at lower educational levels. There is a high concentration of women village heads at lower educational levels, especially in the category, ‘below class V’, where women outnumber men. Around the class VIII level, the gender gap is minimal but increases at higher educational levels. Only four women pradhans had a PhD degree compared to 18 men.

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Table 1.

Education Levels of Village Heads in UP by Gender (2015)

Education Level	Male Village Head	Female Village Head
Illiterate	5.02% (1,200)	15.44% (5,421)
Up to class V	32.81% (7,841)	49.28% (17,304)
Up to class VIII	13.53% (3,233)	13.23% (4,645)
Up to class X	14.71% (3,516)	7.43% (2,609)
Intermediate	15.36% (3,670)	6.4% (2,247)
Graduate	13.72% (3,279)	6.12% (2,149)
Postgraduate	4.8% (1,146)	2.09% (734)
PhD	0.07% (18)	0.011% (4)
Total	40.5% (23,901)	59.5% (35,113)

Source: State Election Commission, UP, 2015.

Note: Total number of villages in UP: 59,014.

As it is clear that women belonging to powerful families in the villages have the advantage of standing and winning local elections, illiteracy is not a grave handicap for the women; in performing their duties for they develop assertive capacities due to family standing in the village.

Political Consciousness, Participation and Electoral Success

Intense competition in reserved constituencies doesn’t fundamentally imply a high level of political consciousness amongst rural women. At the most, it may be seen as a serious expression of a legal right that is, ideally, meant to empower them. Yet, higher participation in reserved constituencies is a relevant trend for it acts as an incentive for women to stand on their own in unreserved constituencies. Standing for election in reserved constituencies prepares them for the electoral fray and enforces the need to build a political image even if it does not reflect a manifestation of political consciousness and penetration of the concept of democracy.

Victory in reserved seats increases the possibility of winning in unreserved seats. A good reason for this is the ready response of women pradhans to the quotidian problems of villagers in a subtly personalized manner. Rather than being politically conscious, women candidates and office holders at an ordinary level probably understand their responsibility better than men in terms of paying personal attention to people’s daily problems and issues, and addressing them to the best of their ability. Establishing a record for good governance by showing compassion, paying attention to principles of fairness and justice, women pradhans find the courage to contest with confidence even from general constituencies and win. Popular after one term or two, such women candidates could turn out to be strong contenders for power.

The three case studies are analysed below. In the two villages in Gorakhpur district where both the women pradhans took active part in the electoral process, they campaigned to mobilize women in particular to vote for them. Elderly widows commanding respect in the village, they had earlier won reserved seats but were now in a position to contest and win unreserved seats. They hailed from similar social and political backgrounds, one was from the SC and the other from the OBC community. In both cases, an important factor in their emergence in the public sphere was their families’ involvement in local and district-level politics since independence. The two women commanded respect in the village on account of their family background and seniority in age. They informed us that their husbands had occupied the position of village head as long as they were alive. After the death of their husbands they felt that being the eldest in the family they had to take over the responsibility. Both families had a good reputation in their villages. At Bhiswa, in the last elections, the family candidate had lost the election by one vote and the opposition played the role of game changer by levelling false allegations against the family. In the words of the woman Pradhan who won the recent election, it became a matter of family prestige to win back the seat. Similarly, at Gajaikol the woman pradhan, who succeeded her late husband to the post, informed us that winning the election was a matter of ‘maan and samman’ (respect and dignity).

From the voters’ perspective, the elderly women belonging to families commanding respect in the village were worthy of the political position of pradhan. A common word that respondents used to indicate what they looked for in a candidate was ‘vyavhar’ (behaviour), by which the aspiring candidate’s open mindedness and respect for voters and their opinions were measured. Vyavhar also implies trustworthiness of the candidate and how much personal attention is given to the administration of public matters. Vyavhar is what makes approachability possible to resolve voters’ issues and problems. However, the presence of women as such in positions of political authority is not what improves approachability. Irrespective of gender, an individual’s age and family background are what shapes his/her vyavhar.

