CHAPTER 1

EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH PANCHAYATS-

A CASE STUDY

While writing in Young India in 1918 Mahatma Gandhi

said “Women is the companion of man gifted with equal

capacities, she has the right to participate in the minutest detail

of the activities of man. She has the same right of freedom and

liberty as he.” However as we run through the history of

mankind and his development, division of labour, allocation of

resources and all activities have been defined by gender in all

societies. Women have been subjected to inferior standing at

all times. The form of discrimination against women has

changed over eras but content remain firm from primitive to

modern times. Far too long and for several centuries’ women,

who constitute almost half of the humanity has suffered

discrimination and disability all over the world. The tide of

democracy, sweeping across cultures and countries, broke the

old stereotypes and shackles, however, the social, cultural,

economic and political structures, tradition bound as they were,

and still are, did not allow the equalitarian measures to

materialise into a reality.

The story of Indian women is not too different from what

one witnesses in many other societies. The modern Industrial

societies may have done little better than developing societies

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in terms of guarantying basic human rights and equality to

women, but they are also far behind an ideal type social

environment. Indian women have gone through many

transitions in their fight for equality through out its history.

Over a period of many millenniums the graph of women’s

empowerment has not shown a consistent upward swing. It

may have some kinks in it but it has eluded the much desired

movement up the ladder. In fact a research of ancient period

reveals that Vedic era is supposed to be the golden period of

women’s status in India. Although it is very difficult to

establish this claim and it would be too simplistic to accept

that, in distant past all was well with women in Indian society.

However, it is beyond anybody’s doubt that women may have

enjoyed greater freedom of movement and a greater share in

important social and religious functions. (De souza1980; 187).

On the basis of historical account of Vedic literature we can

say that women were treated much better and enjoyed more

rights than they did in later times. We shall be discussing about

historical evolution of women’s status in Indian society in

greater detail in subsequent chapters.

Women in all spheres of life have been treated secondary

to man in Indian society for centuries. This fact has been

recognised and has bothered many social reformers in past.

There have been several individual and institutional efforts to

ameliorate women’s deplorable conditions. These attempts

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have resulted in many path breaking movements, legislations

and uprisings. However, the end result of most of these efforts

has yielded limited success for women. Women were treated

as subhuman and discriminated against in most of the areas

and could never attain their due place in the society. “Women

have been deprived from availing various kinds of

opportunities and advantages by our traditional society for the

past several centuries. Discrimination against women is

commonly observed in providing opportunities of socio-

economic development, participation in social, religious

activities.” Although women have been generally deprived of

the opportunities of a respectful life in society, it can also be

concluded that many developments have taken place directly

affecting the status of women in positive manner. The sati

system of old tradition may not have died totally but it has

virtually been eliminated from society through legislative

measures and strong social movement against the system.

Similarly, the legislative measure to restrict the minimum age

of marriage has directly improved the status of women by

providing additional time to them to pursue their education and

be directly involved in decisions affecting their future. In

addition they are not forced into traumatic years into marriage

at tender age.

The independence of India brought in many hopes for the

nation. It was perceived that destiny of our citizens was in the

3

hands of Indians only. The citizens of India gave themselves a

constitution which was a treatise for growth and prosperity for

everyone in the country. The constitution of India guarantees

right of equality to all its citizens irrespective of their caste,

sex, creed and religion. Indian democracy, right from the days

of independence, has been thriving on these basic principles.

The post independence era has seen some significant

steps in the direction of development of women for overall

improvement of their status in society. There have been many

agencies involved who have done commendable work in this

direction with state leading the field with many state sponsored

programs or assistance to target groups. The focus and priority

of programs have kept changing with time and evolution of

new strategies for development.

Beginning from legislative efforts to improve women’s

status during 1950’s e.g. Hindu Marriage Act, Law of

Inheritance, various programs have been designed and

implemented through five year plans and special target projects

for women. Women’s role and contribution has been

recognised at all levels. Although the process of social change

in value system of a society is long drawn, efforts have been

made to bring women into the mainstream of the society.

The involvement of women in the development process

was always advocated by the thinkers for the over all

development of the society. If we critically evaluate the

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women’s condition in our country, it is evident that despite

sincere efforts, nothing much has changed in the day to day life

of women in rural India. In urban setting access to education

and employment opportunities have benefited women but in

rural areas traditional social structures and failure of modern

institutional mechanism to percolate to village life have

prevented any significant upliftment of women in rural society.

“Many studies reveal that the place of rural women in India is

much lower in social, economic and political empowerment

than that of their urban counterparts. Although they have been

contributing significantly to the social and economic progress

of the country, their participation in the development programs

is still at the lower side. The rural women are passive

beneficiaries rather than active contributor. Politically, rural

women remain largely inactive and indifferent due to various

socio-economic constraints and lack of political and social

motivation.”

Since independence, it has been noticed that most of the

programs introduced had focussed on women as targets and

passive recipients of financial support. These early programs

were more subsidy driven short term measures lacking in any

effort towards building capacities of women for long term

empowerment. Very few thinking went into making women

participate in the decision making process. Women were

mostly excluded in top down approach to development and

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kept away from political mainstream. Reasons for women’s

exclusion can be traced partly in traditional social and political

power structure in rural India and partly to lack of larger

political willingness to share power with women. The report of

the committee on status of women in India (CSWI,1974)

which is considered a significant account on the socio-

economic conditions of women recounts that “ Though

women’s participation in the political process has increased,

both in election and in their readiness to express their views on

issues directly concerning their day to day life, their ability to

produce an impact on the political process has been negligible

because of the inadequate attention paid to their political

education and mobilisation by both political parties and

women’s organisations.”

Despite several setbacks, need for making women

empowered was felt as early in 1959 when women got place in

Panchayati Raj leadership through co option in many of the

states when Panchayati Raj system took the shape on Oct 2nd

1959. During early days PRI itself could not settle down

because of lack of political support, motivation, resulting into

theories of grass root governance and power being treated as

academic in nature. Till 1992 success of PRI remained

localised and limited. It could not drive any section of the

society out of the status quo and it was true for women also.

However the concept of Panchayati Raj never died in our

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political system. It was in 1992 that a new lease of life was

injected in to Panchayat system of governance by granting

constitutional validity through 73rd amendment to the

constitution. The new law recognised the need to empower

women at all levels by ensuring their active participation in

grass root governance and building women’s economic

capacities. The constitution 73rd amendment Act 1992 Article

243D (3) reads “not less than one third (including the number

of seats reserved for women belonging to the SC & ST) of the

total number of seats to be filled by direct election in every

panchayat shall be reserved for women and such seats may be

allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a panchayat.”

Panchayati Raj Institution is one of the most significant

political innovations of independent India. Leadership in the

context of Panchayati Raj Institution’s relevance as the

objective behind constituting local governance was to

encourage leadership according to developmental needs of the

countryside. Through the constitutional amendment serious

attempt is being made to bring all sections of society into

national mainstream including women who have otherwise

been ignored and kept on the fringe of the whole scheme of

things. The thrust of PRI is to ensure active and adequate

participation of women in decision making process at all

levels. This leads to women directly guiding and deciding their

own destiny. In this study an attempt has been made to explore

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the extent of empowerment achieved by women through the

driving force of PRI. The focus of the study is two districts of

Madhya Pradesh which are contiguous to each other in

geographical location but differ in terms of developmental

parameters. The empirical data collected has been used to

analyse the impact of PRI on women’s empowerment. The

study is not limited to women leaders and their role but the

overall scenario in rural setting.

The history of Panchayati Raj in MP after independence

can be traced back to Panchayat Act 1962 based on the

recommendations of Balwant Rai Mehta committee .Over past

several decades the Act was revised several times but these

institutions continued to operate in limited sphere of local

maintenance and did not have any significant developmental

responsibilities. As a result Panchayats as an institutional

mechanism for development remained on the fringe of the

politico-economic power structure. Serious efforts towards

revitalising Panchayats in MP were started in 1990 with

Panchayati raj act 1990 followed by many administrative and

legislative reforms. These are discussed in detail in chapter

dealing with PRI in MP.

PRIs have provided a credible platform for women to

voice their concern and be involved in decisions about their

future. The experience of working of PRIs in MP has reflected

some positive indicators on women’s empowerment. Women

8

leadership has emerged at local grass root level and their issues

have occupied centre stage on many decision making

processes. The road to women empowerment has been laid by

PRI Act 1992 and now it is for the socio political structure to

create space for women to emerge from the shadows of

tradition, discrimination and deprivation.

The current study is an effort to correlate women’s

empowerment with the working of Panchayati Raj institutions

in MP. The scope of the study is limited by the time and

resource constraint. Two districts have been have selected as

sample districts. These are Jabalpur and Narsinghpur. Since

focus of the present study is to analyse the impact of PRI

working on women’s empowerment in society as such and

analysis of many social indicators has been done to arrive at

the conclusion. The focus includes not only the women leaders

in PRI but also women population in general.

CHAPTERISATION

Chapter II-Status of women in Indian society.

In this chapter women’s status in Indian society has been

discussed. There have many theories regarding women’s role

in development of society. In India, women’s role and in turn

her status in overall social structure has changed in different

stages of history. During Vedic age women occupied place of

pride in society and participated in all social and religious

ceremonies equally. The same status was, however, not

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accorded to her in post Vedic era followed by brahmanical

domination in Indian society. Even during Muslim and British

rule women remained at the bottom of the social order.

Chapter III – Women’s empowerment, decentralisation

and the State- Post Independence era.

This chapter focuses on institutional growth in women’s

emancipation. During the ancient times state did not provide

any support to the cause of women. There are few evidences of

state’s welfarist policies during that period. State did not

intervene in the existing social order which was primarily

based on hierarchical order limiting the role of women in

society to house hold cores. The concept of universal equality

or gender equality was virtually non existent in ancient times.

The system continued to thrive during the Muslim era in India

and sign of reform can be traced with the introduction of

modern education by British and emergence of social reform

movements against prevalence of evil practices in society.

Some of the reform movements specifically targeted women’s

extremely deplorable condition on Indian society. Institutional

support to women’s cause started emerging during British rule

but post independence period has created more structured

effort towards uplifting women’s status in society through the

policy of positive discrimination. This chapter will primarily

deal with post independence attempts in this direction.

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Chapter IV- Panchayati Raj in Madhya Pradesh.

This chapter gives a broad outline of PRI in India in

general and MP in particular. Madhya Pradesh has been one of

the pioneer states in implementing Panchayati Raj with total

political commitment. The state has achieved a relatively

higher degree of success in ensuring Gram Swaraj in rural

areas through Panchayats. Panchayati raj has served as a driver

of growth for deprived classes of society by incorporating all

sections in the decision making process at grass root level. The

success or failure of PRI has been examined in this chapter

with particular reference to its impact on women. The

philosophy and provisions of PRI have been critically

examined for their relevance in enhancing women’s ability to

exert themselves and create an environment of higher

entitlements and access to resources and opportunities.

Chapter- V WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

THROUGH PANCHAYATI RAJ IN MADHYA

PRADESH- AN ANALYSIS

The chapter include the case study of two districts of MP

which are our sample districts for the current study. The data

collected and compiled in are analysed in with reference to

various indicators of empowerment. Indicators of

empowerment are individually analysed to isolate the impact

of PRI on specific parameters since a collective and broad

generalisation may not correctly reflect the impact in totality.

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Chapter VI- Conclusion

The last chapter briefly discusses the outcome of the

study, its effectiveness with reference to implementation of

PRI in India, policy implication of the study , broad suggestion

son the positive and negative implications of PRI.

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CHAPTER II

STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIAN SOCIETY

The status of women in any society is a function of many

variables. At any given point of time and in a particular social

setting, social structure, cultural norms, value systems are

important determinants of women’s role and position in

society. Social traditions are major influence in shaping

attitudes as well as behavioural pattern of human groups.

Social structure can stimulate certain trends of change but it

can also be a limiting factor in execution of change. It is

generally observed that changes in normative structure and in

the organizational form of society do not take place in unison.

Thus in any society, attempt at legislative or educational

reform may not always have the desired impact in terms of

expected spread across a spectrum of social class. It happens

because of the normative and structural unprepared ness of the

society to accept their goals and means.

There is a fundamental question which arises whenever

we talk about development or equality. Development is a

continuous process in any society while equality is a state of

affair in which the fruits of development are shared by various

sections of society. We have never had a utopian society in the

history of mankind except that of mythical social system of

Ramrajya during Ram’s rule. Every social system constitutes

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various communities, groups, sections differentiated on many

parameters. The stratification of society is generally based on

economic status, caste status, or some times racial base.

Society is also divided on gender basis i.e. man and women.

Depending on the relative strength and weakness of any group,

the opportunities available at any time get distributed among

different factions which in turn determines their respective

places in the hierarchy. Some time social and political structure

also permit positive discrimination in favour of an

underprivileged group and allows them to have preferential

access to resources of society.

Whenever we talk of an underprivileged section of

society we place women in the category more often than any

other section. Nature may have created man and woman as

equal but historical research establish that privileges and

opportunities have gone to men more frequently than to

women. Women have been deprived of access to opportunities

and have enjoyed limited role outside the domain of their

home. Their limited role in social and economic sphere has

determined their inferior status in social structure.

Continuation of such state of affair has been the order of

history in almost all societies with differences in degree.

Although women constitute half of humanity, they have

been perennially subjected to discrimination and disability all

over the world. The passage of time has not altered their tales

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and position in society. The world has seen many significant

developments throughout the history in its social, economic

and political structure. The autocratic rules of Pharaohs and

kings gave way to welfarist kings like Asoka and Akbar which

further culminated into rule of the masses in a democratic

political structure. The advent of democracy led to sweeping

changes in social, political, economic and cultural institutions.

Many societies broke age old traditional shackles to modernize

themselves. Substantial material changes in economic and

political structures did not, however, allow many equalitarian

measures to materialize into a reality. “ Obstacles to women’s

equality with men in all walks of life did not disappear even

when constitutional and legal provisions of far reaching

significance were made, women remains neglected or at best

sidelined, in the mainstream of the dominant process of

development.” In most societies marginal gains have been

achieved but enough space has not been created by dominant

structures to allow women to participate in mainstream

economic and political process.

When we focus on women’s position in Indian society on

historical time line we come across many cross sections of

theories and contradictions. Despite its deep rooted traditional

value system prevailing since Vedic age we do have evidences

of far reaching achievements attained by many illustrious

women. From the highly revered status as goddess and source

15

of power, Indian women have seen the downhill journey

through ostracism to widowhood, forced burning on pyre of a

dead husband, denial of all forms of formal education,

confinement within the domain of the house to produce, rear

and look after children and other males, era of radical social

reform for their upliftment by many enlightened educationists,

reformers, being first citizens empowered to participate in

political process of a nation, constitutional safeguard to their

rights, other legislative measures identifying them as a weaker

section of society and being privileged to have positive

discrimination in access to resources.

We can discuss status of Indian women during the

process of evolution of Indian society in four phases:-

Ancient Indian society including the mythical period

Medieval period of outside intervention in Indian society

Age of social reform movement and British rule

Post Independence period

ANCIENT PERIOD

In the original Sanskrit text, the creation of women by

Tyashtri, the Vulcan of Hindu mythology is described thus “he

took the lightness of the leaf and the glance of the fawn, the

gaiety of the sun’s rays and the tears of the mist, the

inconsistency of the wind and the timidity of the hare, the

vanity of the peacock and the softness of the down of the throat

of the Swallow. He added the harshness of the diamond, the

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sweet flavour of honey, the cruelty of the tiger, warmth of the

fire and the turtle dove, the chill of snow and the chatter of the

joy. He melted all these and formed a woman.”

The above description may be an indication of the

abilities a woman may possess. Many of these features glitter

in their character many a times. But the story of woman has

always been one of unhappy subjugated living under the

coercive authoritarian control of man. The Indian women’s tale

is an endless woe. They are abandoned, divorced, bought and

sold or killed at the whims of man.

A study of ancient Indian text and religious scriptures

show that the position of women was fairly satisfactory during

Vedic age. Women enjoyed equal status with men in respect to

formal education, participation in religious ceremonies, and

choice of partners. Evidence of widow remarriage and freedom

to choose one’s husband, absence of dowry system are

available in Vedic texts. Although sons were preferred to

daughters during the Vedic period, women could be initiated to

Vedic studies and were entitled to offer sacrifices to gods, the

son was not absolutely necessary for the purpose.

Women during this period achieved great academic

status. They are known to have specialized in purvamimansa,

which discussed diverse problems connected with Vedic

sacrifices. The tradition of women scholars is mentioned in the

puranas. The admission of women to the Buddhist order gave a

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great impetus to the cause of female education in aristocratic

and well to do families.

Women regularly participated in the state and political

affairs during several kingdoms of that era. Chandragupta I

ruled the kingdom with his queen. In the Chalukya

administration queen governors and officers were quite

common.

From the above account of ancient texts, it appears that

women’s status during early society in India was significantly

better than what it became later. Society was less restrictive on

women’s role in public affairs and more receptive of their

contributions in the fields which became the captive domain of

man later. One of the factors responsible for the relatively

exalted position of women in the Vedic age was the influence

of religion. Asceticism was at a discount in the Vedic age.

Unmarried men and women had no admission to heaven. Gods

did not accept any offering from the unmarried. Wife was an

absolute necessity in the religious service as both husband and

wife had to perform the religious rituals together.

Archaeological evidences reveal that before the Aryan

invasions the local population revered the goddess. Merlin

Stone in her book- When God was a woman says “In

prehistoric and early historic period of human development,

religions existed in which people revered their supreme creator

as female.”

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One important indicator of women’s status in any society

is the prevalence of purdah system. During the Vedic age

purdah was not in vogue. Even after the Vedic age purdah was

unknown. In most of the Sanskrit dramas, we don’t find any

evidence of purdah.

We have discussed about the exalted status enjoyed by

women in ancient India. But it is also a fact that many of these

documentations are based on isolated incidents of individual

achievements. Some of the social evils which crept into the

society in later phase did not exist during early historic period

but there are many theories which account that woman had

been granted limited space to operate in any social

environment. In fact the position of Hindu women (at that time

Hinduism was the dominant religion so we can derive a

general conclusion from the study of Hindu women) has been a

subject of controversy and many debates. The ancient Indian

attitude to women was in fact ambivalent. She was at once a

goddess and a slave, a saint and a strumpet.

The historical account of Aryan society reflect that

introduction of the non Aryan wife into the Aryan family was

responsible for the general deterioration of the position of

women that gradually and imperceptibly started at about 1000

B.C. There are also evidences to suggest that position of

women was satisfactory till 300 B.C. after which it gradually

deteriorated. It continued to deteriorate in later phases when

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stringent behavioural norms were prescribed for women. This

has been legislated by Kautilya in his work Arthsastra.

When Indian society grew further and it came in contact

with outside world, the social norms became more prohibitive

and punitive. Women continued to suffer ever after that.

MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Manu Sam vita has averred that women is a subservient

dependent being and her rightful place is under the

guardianship successively, of her father, husband, and son and

her lot has not changed even after centuries. Right from birth

to death dice is heavily loaded against the girl as far as most

Indian families are concerned.

During medieval period, historical account suggest that

Indian society, when it was exposed to outside invasions,

witnessed strengthening of subjugation and repression of

women in general. Many of the customs and traditions like

child marriage, sati, purdah which had begun to show their

impact took deep roots into the social system.

Education of women received a setback from 300 B.C.

with the introduction of child marriage. Women were deprived

of all kinds of formal education as girls got married at the age

of 8 or 9 mostly much before they attained puberty. Their

training was more related to housekeeping as they were

expected to take over all kinds of household works after

marriage irrespective of their age. Society developed a general

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prejudice against girl education. It got so ingrained in the

psyche of Indian population that even after many centuries

there is still a section which prefers educating boys to girls.

The education of girl child is the first casualty of economic

hardship in family. During the Muslim rule female literacy rate

among women went down sharply and at the advent of the

British rule female education had practically disappeared.

As we have discussed above, purdah was virtually non

existent during Vedic period. Several foreign travellers

including Abu Zaid an Arabian traveller of the early 10th

century A.D. mention that in most of the courts in India queens

appeared in public without any veils. However later period

evidences show that purdah was prevalent among royal and

noble families in a restrictive form even before the Muslim

conquest. After the arrival of Muslims in India, purdah became

quite common among richer and higher classes in Northern

India to provide protection to beautiful women against

abduction and kidnapping by Muslim rulers, nobles and

officials. It appears that purdah system started as a defence

mechanism for the locals against outsiders but it ultimately

proved detrimental to the cause of women itself. Purdah led to

restriction on movement of women, their participation in

public affairs and confinement in the four walls of the house.

The influence of Muslim culture, which traditionally practiced

21

purdah to shield their women, on Indian way of life further

strengthened the purdah culture.

The position of women received another setback when

custom of sati started becoming popular from 400 A. D and

firmly entrenched into the social system by 700 A.D. Sati

system had discontinued during the Aryans who found it

necessary to encourage the widows to live and increase the

population by Niyoga and remarriage. Sati system which never

existed as a cultural norm in myths, turned out to be one of the

brutal forms of repression of women. Widespread widow

burning with husband despite their unwillingness ultimately

resulted into strong social movement against this practice.

The position of widows who escaped being a sati was

satisfactory during early times but started deteriorating when

remarriage and Niyoga were forbidden from 500 A.D and

remarriage of child widow banned after 1000 A.D. Widows

were regarded as inauspicious and society prescribed strict

regulation on them which were too harsh and inhuman. The

consequences of prohibition of remarriage of widows were

disastrous. The subhuman living condition of widows after the

death of their husbands led many of them to opt for sati to

escape from humiliation for rest of their life.

During this period we find that many evil practices

against women got fully entrenched in Indian social system

with wide acceptance not only among men but also among

22

women themselves who began to accept it as only way to live.

All opportunities to women virtually sealed and they were

forced into performing menial jobs inside the confines of

house. The pitiful condition of women during this period set

platform for many enlightened individuals to initiate social

movements against general deplorable conditions of women in

Indian society. These social reform movements coincided with

the era of British rule in India which introduced secular

education enabling many Indians to have access to modern

thinking and education.

AGE OF SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENT AND

BRITISH RULE

The concept that women are inferior to man was

universally accepted by the people in medieval times. Mary

Wollstone craft was the first to challenge this theory in the

later half of 18th century. She writes in her book “A

Vindification of the right of women”, the emergence of new

ideologies of democracy, liberty, equality in western world

prompted many theorists to argue for gender equality and

elimination of all discrimination on the basis of sex. One of the

early liberal thinkers was J S Mill who argued in favour of

equal status for women and demanded it on rational grounds.

In his outstanding work “The subjection of women” he speaks

for liberal and rational approach to the problem. He explained

that the existing and other incapacities or deformities of

23

women were not innate in them but were the product of the

inferior social positions they occupied in the existing society.

The role and status of women in society remained a

subject of debate from the medieval period in western world.

As a result two sets of theories emerged which had world wide

impact on women’s issues in future. It had its profound

influence in Indian context also. We shall briefly explain the

basic tenets of two schools of thoughts.

A) Biological School

B) Differences due to cultural factors

The Biological School

Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, Schienfield have been

the representatives of this school of thought. They hold that

“for women to want to do everything that men do is not merely

a futile aim but an unfair one. Man cannot do everything that a

woman can do, not the least of which is having babies and

launching them safely into the world.” The theorists of this

school argue that we must acknowledge the existence of two

strains of cultural influence, one flowing from women and

another from men, but we must realize that both are surely

needed and should be developed to their fullest extent.

Thus this view implies that there are definite fixed traits

and hence fixed functions of women and that they should

therefore cultivate capacity for the efficient discharge of those

functions.

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School of cultural factors

L B Pekin, Helen B Thompson, Margreat Mead, George

Seward , the proponents of cultural theory recognize the

difference between the traits of men and women but they

disapprove of its existence because of biological differences

between them. They trace the existing different traits of man

and woman as the product of the existing social environment in

which they live as well as of the cultural patterns prevailing.

The winds of liberalism and new ideas of equality

between sexes came to Indian shores through British rule. The

traditional Indian society rooted in superstitions, cultural

constraints and impact of insulated Muslim culture of more

than 500 years, had closed all windows of opportunity to

Indian women in her quest for equality. During the time when

British were consolidating their hold on India new wave came

through English education, missionaries resulting into outbreak

of a number of social reform movements in the 19th century.