At the same time (and drawing parallels with Buch’s findings), the data in this study show the assertive capacities of women from marginalized castes and their ability to offer good governance. In both instances, women’s active involvement in the electoral process was conditioned by (a) their experience as women leaders in a reserved constituency and (b) dynastic politics. While the women considered here are examples of electoral success and were active participants in electoral processes such as campaigning and mobilizing and were capable of good governance as pradhans, they were still bound to the old ways. A woman’s identity as a leader was primarily linked with her husband and family. The assertion of maan and samman had no correlation with issues of dignity and self-respect of women independent of the family order. Significantly, the elder son of one of the women pradhans informed us that his mother had to contest the elections because he was a member of the BDC (Block Development Council) and was aiming for higher positions in politics. The younger son who was a student also wished to make a career in politics. In such a situation, the mother had to assume the responsibility of contesting the election for the post of village head so that she could keep the seat warm for her sons. These admissions clearly indicate the use that is made of women in reserved seats to strengthen men’s political position. Given an option, the women might probably not wish to enter politics. But it is undeniable that they are useful in filling the vacancies left by the men in the family or to keep the seat for the family. Their position may be compared to that of reserve players in cricket matches or reserve stocks in granaries to be used only at the time of food crisis.

In the third village Saifai in Rampur district we found that the woman pradhan was being similarly used by her husband, proving that women’s entry into electoral politics does not ensure substantive empowerment of the woman in question. Nor in this case did the educational qualification of the candidate serves as a tool of her political empowerment. She was a Muslim, a first timer in politics with a master’s degree in computer science. We were told by a local Muslim that whether the seat is reserved or unreserved, it would remain with this particular family. This happens even in urban local bodies where women are used as stand-ins for male relatives or political husbands (John, 2007). As a candidate, the pradhan at Saifai was totally absent from the campaign. The posters and banners carried the image of her husband who along with his local male associates carried out door-to-door campaigning in her favour.

Therefore, it seems clear that, women’s active involvement and their ability to win are conditioned by their prior political experience and the necessity to preserve the family’s social reputation and political power by winning elections. Upholding patriarchal values associated with the family is a joint responsibility of male and female members. In the first two gram panchayats, women leaders’ active involvement was nowhere a reflection of their political autonomy free of the patriarchal power discourse. Rather, it was meant to reinforce patriarchal values so strongly upheld by dynastic political families in rural India. In Rampur district, the total invisibility of the woman Pradhan in the campaigning and mobilization process underscores the level of exploitation that a woman candidate can be subjected to and the low level of participation of even a highly educated woman candidate.

Conclusion

Based on CSDS surveys, Suri and Kailash (2016, pp. 17–21) suggest that ‘India is moving towards greater democracy with an increased political awareness and participation of its people.’ Such generalizations are based on macro-level analyses of national elections. A closer look at the patterns of gender relations and social culture reveals a power discourse and the less than democratic politics in rural India. Legislation has propelled women into participation in village councils and urban local bodies. However, the mass of evidence shows that while women have been ensured opportunities and some individual women have indeed been assertive in leadership positions which they won through elections, by and large women, whatever their abilities or qualifications, have been treated as proxies by their male dominated families. Gender autonomy has not necessarily followed the widening scope of women’s electoral participation. The hard reality is that patriarchal family values and norms determine how, why and when women can participate. Furthermore, there is continuing evidence that power remains in the grip of certain lineages in villages and that women are the new means to holding on to such power.

Educational level per se has little significance to women‘s autonomy and empowerment as pradhans. In two of the case studies, the pradhans were elderly, respected and illiterate but politically assertive and more experienced than the one at the third village who had a degree. However, in the first two villages their abilities were shaped by previous experience and family influence which helped in getting things done for the welfare of the villagers. In the focus group discussions at Bhiswa and Gajaikol, it was revealed that the villagers were reasonably impressed by the work done by the female pradhans on issues like well construction, payment of widow’s pension and provision of job cards. But all three women considered here were manipulated by male family members. What really shaped the levels of women’s participation was not autonomy or education but the backing of the patriarchal family with a stake in the local power system. The intention of their male family members to control the office of village pradhan and the space given to women through reservation are the two factors that appear to work in tandem. As the results of this study show, women still remain proxies and their assertiveness grows not out of independent thinking but because their families are powerful in the village. It would not be wrong to generalize that women’s representation and leadership follow this model in most rural areas of UP.

The institutional incentive of reservation of seats for women ensured women’s presence in panchayats in the first place. This was the necessary but not sufficient condition for their participation. It has been seen that winners in reserved seats are more likely to win in general constituencies and continue to be successful if (a) their performance is good and, more importantly, (b) they belong to families steeped in dynastic politics. While current reinforcement of patriarchal ideas and practices may make the polity less democratic at the grassroot level there is still room for optimism, given that women are gaining experience in the public arena and some rare individual women have been successful in functioning independently. There is some evidence that women can be assertive and are capable as members of panchayats and as pradhans. They are not always passive and not universally proxies (Buch, 1999). Until women come gradually into their own, electoral processes and experience in holding public office could ultimately lead them towards greater confidence, assertiveness and independence from the family.