Although strictly speaking old Sanskrit scriptures, which were

the foundation stone of Indian social structure, never sanctified

many of the evil practices against women, they had been

consigned to the texts only and not preached any more at that

time.

The introduction of modern teaching brought new ideas

and awareness among Indians, In contrast to the traditional

way of looking at existing social norms, liberal outlook led

25

many Indians to challenge the prevalent social order and many

institutionalized behavioural practices. It gave rise to many

social reform movements across India led by educated

enlightened Indians whose pain and anguish was reflected in

their ideology for change. The broad aim of these movements

in the social sphere was specially emphasing caste reform or

caste abolition, improvement in the rights and status of women

and generally against social and legal inequalities. Most of

theses movements began with attack on certain social

institutions and practices like child marriage, position and

treatment of widows, seclusion and denial of women’s rights to

property and education.

During the 19th century, when many of the social

movements, led by visionaries like Raja Ram Mohan Roy,

Ishwar Chandra Vidya Saagar, Jyoti Rao Phule, were taking

shape, women’s role in Indian society had been well defined in

the overall Indian Patriarchal social structure. Wifehood and

mother hood had come to be accepted as pivotal role for

women. By implication it was generally believed that these

roles were complete in themselves and women need not pursue

any specialized discipline of knowledge, art or profession.

The stereotype role ascribed to women also defined her

status in the hierarchy more often at the bottom of the pyramid.

The challenges before the educated intellectuals from the

native population of that time were unprecedented. However,

26

advent of new knowledge, new ideas and new technology

disturbed the deep and static balance of Indian tradition. Social

reformers all over the country showed their deep concern over

women’s issues such as sati, child marriage, female infanticide,

widowhood, purdah, polygyny, Devdasi and education.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy was one of the early rebels of his

time when he challenged the practice of sati in Bengal. He

came up with strong argument referring to many Sanskrit

scriptures and texts to prove that such practice was not

prescribed in religious texts. Ishwar Chandra Vidya Saagar

also referred to old Indian scriptures in his campaign against

ban on widow remarriage. Reformers across the country

argued in favour of education to girl as a primary instrument

towards amelioration of women’s plight in Indian society.

They argued that illiteracy was the primary cause for many of

these problems. D K Karve, Gopal Hari Das, M G Ranade,

Khwaja Altaf Hussein Hali worked in the direction of

educating people on women’s issues.

A detailed study of many of these movements reveal that

while some of the reformers were inspired by the liberal ideas

of the west some preferred to go back to the glorious tradition

of ancient India. Dayanand Saraswati and Vivekananda made

efforts to improve the status of women by evoking the ancient

Indian norm of purity and duty. Most of the Hindu social

reformers sought credibility for their ideas and actions in the

27

ancient Sanskrit texts. On the other hand, some other bold

voices challenged the set patterns. Jyoti Rao Phule spoke

against the tyranny of Brahmannical traditions and argued for

equality of opportunity.

The emergence of social reform movements against the

social evils prevailing in Indian society in general and sub

human conditions of women in particular, led to many path

breaking developments during 19th and early 20th century.

British Govt was forced to enact legislations aimed towards

addressing distressing conditions of women in Indian society.

Some of the salient legislations as a result of these movements

were-

- civil marriage Act 1872- this act permitted

inter caste marriage and divorce, prohibited polygamy and

prescribe minimum age of marriage for girl as 14 years and for

boys as 18 years.

- Sati System-Sati system was banned through

legislation passed in 1829.

- Widow remarriage- Widow remarriage was

permitted as legal by act in 1856

- Age of consent bill was passed in 1892

The impact of these movements and resultant

legislative initiatives had, however, been limited in overall

context of Indian society. A brief glance at the history of

Indian society reveals that a characteristic feature of Indian

28

social system is its ability to adapt itself to processes of social

change. Coupled with the extraordinary features of Indian

social structure and limited scope of reform movements, we

notice that overall impact on changing the material condition

of Indian women was at the most partial. Most of these

movements aimed at changing the conditions of Indian women

within the family and domestic framework and didn’t for see

any radical change in social structure. The issues adopted by

these movements like education, raising the age of marriage,

widow remarriage, the abolition of seclusion and right to

property were essentially attempts to improve women’s

position within the family framework and to ensure her greater

degree of dignity and independence. As a result, the reach of

these movements had also been limited to urban middle class

rather than penetrating deep into the roots of the problem at the

grass root level of society.

Despite their limited impact, focus and issue based scope,

these social reformers began a culture of defiance against age

old traditional stereo types and also an evolutionary process of

legislative intervention against socially deplorable practices.

The process of legislation to establish a system of equitable

norms continued during 20th century but no mass movement

emerged during the time of freedom struggle. However,

women in isolated pockets kept voicing their concerns through

their active participation in freedom movement. These were, at

29

best, individual efforts lacking in mass appeal as well as

mobilization. Many women’s organisations and association did

emerge during this period but faded under the shadow of

greater cause of nation’s independence.

POST INDEPENDENCE

Independence of India from British rule brought the

power to rule to people of India. From many options available,

India chose a democratic path in its tryst with destiny and a

constitution on 26th January 1950 as a vehicle of social

transformation. The concern and issues of women remained

one of the focal points of overall strategy of socio economic

transformation of India. This philosophy was reflected at many

places in the constitution addressing women’s issues with

different perspective.

The evolutionary process of legislative intervention of

British time was further broadened with state taking over many

other functions for the benefit of weaker sections of society

including women. During the last 60 years, the state, through

legislative and executive actions, has taken many path breaking

initiatives attempting to alter women’s status in society. The

fundamental premise on which state action is based is that

women constitute half of the active economic human capital

and utilizing the same gainfully is central and critical for the

progress of society.

30

The post independence period begins with the adoption

of a constitution declaring India as a democratic republic state.

Under the constitution all Indian citizens are equal irrespective

of their caste, creed, religion or sex .Thus as per law Indian

women have claim to equality of status and can rightfully

demand removal of disabilities imposed on her. Indian women

have same political rights as man. She can exercise her vote

and elect and be elected to parliament or to state legislature.

The process of empowering women through state initiative

began with constitution and has gained momentum through

many Acts and legislations. Some of the path breaking

initiatives is discussed below-

The Special Marriage Act -1954

This Act has two main provisions-

Stipulates minimum age of marriage as 18 years for girls

and 21 year for boys.

Permits marriage of people from different religions

without changing their faith.

Hindu Marriage Act -1955

It makes monogamy as universal.

Cruelty and desertion were added as grounds for divorce

and mutual consent recognized through amendment in 1976.

Hindu Succession Act -1956

31

The Act confers right of absolute ownership over

property besides other provisions for sharing of property

among the heirs.

Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956

This Act makes it permissible for any female Hindu (a)

who is of sound mind and (b) who is not minor, to take a son

or daughter in adoption. The consent of father and mother is

essential for giving the child in adoption.

The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and

Girls Act, (SITA) 1956

A landmark act in the history of Indian legislation

towards improving the plight of Indian women. This act

prohibits trafficking in women and girls for purpose of

prostitution as an organized means of living.

The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961

This Act was first legislated in 1961 and amended in

1984c and 1986 to make its provisions more stringent and

effective. The minimum punishment for taking or abetting

dowry has been raised to make it deterrent and punitive in

nature.

The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976

This Act provides not only payments of equal wages for

same work of a similar nature, but also for a machinery for its

implementation and advising Govt on measures to ensure

increased employment to women.

32

The Child Marriage Restraint [Amendment] Act 1976

This Act provides minimum age for marriage for girls to

18 years and for boys to 21 years. The offences under this act

have been made cognizable.

The Contact Labour [Regulation] Act, 1978

The Act regulates the working conditions of contact

labour including women, payment of wages and provides for

welfare facilities for women.

Indecent Representation of Women [Prohibition] Act,

1986

Under this Act, representation of women in an indecent

or derogatory manner in all advertisements and publications is

prohibited.

The Commission of Sati [Prevention] Act, 1987

Under this Act commission of sati and its glorification

and for matters connected therewith or incidental to such an

abatement is punishable by the maximum penalty i.e. death or

imprisonment for life. This act provides for a more effective

prevention for a women (widow) being sacrificed as Sati.

It is evident from the above that we have many

protective constitutional and legislative measures for socio-

economic rights and responsibilities of women. The process

continues to evolve itself and efforts at grass root levels have

yielded some positive results through rural development

programmes, panchayat raj institution. However despite

33

Herculean efforts and sincere concerns for empowerment of

women in society, many studies have indicated that the status

of women has not been raised due to vested interested, pressure

groups, lack of political will to share power, and socio-

economic and cultural setting of Indian social structure. Large

majority of women continue to suffer in silence due to

illiteracy, lack of economic power and absence of strong

political will to ameliorate their deplorable conditions.

In Indian context no amount of legislation or act will

succeed without adequate understanding of the nature of

problems faced by women due to unique socio-cultural setting

of Indian society. There maybe legislations which provide

safeguards through legislative measures for the welfare and

development of women. What is required is right environment,

change of behaviour and attitude.

34

CHAPTER III

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT, DECENTRALISATION AND THE STATE- POST

INDEPENDENCE ERA

As discussed in previous chapters women had enjoyed

limited empowerment through the ages irrespective of the nature

of political system. At many times individually powered efforts

were made to emancipate women from their downtrodden

status. But most of them met with limited success in terms of

their influence and over time line. The cultural and historical

setting of Indian society emerged too strong for incohesive and

fragmented individual efforts. However agenda for reform

always existed at subconscious level needing a pan Indian

approach for success. At the dawn of independence blueprint for

a policy on women’s empowerment was ready. As a result we

have seen direct state intervention, legal and constitutional

measures and policy reform as a top down approach to problems

of women in Indian society.

In this chapter we set to examine the role of state in

empowering women at various levels in Indian society. A

review of macro level policies provides an indication of state’s

priorities towards selected groups of sections for development.

Women have been one of the focus groups for state intervention

and grass root percolation of such policy initiatives is reflected

35

by the extent of women’s contribution in social-economic and

political sphere of life.

“The status of women in any nation portrays the progress

of that particular nation. Though Indian women have come long

way in her cultural level from the vedic period to the present

status of achieving economic independence in the 21st century,

yet due to many social, religious, cultural and political demands

on her, she is still bound by the shackles of certain traditions and

rituals, which distorts her image all around her. ( N Andal p.29)

Before we set to study the state led attempt to empower women

through various formal and informal institutions post

independence let us try to understand what it means to empower

and how status of any section is defined in social structure.

Empowerment can be defined as a process of redistribution

of resources in the society in such a way that women get equal

access and control over the resources. The process lead to

capacity building to influence the decision making process,

planning, implementation and evaluation by integrating women

into the political system. The primary emphasis of initiating the

process of empowerment is to ensure qualitative change in the

status of the target section of the society. Sushila Agarwal (N

Andal p32) clearly brings out the changing nature of the status

of women and traces its specific characteristics. The problems of

the status of women involve equality between men and women.

The women through out the world have been considered the

36

second sex or the inferior sex. Equality and status are closely

associated with power. Changing status involves the sharing of

power on equal footing and its implementation at all levels. The

societal value framework plays an important role in determining

the changing status of power equations, and hence, the status of

women involves the distribution and redistribution of power.

Any affirmative action towards empowering results in to

upward mobility of women’s position in the social framework.

The guiding principles of empowerment have led the state in

India to innovate means of empowerment for women. In the

post independence political structure state had assumed the

pivotal role of initiating and leading all reforms through top

down approach. The process started with the adoption of the

constitution of India followed by legislations and policy

guidelines towards uplifting the lower rungs of the society

which included women, rural poor specifically. The

methodology adopted by state after independence can be

categorised into two broad parts.

- Women specific approach

- Decentralisation approach to overall

development targeting weaker sections including

women.

The focus of the present study is examination of second

approach and hence only broad features of first approach are

discussed.

37

Women specific Approach

Mahatma Gandhi had referred to women as a noble sex.

According to him “If she is weak in striking she is strong in

suffering”. He has described women as the embodiment of

sacrifice and ahimsa. But, he added “I do not know a single

instance of a man having ever protected the virtues of woman

…. Rama and Pandavas did not protect the virtues of Sita and

Draupadi. Indian women have to learn not to rely on man to

protect her virtue or her honour.”

Mahatma Gandhi’s above indictment of the role of men in

shaping the status of women speaks volumes of historical

injustices inflicted on women in society. At the dawn of

independence same realisation guided the makers of constitution

to include special provisions either to ensure constitutional

equality to all or bestow upon the state responsibility to initiate

positive action to correct historical injustices.

The status of women in independent India occupies an

important role and all efforts are being made to establish

significant role that she can play in the upliftment of her own

self and the society at large. The preamble to the constitution of

India resolved to secure to all its citizens “social, economic and

political justice, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and

worship, equality of status and opportunities, dignity of the

individuals and the unity of the nation.” In theory Indian women

are entitled to all these rights as much as the men are. The

38

legacies of reformist movements of 19th and early 20th centuries

had set an agenda and platform for new initiatives to take of in

independent India. The feminist movements of pre

independence era led by middle class women had campaigned

for extension of educational opportunities and voting rights and

subsequently property rights. They encourage women to

participate in public life through forming associations and

holding conferences. The process of democratisation,

modernisation development, urbanisation, and industrialisation

has all affected the status of women at different stages.

Immediately after independence the new democratic

government initiated path breaking legislative actions

addressing whole range of issues including women. Despite

constitutional equality of woman vis-à-vis man the social norms

and traditions were too rigid to ensure accomplishment within

the existing structure without external intervention.

The Hindu Marriage Act 1956, The Hindu Marriage

( Inheritance of Property) Act 1956 etc. were enacted along with

many changes in IPC, CrPC to make some action against

women as offence. India was one of the first countries to start a

family planning policy which had direct bearing on women’s

health, family conditions, economic status and economic

opportunities.

The issue of safeguarding the rights and privileges of

women found its best expression in the constitution of India

39

adopted on 26th Jan 1950.It theoretically removed all kinds of

discrimination against women in both legal and public domain.

The fundamental rights removed all discrimination against

women on the basis of sex while state was bestowed with power

to make affirmative discrimination in favour of women. Some of

the salient features of constitution dealing with the issue of

women empowerment are best expressed in following articles.

Provisions in the Indian Constitution

India’s concern towards empowerment and development of

women is best expressed in its constitution.

Article 14 ensures gender equality by conferring equal

rights and opportunities on men and women in the political,

economic and social spheres.

Article 15 prohibits discrimination against any citizen on

the grounds of sex, religion, race, caste etc.

Article 15(3) empowers the state to make affirmative

discrimination in favour of women.

Article 16 provides for equality of opportunities in the

matters of public appointments.

Article 39 enjoins the state to provide adequate means of

livelihood to men and women and also equal pay for equal

work.

Article 42 directs the state to make provisions for ensuring

just and humane conditions for work and maternity relief.

40

Article 51(A) imposes a fundamental duty on every citizen

to renounce the practices derogatory to dignity of women.

Article 326 of the Indian constitution guarantees political

equality to women. The elections are held on the basis of

universal adult franchise.

Article 325 prohibits exclusion from electoral rolls on the

basis of sex.

The Legislations concerning women

In order to protect the constitutional rights the government

of India has enacted many women specific and women related

laws such as:-

-The Factories Act 1948

- The Employee State Insurance Act 1948

- The Special Marriage Act 1954

- The Equal Remuneration Act 1955, Amended in 1976

- The Hindu Marriage Act 1955, amended in 1986

- The Hindu Succession Act 1956

- The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956

- The Immoral Traffic Act 1956, amended in 1984

- The maternity benefit Act 1961

- The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971

- The constitution of committee on status of women in

India 1971

- The Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act 1976

41

- The Indecent Representation of women (Prohibition) Act

1986

- The Commission of sati (Prohibition) Act 1987

- The constitution of National commission on self

employed women 1987.

- The Adoption of National Perspective Plan for Women

1988-2000.

- The National Commission for Women Act 1992.

- The 73rd and 74th Constitution (Amendment) Acts 1992.

- The Ratification of convention on Elimination of all

forms of discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 1994.

- The Launching of National Policy of Empowerment of

Women 2001.

The constitutional safeguards were further strengthened

through several legislations encompassing wide spectrum of

women’s life. These include primarily- The Hindu Marriage Act

1955, The Hindu Succession Act1956 and The Hindu Adoption

and Maintenance Act 1956. Laws have been enacted to legalise

abortion, to raise age of marriage and to settle family disputes.

The issues dowry, Sati, rape, indecent representation of women,

female infanticide have also been seriously taken up by law

makers over last 60 years.

The Five Years Plans-

The post independence development philosophy is best

explained in five year plan documents. Beginning in 1952,

42

Indian planners have constructed a road map to socio economic

development of the country. The priorities of the state are best

reflected in these documents and resource distribution through

them. Sectoral approach to resource allocation best explains

thrust areas on a five year chart map. From the socialist

approach to development through state led growth in a planned

economy of first three five year plans we have moved from

poverty reduction to market driven development philosophy of

10th plan. Among all these the problems of weaker sections of

society including women have always found space in five year

plans. The approaches of looking at problems and needs of

women and identifying strategies to help women grow and

develop have changed over time. The development policies have

reflected a transition of approaches in dealing with women’s

concerns: from welfare approach (1st to Vth plan) to

development approach (VIth to VIIIth Plan) and finally to

empowerment.

Welfare Approach

The early days of planning were governed by the

traditional mindset on women as a result of which no dramatic

change could be initiated. Women were identified as target

group among weaker sections of our society. However the basic

emphasis of all planning was guided by the state’s recognition

of women as she stood in the social hierarchy. The stereo type

role of women and her status was taken as a given factor and she

43

was targeted as a passive recipient of welfare services. Need to

build women’s capacity to make a long term impact on society

was neither thought of nor adequately addressed during this

phase.

Development Approach

During early 1970s thinking about women’s role in society

started changing internationally as well as in India. Women

were identified as a potential contributor outside her traditional

domain of family. At the same time many public bodies and

commissions studying the issues of women recognised that

despite development policies and government policies, the

condition of women in society continued to be deplorable. It

was evident from many studies that even after 20 years of

independence and planned development, women constituting

half of the population, continued to suffer various forms of

discrimination and exploitation. The literacy rate among was

hopelessly low and their contribution in any form of economic

activity outside the domain of family was at the most marginal.

Women continued to languish on the periphery of our social

hierarchy with little hope in the existing structure of the

planning process. The sixth plan document recognised this fact

and identified women as vital human resource whose

development was expected to contribute significantly to overall

national development. Women were no longer viewed as targets

of welfare policies in social sector.

44

The sixth five year plan adopted multi disciplinary

approach with a three pronged thrust on core sector of health,

education and employment. Improving women’s access to

training and employment became the focus of the new approach.

During this plan various sector specific development programs

were initiated with target groups as focus of attention. Through

IRDP, DWCRA, TRYSEM under anti poverty approach and

women’s development corporations, efforts were made to

promote self employment among women, particularly among

weaker sections of the society, through training, credit through

micro finance, marketing support etc. through organised groups

of women. The focus of this approach was redistribution of

resources with growth. This approach continued for some time

and yielded some positive results. The subsidy based approach

targeting women as one of the beneficiaries’ ensured availability

of some resource for women. However it was not a holistic

approach as it did not focus on capacity building of targeted

units. Women remained a target of attention for decision

makers. She was not a participant in the decision making itself.

Empowerment Approach

Another approach which has shaped the ninth and finally

the tenth five year plans is empowerment approach. It implies

the process of enabling sections of people deprived of their

rights to have a level playing field with the privileged. The ninth

Plan (1999-2002) committed itself to empower as agents of

45

social change and development. It adopted the national policy

for empowerment of women (2001) with a view to creating an

enabling environment for women to exercise their rights both

within and outside their home as equal partners along with man.

The latest focus of the national policy for empowerment of

women comprises of social empowerment, economic

empowerment and gender justice.

The social empowerment aims at creating an enabling

environment through various affirmative developmental policies

and programs of development of women besides providing them

easy access to all basic minimum services so as to enable them

to realise their full potential. Economic empowerment would

ensure provision of training, employment and income generating

opportunities with the ultimate objective of making all potential

women economically independent. Gender justice seeks to

eliminate all forms of gender discrimination and enables women

to enjoy fundamental rights and freedom on equal footing with

men.

Decentralisation Approach

In the backdrop of women specific approach to their

development, we observe that a holistic approach to overall

socio economic development can be more effective while

targeting weaker sections of society particularly.

Decentralisation approach is one of the many alternatives which

have been tried in our country in various forms since

46

independence. Historically India is known to have village

economies self sufficient in all respect. The institutions of

Panchayats functioned as useful and effective instruments for

discharge of many community based activities including dispute

resolution among members and resolving law and order issues.

The dawn of independence provided with real opportunity

for materialising the dreams of democratic decentralisation in

our country. The idea was incorporated in the Directive

principles of state policy. The constitution of India incorporated

a system of political democracy and welfare philosophy. The

concept of Panchayati Raj was subsequently identified as the

most powerful driver to lead the process of democratic

decentralisation in a vastly diversified country like India. It was

realised very early in the planning process that a central control

may not yield the desired results as per the aspirations of the

people of the country. It was evident that Panchayati Raj was the

only means to ensure that majority of the people get a realistic

opportunity to participate in the nation building and make an

impact on the decision making process.

However, visualising the concept of democratic

decentralisation through Panchayats was easier in theory but a

complex issue while putting it in practice through the length and

breadth of India. The social structure of India was so complex

and diversified for any uniform approach to succeed. The

traditional self sufficient village structure had been breached

47

during the British rule and Panchayat system existed only

notionally in 1947. At the initial stages the notion of active

participation and involvement of people in plan process

including plan formulation, implementation and monitoring had

remained a myth. Despite some steps towards establishing some

administrative structure at grass root level, Panchayat system

did not develop into a formal structure at any level.

Several decades of attempts at formalising the panchayat

system failed to reengineer the process. Several committees and

sub- committees made several recommendations and proposals

for institutionalising the Panchayati raj system and these efforts

culminating in the form of 73rd amendment to the constitution

giving constitutional status to Panchayati raj institutions. Some

serious initiatives prior to 73rd amendment were following.

Balwantrai Mehta Committee

Ten years into independence did not take the country

anywhere in the direction of setting up effective structures at

grass root level leading to govt setting up a committee under

Balwantrai Mehta in 1957 to study the whole problem and

suggest ways and means for implementing the scheme of

Panchayati Raj on some uniform lines throughout the country.

The terms of reference of the committee also included assessing

the economy and efficiency of the community development

project and to study the efficacy of the program in utilising local

48

initiative and creating local institutions to facilitate the process

of socio-economic development.

The committee studied the process in detail and suggested

that it was imperative to give power and responsibility to the

community for the successful continuation of the process of

development. It recommended statutory elective bodies with

adequate resources, power and authority. On the basis of these

recommendations, the Panchayati Raj Institutions were

established for people’s participation and effective

implementation of community development projects. The

structure envisaged directly elected Panchayats for a village or a

group of villages, an executive body called panchayat samiti for

a block with directly elected and co-opted members and an

advisory body, Zila Parishad, with an ex officio member from

lower tier and the district collector as chairman.

Many states began implementing the system in right

earnest. But very soon these institutions started collapsing due to

lack of resources, political support, bureaucratic apathy and

domination of rural elites. The power equations in rural India

were too deep into the system to be breached early. The existing

structure integrated the new system into its fold and cornered all

resources to the benefit of these rural elites. The power

equations in rural India were too deep into the system to be

breached easily. In development, schemes ‘Panchayats’ played

only marginal role. The already skewed decision making system

49

continued without any real participation from the masses.

Although Panchayati Raj Institutions existed on paper it got

marginalised at all levels.

Ashok Mehta Committee

The system of ‘Panchayati Raj’ as it existed in 1950s &

1960s failed to realise dreams of its architects. It was low profile

in the overall structure of governance in rural India. In 1977,

Govt. of India set up another committee under Ashok Mehta to

suggest measures for revitalising the PRIs. The committee

noticed with regret that the activities of PRIs were meagre, their

resource base weak and the overall attention given to them was

scanty. The Ashok Mehta Committee recommended a two tier

system abolishing the Block as an administrative unit. It

suggested Mandal Panchayats at the base and Zila Parishads at

the top. Seats for SCs & STs were to be reserved on the basis of

their population. The committee did make serious effort to

revitalise the PRIs.

Although two tier systems were rejected by most of the

states, some of them did try to model their structure on the lines

but could not place it to practice.

C.H. Hanumantha Rao Committee (1984)

Another committee headed by Prof. C.H.Hanumantha Rao

went into the question of evolving methodology for district level

planning and recommended that planning process at the district

level should be sufficiently decentralised, having a good deal of

50

autonomy, administrative and technical capability and financial

adequacy.

G.V.K. Rao Committee

It was constituted in 1985 to review the administrative

arrangements for rural development programs and poverty

alleviations schemes. This committee agreed on district as a

basic unit of policy planning and program implementation but it

emphasised the need for regular elections to the Panchayats.

Sanghvi Committee (1987)

This committee examined this functioning of PRIs and

recommended reorganisation of villages for creating viable

Gram Panchayats. It also strongly recommended greater

financial resources to PRIs to make them viable and effective.

64 th Constitutional Amendment Bill

The bill introduced in Parliament in 1989 included setting

up of Panchayats in every state at the village level, intermediate

level and district level. The intermediate level was not

obligatory in states with a population of less than 20 lakh. This

bill was passed by Lok Sabha but could not see the light of the

day in Rajya Sabha.

73 rd Constitutional Amendment

The 73rd constitutional amendment is a watershed in the

history of governance in independent India. Gaining experience

from decades of failures and genuine needs and concerns of all

classes of society, the Govt. initiated a constitutional

51

amendment to legalise and formalise the decentralised decision

making process at grass root level. This constitutional

amendment makes it mandatory for one and all to implement all

the provisions of the Act.

The various committees and sub committees made several

recommendations and proposals for institutionalizing the

Panchayati Raj System and their efforts culminated in the form

of the 73rd constitutional amendment providing constitutional

status of the PRIs.

Several decades of centralized planning and a top down

model of development had paid dividends in terms of economic

growth and industrialisation. This development model was

adopted with the hope that the trickle down effect will involve

the poor and marginalized in the process of development. This

did not turn into a reality resulting in emergence of distorted and

lopsided development process, where the resources and

authority became further concentrated in few hands. The fruits

of development were neither shared, nor did poor and

marginalized got access to it. The marginalized sections,

particularly women, SC and SC continued to be on the fringe.

The state of affair at the end of 1990s was such that no effort in

ensuring participation of large masses in governance had

succeeded in existing model, not even notional empowerment

was experienced by poor and marginalized sections of society. It

was then apparent that to have more egalitarian and balanced

52

development, more participative, democratic and decentralized

bottom up model of development was required. There was a

need to redefine governance system through structural changes

at grass root level so as to address the issues of marginalized

sections of Indian Society. Empowerment of people at all level

particularly those belonging to weaker sections like women, SC,

ST was the only solution to grant adequate access of resources

and achieve people centric development model.

The 73rd constitution amendment bill was passed by the

Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha with unanimity on the 22nd and

23rd December, 1992 respectively. The bill was ratified by 17

state assemblies in 1993 and came into force as constitution 73rd

amendment act from the 24th April 1993. The act provides

constitutional status to the Panchayats and gives it uniformity by

making the three tier system a permanent feature.

Salient features of the Act.

The major positive features of the constitution (73rd

Amendment) Act are as follows:-

1 Seats shall be reserved for the SCs & STs in proportion

to their population.

2 Not less than one-third (including the number of seats

reserved for women belonging to SCs/STs) of the total

number of seats to be filled by direct election on every

‘Panchayat’ shall be reserved for women and such seats

53

may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in

Panchayat.

3 Provisions for the devolution of powers &

responsibilities upon Panchayats at the appropriate level

with respect to the preparation/implementation of plans

for economic development and social justice.

4 The legislature of a state may authorise the Panchayat to

levy, collect and appropriate such taxes, duties, tolls and

fees in accordance with such procedure and subject to

such limits as may be specified in the law.

5 Constitution of a finance commission to review the

financial position of the Panchayats every five years.

6 Conduct of all elections to the Panchayats shall be

vested in the state Election Commissions.

The constitution 73rd amendment Act 1992 is definitely

a welcome step to revive the old institution with a

presumption that power to people can

- Lead to the third stature of Govt.

- Help Panchayat retain the image of institution.

- Translate the dream of grass root democracy into

reality.

Through this Act, not only decentralisation of power has

been rationalised by law but an opportunity is provided to

people for participation in formulating plan and executing. The

54

traditionally excluded sections of society i.e. SC/ST, women

have been given opportunity to exert their stake in governance.

In the post 73rd amendment, different states have responded

with varying degrees of enthusiasm. MP has responded with

innovativeness and remarkable commitment to making the

system sustainable and successful. The state’s effort to

institutionalise the system is evident in the number of

amendments that have been made to the state Panchayat Act as a

dynamic response to the problems at the ground level. During

the process of implementation, several difficulties were found at

grass root level but they also threw new opportunities for

governance. MP as a state is a unique case because of its wide

geographical coverage, social and economic diversity within the

state. These factors significantly influenced the degree of

success or failure of PRI system in this state.

The constitutional status to Panchayats has fundamentally

altered the nature of administrative machinery at grass root level

and it has also dented a big hole in the fractional power equation

in rural India. Most of the major states have seriously initiated

the process of institutionalising PRIs. The stories of weaker

section staking strong claims for space in governance keep

pouring in. Many incidents of outstanding individual efforts

have undermined the authority of rural powers and corrupt

bureaucratic hierarchy. However, lot more need to be done in

this area. The democratisation of rural governance has started a

55

process which is still in evolutionary stages. It is yet to be

established whether PRIs have led to empowerment of various

sections of society or not. Many empirical studies have

chronicled success stories across the country but they have

mostly been individual efforts emerging out of strong resistance

from all corners in society and challenging the traditional

stereotypes but they do not fully respect the gains of

institutionalised success of PRIs. At the same time studies have

also shown manipulation of the provisions of PRI by corrupt

administrative machinery in connivance with traditional power

holder in villages. They have denied any space for weaker

sections to either take benefits of the system or emerge as

significant players in the governance mechanism. The

marginalised sections of society remain on the fringe of the

economic and political power equations.

In any study of impact of PRI it is extremely difficult to

cover the whole state because of limitations on time, research

method, and sample. In order to have a more representative

study two districts of MP were selected from Central MP areas.

These districts do not have any unique features like Malwa

region which has a unique cultural background and a mix of

tribal and non tribal areas.

This study is primarily focused on impact of PRIs in

empowering women; collection of data is generally related to

women specific issues with some generalised information. We

56

shall he discussing the details of the research in next two

chapters.

57

CHAPTER IV

PANCHAYATI RAJ IN MADHYA PRADESH

MP is the centrally located state of Indian Union. It has a

history of relative peaceful existence of people. The state is one

of the moderately developed states with many social and

economic indicators far below the national average. It has one of

the highest forest areas in the country inhabited by large number

of tribal population. The state is rich in mineral and natural

resources. During last 20 years stable political environment and

sincere efforts from political leaders have ensured that MP has

taken great leap forward in terms of creating credible

infrastructural base for overall development of the state. Madhya

Pradesh has been instrumental in providing conducive political

environment for successful implementation of Panchayat Raj

Act as an engine of decentralized governance and also

participation of masses in growth process of the state. The

bifurcation of the state in 1998 had a few set backs in terms of

loosing large forest and mineral recourses to the new state.

However, the process once initiated remained the focus area for

governance and has been perused at all levels.

Historically the institution of Panchayat has been an

integral part of Indian Society. While empires rose and fell,

village panchayats which formed an integral part of the national

life, helped to preserve democratic traditions in social, cultural,

economic and political life, survived the onslaught of centuries

58

of political upheavals and saved Indian society from

disintegration. The traditional Indian society was mainly a

village based society and villages were known to be self

independent units of governance in India. The existence of local

bodies in ancient India is a positive proof of the inherent genius

of our people to manage local affairs efficiently and on a

decentralized basis. The local government at different levels,

performing many functions, including dispensation of justice,

though not very democratic, were sufficiently autonomous. The

level of independence of village was such that it dispersed

justice for people and collective decisions of Panchayats were

law for every one. The system ensured that there was order in

society despite lack of any formal centralized command system.

The prevalent system was convenient and functional due to lack

of connectivity and integration of society. The village and tribal

society in Madhya Pradesh also had similar informal structures

to dispose common objectives of society.

The Panchayat institutions lost many of its charms during

British rule. The independence gave a new fillip to the

emergence of village based economy as a vision of development

by Mahatma Gandhi. However, the new political dispensation

under Jawahar Lal Nehru did not buy the Gandhian vision

instead opted for strong two tier federal structure. Nehru

dreamed of a modern vibrant India and pursued his vision by

creating and establishing new modern institutions and structures.

59

Nehru’s approach to nation building and national reconstruction

was primarily topdwon and for this he assigned central role to

the state. Since too many frontiers were open immediate to

independence and with limited resources in hand, strengthening

of village based institutions remained a low priority area for

political system. Additionally, country had inherited a huge

agricultural base with established structures but had nothing

much to show on industrial front. So, it was essential to

prioritize the core areas to create wide base for development.

During the constitution making process and thereafter since the

inception of planning in India, certain hard choices had to be

made between the needs of national security, national unity and

economic growth, on the one hand and the consideration of

achieving a measure of distributive justice, on the other hand ,

so that the benefits of development accrue to the people at the

grass root level, and also people may participate in the process

of planning and development at different territorial levels . In

the initial years the choice was made in favour of rapid growth

and planning, and therefore decision making remained

centralized and vertical around the two political levels viz.

Union and the State. Local bodies like Panchayats functioned as

civic agencies of the state Govt and not as instruments of micro

level planning.

Amid all this we noticed that Panchayat system remained

an ignored area for political structure and received virtually no

60

attention. It was despite the fact that the Constitution of India,

enacted at the time of Independence, had given enough attention

to the idea of local autonomy and local self governance. The

concept of village Panchayat was adequately spaced in the

directive principles of the Indian Constitution. There had been

no dearth of ideas and expert opinion but what was lacking was

consistency in thinking and political will to implement the

concept of decentralized planning and development in a multi

level framework and create Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in

that framework which are democratic, autonomous, financially

strong, capable of formulating and implementing plans for their

respective areas and provide decentralized administration to the

people. However, as early as in 1957, the importance of

Panchayat system was realized and a series of committees

followed for next 35 years going into the details of self

governance experience in Indian villages. The committees came

and went but nothing concrete altered at the ground level in

villages. The position regarding PRIs remained unsatisfactory,

and no tangible action was taken to strengthen the local self

government system. Financially these bodies were weak and

dependent largely on state government which did not follow any

consistent policy. The local political structure coupled with

bureaucratic administrative structure virtually sealed all spaces

for any institution to operate in rural setting. The federal social

structure also abetted the situation. As a result for nearly 40

61

years after independence we find the rural India suffered from

deprivation, discrimination and people were treated as subjects

of administration. The top down approach to development did

not allow any direct or indirect voice of people to be taken into

account while deciding their fate.

The situation in MP was a replica of what was prevalent

elsewhere in India. Rather this situation was more precarious in

MP as compared to those states that had benefited from Green

revolution. Many states like Maharshtra, Karnataka, and Punjab

had ensured more equitable growth than MP. The pre dominant

tribal population in rural MP made the task all the more

difficult. Some of the significant parameters required as

prerequisite for development were vow fully negative in MP.

The constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 marks a water-

shed in the history of local self government in the country since

it gives a constitutional mandate to the state governments to

restructure and revamp rural local bodies in accordance with

constitutional obligations. The Act provides for (i) the creation

of three tier system of PRIs – Gram Panchayat at the village

level, Janpad Panchayat at the block level and Zila Panchayat at

the district level, with sufficient powers and functions contained

in schedule XI of the Act; (ii) The creation of State Election

Commission to ensure free fair and timely elections after the

expiry of every 5 years, and (iii) The creation of State Finance

Commission after every 5 years to recommend devolution of

62

financial resources from the State Govt to the local bodies and

also suggest measures for strengthening their financial position.

The scenario changed with the passing of 73rd

constitutional amendment in 1993. The constitutional

amendment made it mandatory for all states in India to

implement the Panchayati Raj system in a uniform three tier

structure. Different states in India responded with varied degree

of enthusiasm on this front. The effort of MP in this regard was

laudable as it responded with remarkable degree of innovation

and commitment to making the system sustainable and

successful. The state’s effort to institutionalize the system is

evident in the number of amendments that have been made to

the State Panchayat Act as a dynamic response to the problems

at the ground level. During the implementation of the

Panchayati Raj system, MP has faced several opportunities and

difficulties. The experience of the state is very rich and provides

vital insights into the process of institutionalizing Panchayati

Raj. It is not to say that state did not face resistance to this new

system. The state bureaucracy resisted the implementation since

it stood to loose its control over management of resources, there

were functional difficulties, wide social and cultural variations

within the state meant that no uniform approach could be

adopted. The Panchayati Raj was to shake these very

foundations of social and political power structure at local level

and existing power equations were bound to crumble in a

63

significant manner. On the other hand adequate safeguards had

to the provided to those who were likely to become direct

participants in the process of development but were neither

adequately prepared nor empowered to handle the new system.

More significant was to ensure that weaker sections of society

like women, SC/ST do not loose the opportunity to uplift their

life and be masters of their own destiny.

The provisions of reservation for Women, SC/ST have

ensured that these sections are not deprived of their

opportunities due to malpractices and malafide intentions of the

existing functionaries.

After the 73rd Amendment Act to the constitution

mandated three tiers of elected councils in 1993, the MP govt.

passed a new Act in that year which largely resembled earlier

legislations. M.P Govt was the first in the country which enacted

the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Adiniyam in 1993 “with the

objective of consolidating and amending the law relating to the

establishment of panchayats, for ensuring effective involvement

of panchayats in local administration and development.” Over

the next six years, no fewer than 8 amendments to that Act were

introduced. They devolved increasing and quite significant

powers onto decentralized bodies and this made it possible for

them to function efficiently. The state has been vigorous in its

effort to ensure that all required mechanisms are in place.

64

All these amendment and efforts of state administration

have resulted into a wholesale change in the political equations

of grass root level. However, the socio-economic upliftment of

people at ground remains a concern even today. We do have

evidence to conclude that some isolated pockets and individuals

have made good use of these provisions of new legislations to

empower themselves or their communities. But the wider

impacts of these legislations have been at the most limited in its

reach. Women as a class have also got benefited to a limited

extent. Various research studies have been conducted to study

the women’s leadership at Panchayat level in different states.

The Panchayat election that took place in MP in 1994, brought

forward a large number of women, many of who belong to the

SC & ST.

A review of M.P Panchayat Raj Act 1993 shows that the

Act has made provision for the creation of democratic

institutions at the grass root level and has ensured adequate

place for the SC,ST, OBCs and women in the management of

local bodies through the inbuilt instrumentality of reservations

in the composition of every tier, at the same time, the state Govt

retains wide powers which include supervision, suspension of

office bearers, dissolution of panchayats under certain

conditions, withdrawal of functions and duties entrusted to

them, appointment of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and

65

determination of their powers, the power to regulate taxation

powers of local bodies.

The MP Panchayat Act 1993 is a culmination of previous

acts enacted by the state and borrowing its basic contents from

the 73rd constitutional amendment act 1992. The state has had a

history of attempts at decentralized governance through some

acts passed after independence. Before we set to examine the

structure and functions of Panchayat system in the state we may

briefly discuss the legislations prior to 1993 Act. Madhya

Pradesh as a state came into existence in 1956 carved out of

erstwhile central provinces and some other states during British

time. Some of the Acts which were in force at that time were

1 The Central Provinces and Berar Village Panchayat

Acts of 1946 as amended in 1947,48,49,50 and 1953.

2 The Madhya Bharat Panchayat Act 1949 as amended

in 1950, 51 and 1953.

3 The Vindhya Pradesh Panchayat Act, 1949

4 Bhopal State Panchayat Raj act, 1953

The Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Act 1962 was the first

legislation in the reorganized state in the field, and provided for

a three tier system of Panchayat Raj- at the village level, block

and district level. This Act remained dormant in absence of

mass appeal and popular support to its implementation. The

1962 Act was repealed in 1981 and replaced by an Act which

was viewed as a retrograde step, as it had dropped the Gram

66

Sabha and had taken away some of the functions of Janpad

Panchayat at the Block level and Zila Panchayat at the district

level. The Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act 1990 could not

make much advance in the direction of local self government as

no elections were held at frequent intervals and no genuine

transfer of functions could take place. The experience of

Madhya Pradesh in this area reflects that mere wishing for

democratic decentralization was not enough. For nearly 40 years

since independence no concrete step was initiated by state

administration to transfer the power, both political and financial,

to Panchayats. There was no constitutional obligation to do so

also. To be successful, decentralization has to be backed by the

strong political will, right type of institutional framework, solid

practices, necessary technical and administrative support and

right attitudinal changes in bureaucratic mindset.

The new Act of 1993 introduced three tier system of PRI

in the state, Gram Panchayat at the village level, Janpad

Panchayat at the block level and Zila Panchayat at the district

level, excluding urban areas from the jurisdiction of these

bodies. The State finance commission was constituted in

accordance with the provisions of article 243-I and 243-Y of the

constitution and also in pursuance of the M.P. State Finance

Commission Act. The devolution of financial powers took place

from state to local bodies for 1996-2001 period in accordance

with the recommendations of the finance commission. The

67

elections to the panchayats were also conducted by the state

election commission in 1994 and in 2000.

Thus we notice that M.P set the plate form for local self

governance very early after the constitutional amendment and

began in right direction. Gram Sabha was conceived to be the

cornerstone of the whole system and consist of all persons who

are eligible voters in the state assembly and whose names are

registered in the electoral rolls relating to villages comprising

the area of Gram Panchayat.

The roles and functions of each organ of PRIs have been

defined and their sources of finance are also clearly spelt at

various points of time. The local functionaries and the members

of community are directly empowered to conceive, design, and

execute projects beneficial to the community. The Gram

Panchayats have been assigned certain obligatory functions and

also a number of optional functions which are in the nature of

civic functions, welfare activities and developmental functions,

the Janpad panchayats and Zila panchayats have not been

assigned any obligatory functions but have to function mainly as

agents of the state government and also perform certain

coordinating and supervisory functions.

Madhya Pradesh Government has been dynamic in its

effort to ensure effective operation of PRIs at grass root level

which is reflected in many amendments enacted in the Act

keeping in view the logistics of implementation and ground

68

realities. Through an amendment in 1997 additional powers and

functions were assigned to Gram Sabhas, which included

identification of schemes of economic development of the

village and determination of the priorities of schemes, making

appraisal of plans for economic development and social justice.

The mandatory inclusion of SC, ST, OBCs and women in

different elected bodies through reservations ensured that voices

of these classes did not go unheard in decision making.

The state of Madhya Pradesh took a big leap forward in

the direction of complete self governance by introducing the

concept of Gram Swaraj through an amendment to the 1993 Act

which has been rechristened as “ Madhya Pradesh Panchayat

Raj and Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam” 2001.The amended act

came into force with effect from 26th January 2001 under which

Gram Sabha has been made the major instrument of bringing

about socio-economic transformation in the villages, with the

ultimate objective of ushering in the era of Gram Swaraj. For

that purpose almost all functions and powers of taxation of

Gram Panchayat under the earlier act have been transferred to

Gram Sabha.

The amendment of the act makes provision for the

constitution of 8 standing committees by the Gram Sabha

through which the functions of Gram Sabha are discharged. In

addition to these standing committees Gram Sabha has been

69

empowered to constitute one or more ad hoc committees as it

may deem necessary.

The standing committees of Gram Sabha include following

1 Gram Vikas Samiti

2 Sarvjanik Sampada Samiti

3 Krishi Vikas Samiti

4 Swasthya Samiti

5 Gram Raksha Samiti

6 Adhosarovachna Samiti

7 Shiksha Samiti

8 Samajik Nyay Samiti

From the above it is evident that Gram Sabha has been

adequately empowered to take care of local needs as well as

maintain a reasonable level of order in the society. The members

can decide their own priorities and execute it through their own

committees eliminating any possibility of outside influence. In

such a scenario it may not be difficult for any particular section

to exert its pressure for genuine needs of the community.

However despite having a well defined structure of governance

at village level it’s still a long way to go for some of the weaker

sections like women. Many studies have shown that women are

still being kept away from the vital decision making process in

the PRIs.

A study on role of women in Panchayati Raj in MP by

Rashmi Arun, found that a majority of women Panches are

70

housewives and are either illiterate or educated merely up to the

primary level. In large number of cases the decision to

participate in the election was not their own. If a seat was

reserved for a women, the men who were politically active

convinced their wife, mother or sister-in-law to contest the

elections in order to keep his family’s presence intact in local

politics. It is also observed that, it is the men who more often

exercise the power by proxy in most times. The institution of

“Sarpanch-Pati” or “Adyaksha Pati” might not have any legal

sanction, but it thrives in many Panchayats not only in MP but

in other States also. The situation did improve gradually when

women began to realize their own positions and started exerting

themselves.

71

CHAPTER V - WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

THROUGH PANCHAYATI RAJ IN MADHYA

PRADESH-AN ANALYSIS

Nationwide implementation of Panchayati Raj Institutions

in India through Constitutional amendment in 1993 was a path

breaking initiative in the direction of ensuring balanced

development and involvement of all stakeholders in nation

building. Panchayats, as self governing institutions at grass root

level have been a subject of debate, discussion and research for

last 15 years. Many individuals, institutions, national and

international, have gone into studying the processes, successes,

failures of Panchayati Raj experiment in a socially, culturally,

economically and politically diversified country like India.

There have been no questions on the intentions of policy makers

towards Panchayati Raj Institutions but the methods of

implementation, administrative structure and grass root realities

of Indian society have been either viewed as impediments or

inadequate in ensuring success for the system.

It is universally accepted that self governing institutions at

grass root level are an integral part of democratic process and

are essential for participatory development initiative. Grass root

democracy based on small units of government, enable people to

feel a sense of responsibility and inculcate the values of

democracy. After 40 years of independence, it was realised that

72

in a vast, diverse, complex sub continent like India democratic

decentralisation is a political and administrative imperative.

Through the 73rd Constitutional amendment Act, it was expected

that Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) will awake political

consciousness in the country side and engender democratic

process in rural India.

Against the above backdrop, PRIs were introduced in most

of the States in India in 1993 through State Acts. Madhya

Pradesh was one of the pioneers in this direction and passed a

State Act in line with 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act. The

setting up of State Election Commission ensured first Panchayat

election in 1994 followed by two more elections. Madhya

Pradesh is viewed as one of the better performing states in India

in respect of its initiatives for democratic decentralisation

through Panchayati Raj.

Madhya Pradesh is one of the less developed states in

India. On many development indicators Madhya Pradesh ranks

lower than the national average. The state’s large size, varied

climatic conditions, prevalence of many dominant cultures,

large forest area and huge tribal population pose several

formidable challenges for any development initiative and also

challenge to service delivery system. The complexities within

the state also throw an opportunity for participatory system of

governance and public good delivery for the overall

development of the economy and society.

73

The implementation of PRIs in Madhya Pradesh had wide

ranging impact on the socio-economic –political environment at

grass root level. The top don approach based on trickle down

theory and bureaucratic strangleholds have been loosened at

many levels releasing a mass of energy at ground level. Many

new frontiers have been opened and several historic

achievements attained on road to PRIs and Gram Swaraj. Since

the PRIs encompass a whole range of activities and objectives it

is not possible to cover all its dimensions in any study. In this

research we have made attempt to study and understand the

trends of empowerment of women on some key indicators. The

focus of study is two districts of Madhya Pradesh i.e. Jabalpur

and Narsimhapur which are adjoining districts at the centre of

the state. Before we discuss individual indicators of two

districts, the general profile of Madhya Pradesh state is shown in

Table below.

74

TABLE 1 MADHYA PRADESH AT A GLANCE

Population (2001) 60385118

Male 31456873

Female 28928245

Districts 48

Tehsils 263

Blocks 313

Total Villages 55392

Populated Villages 52143

Gram Panchayats 22029

Literacy 64.11%

Male 76.80%

Female 50.28%

Density of Population 196

Male-Female Ratio 920

Infant Mortality Rate (1996) 96

Source: MP Human Development Report 2002

From the above table it is evident that Madhya Pradesh is a

large State in size and low on many indicators of development.

Literacy rate of Women in state is only 50.28% in 2001 and

much below among rural women. The literacy rate is one of the

key indicators of state of development.

The gender ratio in the state is also below the national

average. The infant mortality rate was on higher side in 1996.

Since the State was bifurcated between two census periods

of 1991 and 2001 many indicators at two different points of time

are not truly comparable. However from the general profile of

75

the state it is observed that despite some marginal gains during

last 15 years, the overall scenario remains challenging both for

policy makers as well as for stakeholders at grass root level.

Jabalpur and Narsimhapur districts

There is little doubt that despite many constraints, one of

the positive impacts of Panchayati Raj system has been on the

empowerment of women, particularly the rural poor. During this

study many indicators of women’s growing emergence on the

forefront of self governance were examined to reach at

conclusion.

The general profile of two districts is shown in the table

below.

TABLE -2 TOTAL POPULATION

1991 2001

Jabalpur

Total 1768037 2151203

Male 928898 1127304

Female 833139 1023899

Narsimhapur

Total 785496 957646

Male 336981 501645

Female 313464 456001

Source: MP Human Development Reports

The total population of two districts has grown at 21.67%

for Jabalpur and 22.96% for Narsimhapur district. The gender

ratio for Jabalpur district has improved from 897 to 908 during

76

this period while for Narsimhapur there is significant decline in

gender ratio from 930 to 909 which reflects a general bias

against women in the society.

TABLE-3 GENDER RATIO

1991 2001

Jabalpur 897 908

Narsimhapur 930 909

Source: Census of India, 2001

The two selected districts are moderately developed

districts in Madhya Pradesh. While Jabalpur is one of the major

cities of the state located almost at the centre of the country, it

has limited industries in and around the city. There is no big

industrial cluster like Pithampur for Indore and Mandideep for

Bhopal. Narsimhapur is a small town near Jabalpur and

dependent on Jabalpur for market, trading and business

opportunities. Thus both these places have significant rural

economic base. The land is fertile on both sides of Narmada

which flows between these districts. The rural profile of both

districts is shown in table below

TABLE-4 RURAL PROFILE

Jabalpur Narsimhapur

Janpad 7 6

Gram Panchayats 525 422

Villages 1449 1040

Total Rural Population (2001) 923863 804536

Source : District Panchayat Offices

77

One of the vital indicators of participation of any section

of society in any area is the numerical strength of that section

directly contributing towards the effort. In the traditional social

structure many of the weaker sections of society were excluded

from even participation and all decision making were centralised

in a few hands. The allocation and utilisation of resources

remained skewed in favour of privileged or powerful sections.

The numerical strength and visibility of women and SC/ST in

Panchayati Institutions has eliminated this possibility through

the provisions of reservations. From the current data available

about Panchayats it is observed that the number of Sarpanches

and Punches is roughly around one third of total Sarpanches/

Punches. Although the number is significant one important

aspect to notice is limitation on women getting elected from

unreserved seats. That would improve their percentage in total

and would show their growing confidence in contesting and

winning unreserved seats.

TABLE -5 NUMBER OF SARPANCHES AND PANCHES

Jabalpur Narsimhapur

Total Panchayats 542 457

Sarpanches 542 457

Women Sarpanches 180 152

Panches 8194 5158

Women Panches 2676 2676

Source: District/Janpad Panchayat offices

78

A significant observation during the study was low

percentage of attendance of women members in Gram Sabha/

Gram Panchayat meetings. Not more than 15-20% of total

strength in any meeting usually comprised of women and in turn

lacked adequate numerical strength to force any women specific

issues. Even women who attend the meeting are accompanied

by male member of the family and remain mute spectator most

of the time. The reason for their passive participation could be

general illiteracy and lack of awareness about procedures and

modalities of meetings. Many of the meetings in which serious

development related issues and welfare schemes are on agenda

find no women voice at all. The general response of women is

either ignorance of its intricacies or apathy to participate. The

burden of looking after the family affairs at home also plays a

part in women’s absence from meetings. It was also observed

that the male members also try to manipulate the situation like

scheduling the meeting at such time which is inconvenient for

women to participate in them.

The agenda of Panchayat meetings at Gram Sabha level

broadly include following items-

- Social and Welfare Schemes

- Health

- Sanitation

- Education

- Child and women Development

79

- Aanganwadi

- Mid day meal Scheme

- Malnutrition

- Child Development

In both districts it was noticed during personal interaction

that there is some change in the profile of elected representatives

among women in Panchayats. Many of the women Sarpanches/

Panches are more educated and aware about the powers given to

Panchayats and they are keen to make use of these powers for

women’s development. They have been able to influence the

decisions of Gram Sabha or Janpad through their awareness and

knowledge of the working of PRIs. However, one distressing

fact noticed was lack of training among members of Panchayats

in general and among women in particular. Women or even men

in villages are largely dependent on either local educated

persons or state officials to guide on even minor issues like

construction of road in village or purchase of some assets by

Gram Sabha. Even the Gram Sabhas which have been delegated

vest powers to devise their own plan and execute it through own

committees find it difficult to concretise any proposal into

formal project resulting in state officials intervening and

suitably modifying their projects to either allow certain

individuals to gain or to suit their own interests.

The above situation allows development to take place in

skewed manner. Improvement in some critical areas appears to

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be absent or at best marginal. Some of the vital indicators which

reflect general improvement in women’s position in society are

discussed below.

Literacy rate

As discussed earlier literacy is the one of the most

important factor determining the role of women in any society.

The table below shows the literacy rate among male and female

in 1991 and 2001.

TABLE-6 LITERACY RATE

1991 2001

Jabalpur

Total 64.6% 76.1%

Male 75.64% 84.91%

Female 52.23% 64.4%

Narsimhapur

Total 55.7% 78.3%

Male 68.4% 86.8%

Female 41.6% 69.0%

Source: MP Human Development Report, 2007

It is noticed that there is significant improvement in

literacy rate among population in general and among women in

particular in Narsimhapur district. Although there is some

improvement in Jabalpur district also but the impact is not that

much.

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Infant Mortality Rate

The infant mortality rate in both districts stood at 151 in

1981 but improved to 110 in Narsimhapur and 101 in Jabalpur.

The health of child at birth determines the women’s health

during child birth.

TABLE-7 INFANT MORTALITY RATE

1981 1991

Jabalpur 151 101

Narsimhapur 151 110

Source: MP Human Development Reports

On this issue it was noticed that in both districts rural areas

severely lack hygienic and adequate medical services during

pregnancy. A large number of deliveries continue to be at home

and assisted by untrained nurses. The reach of medical services,

both private and Government, to rural areas is still not wide

spread depriving people of quality medical services and women

are more often first casualty. The remote villages of both

districts do not have quick access to medical help and people

have to travel at least 2-3 hours to get medical attention in

Jabalpur. Sometimes the time factor determines the fate of the

ailing person and particularly in cases of complicated

pregnancies it lead to death of mother and child.

Female Life expectancy at Birth

The female life expectancy at birth is lower than general

life expectancy in both districts. As against 56.5 in Jabalpur in

1991 the female life expectancy improved to only 57.3 in 2001

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while corresponding figures for Narsimhapur stood at 51.4 in

1991 and 54.4 in 2001.

TABLE-8 FEMALE LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH

1991 2001

Jabalpur 56.5 57.3

Narsimhapur 51.4 54.4

Source: M P Human Development Report 2002

If compared to the general life expectancy at birth the

situation in Jabalpur is better than Narsimhapur. The general life

expectancy at birth in Jabalpur was 57.5 in 2001 which is almost

same as female life expectancy but for Narsimhapur general life

expectancy is 56.9 while female can expect to live upto the age

of 54.4 only.

Work Participation Rate of Women

The work participation rate of women is shown in both

districts over last 20 years in table below

TABLE-9 WORK PARTICIPATION RATE-WOMEN

Jabalpur Narsimhapur

1981 22 23

1991 23 25

2001 22.4 29.1

Source: MP Human Development Reports

From the trend it is seen that female work participation has

improved in Narsimhapur from 23 in 1981 to 25 in 1991 and to

29 in 2001 while for Jabalpur it is more or less static at around

22-23.The trend shows that women do participate as work force,

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their presence is low and not showing any perceptible

improvement. Women in rural areas either work on their fields

or prefer to remain at home. Most of the respondent replied in

negative about their desire to work unless forced into it because

of economic conditions of their family. Male members of the

family also prefer to keep their womenfolk within the house to

look after children and kitchen. The general perception among

men emerged that who would look after the home if women go

out to work. Some men and women also responded that division

of labour is defined in society and they would not like to deviate

from that order. The peer pressure and social pressure also keep

women within the confines of home.

Such a scenario leads to economic perennial dependency

of women on men and creates a situation where women do not

enforce their views even within the family. It was observed that

most of the economic decisions are sole prerogative of men of

the family while women are never even consulted on many vital

issues.

Self Help Groups

One of the significant developments noticed in both the

districts were emergence of large number of self help groups.

Many of them are purely women self help groups which reflect

that local enterprise among women is gradually developing. Self

Help Groups harness local resources and local talents to engage

into economically independent units.

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TABLE-10 SELF HELP GROUPS

Jabalpur Narsimhapur

Total SHGs 5089 2324

Women SHGs 2482 1264

% of Total 48.8 54.4

Source: MP Human Development Report 2007

As per 2004 data available Jabalpur district had 5089 Self Help

Groups (SHGs) out of which 2482 are fully women SHGs. This

comes to 48.4% of total SHGs in the district. In Narsimhapur

District out of a total of 2324 SHGs 1264 are fully women

SHGs which is more than 50% of the total SHGs in the district.

These SHGs are fully managed by women in all respects. SHGs

have been supported by the Panchayats at all levels and state

officials have also extended support to them. The SHGs

movement has resulted into mass participation of women of all

sections in economic activities outside their home.

From the above it is observed that PRIs have been

instrumental in generating interest among people at grass root

level for self governance. The Gram Sabha has been made the

cornerstone of the system armed with wide range of powers

including budget preparation, planning and execution of

projects. Gram Sabha can also constitute their own standing and

ad hoc committees for execution of projects. Through this

mechanism the stakeholders in society can directly plan and

execute their projects without any outside intervention.

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During interactive observations it was noticed that seeds of

dissent among weaker sections are growing against traditional

power elites who have been directly threatened by reallocation

of state resources in favour of community development through

Panchayat institutions. There are many individual voices of

dissent among women also but they are not as visible as some

other sections. Women still find it difficult to mobilise

themselves in large number to force issues in their favour. Many

individual women leaders have exercised their constitutional

authority as Sarpanches to scuttle any attempt by men to usurp

their powers. However the truth behind most of the Panchayats

is that even on reserved constituencies the men exercise the real

power through proxy representation. Presence of a few lone

women voices doesn’t affect the outcome of Panchayat

decisions. The concept of Sarpanch Pati and Adhyaksha Pati

keep doing rounds among villagers and indicate who wields the

real power in the Panchayat.

From the observations made during the study it seems

clear that PRIs are right road to achieve the goals of

participatory governance at grass root level in India. The

constitutional amendment has provided necessary framework

and legal arm to move in this direction and despite impediments

and roadblocks it has dented the traditional administrative

structure and age old power equations in rural India. Some of

the major findings of the study can be listed as following

86

The political will at the top to implement PRIs had

profound positive impact on state administrative machinery in

Madhya Pradesh particularly in their responsiveness to the new

system. Whereas many states got into the loop of litigations,

bureaucratic tangle in even conducting Panchayat elections

Madhya Pradesh rapidly got in to action in this direction.

Constitutional sanctity to PRIs ensured that no frivolous

methods were adopted to bypass the provisions of the Act and

avoid implementation.

Successful conduct of elections assured representation of

masses in Panchayat bodies. It also enhanced the level of

confidence of people in PR institutions.

The mandatory provision of reservation of seats for SC,

ST and women ensured their numerical visibility in all

Panchayat bodies at all levels. This itself generated interest

among all sections of society in the efficacy of Panchayat

system.

The selected districts have shown significant improvement

on many development parameters for women. The rate of

growth of literacy in both districts is an evident outcome of

women’s willingness to come forward and participate in

governance and be masters of their own destiny.

It is observed that the level of effective participation of

women in Panchayat affairs is still low because of low

educational level of women leaders but the profile is likely to

87

change in future with spread of literacy across the board and

emergence of more literate women in Panchayats. The

traditional power equations in rural areas have shown cracks in

structures which are likely to widen in future due to emergence

of new institutions of governance which are more people centric

and democratic in nature. However, there is still lot to be done

on this front to totally eliminate old myopic institutions which

determined relations in rural areas based on wealth and political

alignments of rich only. At present on many occasions

traditional economic and political elites have somehow

manipulated the new system through their superior knowledge

and awareness.

Despite some pessimistic signals it is observed that since

development and empowerment are long drawn processes

Panchayati Raj institution will gradually take over the whole

process of development. The mass literacy campaign will

strengthen the Gram Sabha who is already vested with

substantial powers to harness local potential and channelise

resources for community’s benefits.

There is need to continue reforms in Panchayati Raj Act to

devolve more powers to people. At present although Sarpanches

are directly elected by the electorates but they can be removed

by the members of Gram Panchayat through a two third

majority. Even a state official like SDM can remove a Sarpanch

for misuse of financial powers. This provision is subject to

88

manipulation by state administration as well as by political

parties to settle scores with uncompromising Sarpanches. There

is need to reform such provisions to allow more transparent

mechanism for election and removal of Panchayat leaders.

From the observations made during this study it can be

cancelled that PRIs are the right alternative to democratisation

of governance in India. In a diversified country like India local

solutions for local problems optimally utilising local talent and

resources involving all stakeholders of the community can

ensure balanced equitable development in a democratic

transparent governance environment.

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CHAPTER VI – CONCLUSION

Women in India have had a turbulent journey

during the course of history. From the revered

citizens of sanity having equal rights to their male

counterparts being eligible for all ritual

performances in religious ceremonies they have

seen the turbulence of widowhood, sati, child

marriage, prohibition, subjects of torture,

discriminations, deprivation to Purdah, denial of

educational rights, confinement in house, declared

biologically inferior, suited for only household jobs.

In between enlightened individuals fought for the

rights of women and some individual women

attained high knowledge, respect in society.

However, these efforts remained of the most

localized and died with those highly motivated

individuals. No mass movement ever happened in

the direction of ameliorating women’s deplorable

life in society.

The introduction of liberal education and

educated British rule did make attempt to remove

some of the evil practices against women through

more structured legislative initiatives. However,

deep rooted traditional ways of Indian social

structure and mindset thwarted such spirited

90

attempts and women kept languishing on the

fringe of the social system in India for centuries.

During post independence period the

initial philosophy for nation building was inducted

into various provisions in the constitutions of India.

Various measures were enshrined in the

constitution to guide the society into a more

equitable social environment. Women were

recognized as a target group and addressed

prominently through various articles in

constitution. However, the ground realities of

Indian society remained unaffected.

During the same time efforts were being made

to attain equitable distribution of development.

The traditional concept of Panchayat was

recognized as a pivotal institution of self

governance in a diverse, fragmented, complex

Indian Society. The Panchayats had existed in India

since centuries ago as an institution of self

governance and were known to discharge state

functions to maintain order in society.

The attempts on revival of Panchayats as

viable institutions in rural areas were made very

early into independence but for a long time they

could hardly make any impact on grass root

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democratization of governance. No section of

society ever benefited from Panchayat Institution.

During early nineties it was realized that lack of

constitutional mandate was one of the key factors

in failure of Panchayats in India.

When constitutional amendment was

conceived in 1992 it was emphasised to allow the

weaker sections of society adequate

representation in overall governance at grass root

level. Woman was identified as one such weaker

section along with SC, ST and OBCs. Thus in the

73rd constitutional amendment Act 1992 a

mandatory provision was included to reserve one

third of the total seats of all tiers of Panchayats for

women. The reservation of seats was to be

operated on rotation basis to allow women from

different regions, opportunity to participate in

election.

Thus, empowerment of women through

Panchayats was one of the key objectives of PRIs.

Madhya Pradesh was one of the pioneers in

implementing PRIs through its own Act in 1993

amended from time to time to remove hurdles in

implementations. Women have been forthcoming

in Panchayats and have begun exercising their

92

powers. In the study of two districts of Madhya

Pradesh it was noticed that on key development

parameters both districts have shown varied

degree of improvement. They have managed to

benefit from reservation as well as by the

mechanism of Gram Sabha. The planning and

execution of development plans by Gram Sabha

has ensured that women along with other sections

of society are no longer subjects of planning at top.

They are no more beneficiaries of

schemes/projects decided at the top without

considering ground realities and constraints of

grass root level. During the study it was observed

that although women have gained on many fronts

it is still a long journey for them in their quest for

total empowerment. PRIs can be a vital instrument

in this direction, but there is need for other

initiatives like movement for mass literacy,

expansion of economic activities in rural areas,

channelising rural resources and talent for

economic development, availability of quality

health services, sanitation facilities. Each of them

has to complement each other to ensure holistic

development. PRIs have been vibrant institutions in

Madhya Pradesh and their vast potential in not

93

only empowering women but for overall

development of rural areas will release untapped

energy at grass root level. The need for correct

social and institutional reform also can not be

overlooked to create conducive social and political

environment for development. Women shall remain

on the forefront of all development initiatives and

their potential need to be utilized for nation

building.

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APPENDIX-I

FUNCTIONS OF GRAM PANCHAYATS

It shall be the duty of a Gram Panchayat in so far as the Gram Panchayat funds allows, to perform within its areas the following functions:-

1. Sanitation. Conservancy and prevention and abatement of nuisance;

2. Construction, repair and maintenance of public wells, ponds and tanks and supply of water for domestic use;

3. Construction and maintenance of sources of water for bathing and washing and supply of water for domestic animal;

4. Construction and maintenance of village roads, culverts, bridges, bunds and other, work and building of public places;

5. Construction, maintenance and clearing of public streets, latrines, drains, tanks, wells and other public places;

6. filling in of disused wells, insanitary ponds, pools, ditches and pits and conversion of step wells into sanitary wells;

7. lighting of village streets and other public places;

8. removing of obstructions and projections in public streets or places and in sites not being property or which are open to use of public, whether such sites are vested in the Panchayat or belong to the State Government;

9. regulating and control over entertainment shows, shops, eating houses and vendors of drinks, sweets, fruits, milk and of other similar articles;

10. Regulating the constructions of house latrines, urinals, drains and water closets;

11. Management of public land and management, extension and development of village site;

12. (a) regulating places for disposal of dead bodies, carcasses and other offensive matters;

(b) disposal of unclaimed corpses and carcasses;

13. earmarking places for dumping refuse;

14. regulation of sale and preservation of meat;

15. maintenance of Gram Panchayat property;

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16. establishment and management of cattle ponds and maintenance of records relating to cattle;

17. maintenance of ancient historical monuments other than those declared by or under law made by Parliament to be of national importance, grazing lands and other lands vesting in or under the control of the Gram Panchayats;

18. establishment, management and regulation of markets and melas other than public markets and meals;

19. maintenance of records of births, death and marriages;

20. rendering assistance in the census operation and in the surveys conducted by the State Government or Central Government or any other local authority lawfully constituted;

21. rendering assistance in prevention of contagious diseases;

22. rendering assistance in inoculation and small pox vaccination and enforcement of other preventive measures for safety of human being and cattle prescribed by Government Department concerned;

23. rendering assistance to the disabled and destitutes;

24. promotion of youth welfare, family welfare and sports;

25. establishment of Raksha Samiti for:

(a) safety of life and property;

(b) prevention of fire and extinguishing fire and safety of property during outbreak of such fires;

26. Plantation and preservation of Panchayat forests;

27. removal of social evils like dowry;

28. granting loan for the purpose of

(i) providing medical assistance to or indigent persons in serious and emergency cases;

(ii) disposal of dead body of an indigent person or any member of his family; or

(iii) any other purpose for the benefit of an indigent person as may be notified by the State Government from time to time subject to such terms and conditions as may be prescribed.

29. (a) carrying out the directions or orders given or issued by the State Government, the Collector or any other officer authorised by the State Government in this behalf with respect to the measures for amelioration of the conditions of the Scheduled Castes and

96

Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes and in particular in regard to the removal of untouchability.

(b) perform such functions as may be entrusted to it by the State Government, Zila Panchayat or Janapad Panchayat by general or special orders;

(c) with prior approval of Janapad Panchayat may also perform other functions as may desire to perform;

Provided that where any such functions are entrusted to the Gram Panchayat it shall act as an agent of the State Government, Zila Panchayat or Janapad Panchayat, as the case may be, and necessary funds and other assistance for the purpose shall be provided to it by the State Government, Zila Panchayat or Janapad Panchayat, as the case may be.

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APPENDIX-II

FUNCTIONS OF JANPAD PANCHAYAT

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder, and subject to general or special orders, as may be issued by the State Government, from time to time, it shall be the duty of a Janapad Panchayat, so far the Janapad Panchayat funds allow to make reasonable provision in the block for the following matters:-

(a) Integral Rural Development, Agriculture, Social Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Communication and Public Works, co-operation, Cottage Industries, Welfare of Women, youth and children, welfare of backward classes, family planning and sports and rural employment programmes;

(b) provision of emergency relief in case of distress caused by fires, floods, drought, earthquake, scarcity, locust swarms, epidemics and other natural calamities;

(c) arrangement in connection with local pilgrimage and festivals;

(d) management of public ferries;

(e) management of public markets, public melas and exhibitions; and

(f) any other function with the approval of the State Government or Zila Panchayat.

(2) The Janapad Panchayat shall control and supervise the administration of the community development block or tribal development block within its jurisdiction, as the case may be and the functions and schemes assigned to such block by the State Government shall be implemented under the superintendence, direction and control of the Janapad Panchayat in accordance with the Instructions issued by the State Government from time to time.

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APPENDIX-III

FUNCTIONS OF ZILA PANCHAYAT

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder, it shall be duty of the Zila Panchayat to:-

(i) control, coordinate and guide, the Janapad Panchayat and Gram Panchayat within the district;

(ii) coordinate and consolidate the Janapad Panchayat plans;

(iii) coordinate the demands for grants for special purpose received from the Janapad Panchayats and forward them to the State Government;

(iv) secure the execution of the plans, projects, schemes or other works common to two or more Janapad Panchayats in the district;

(v) advice the State Government in the development activities, social forestry, family welfare, welfare of the disabled, destitutes, women, youth and children and sports;

(vi) exercise and perform such other powers and functions as the State Government may, confer on or entrust to it;

(2) The Zila Panchayat shall control and supervise the administration of District Rural Development Agency within its jurisdiction and all functions and schemes assigned to the District shall be implemented under the superintendence, direction and control of the Zila Panchayat in accordance with the instructions issued by the State Government from time to time.

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APPENDIX-IV

FUNCTIONS OF GRAM SABHA

6. In Section 7 of the Principal Act, in sub-section (I), for Amendment of Section 7 clause

(k), the following clauses shall be

(k) sanitation, conservancy and prevention and abatement of nuisance;

(l) construction repair and maintenance of public wells, ponds and tanks and supply of water for domestic use;

(m) construction and maintenance of sources of water for bathing and washing and supply of water for domestic use;

(n) construction and maintenance of village roads, culverts, bridges, bunds and other works and building of public utility;

(o) construction and maintenance and clearing of public streets, latrines, drains, tanks, wells and other public places;

(p) filling in of disused wells, unsanitary ponds, Pools, ditches and pits and conversion of step wells in to sanitary wells;

(q) lighting of village streets and other public places;

(r) removing of obstructions and projections in public streets and places and sites not being private property or which are open to use of public, whether such sites are vested in the Panchayat or belong to the State Government;

(s) regulating and control over entertainment shows, shops, eating houses and vendors of drinks, sweet meats, fruits, milk and of other similar articles;

(t) regulating the construction of house, latrines, urinals, drains and water closets;

(u) management of public land and management, extension and development of village site;

(v) (i) regulating places for disposal of dead bodies, carcasses and other offensive matters;

(ii) disposal of unclaimed corpses and carcasses;

(w) earmarking places for dumping refuse;

(x) regulation of sale and preservation of meat;

(y) maintenance of Gram Sabha property;

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(z) establishment and management of cattle ponds and maintenance of records relating to cattle;

(aa) maintenance of ancient and historical monuments other than those declared by or under law made by Parliament to be of national importance, grazing lands and other lands vesting in or under the control of the Gram Sabha;

(bb) maintenance of records of births, deaths and marriages;

(cc) rendering assistance in the census operation and in the surveys conducted by the State Government or Central Government or any other Local authority lawfully constituted;

(dd) rendering assistance in prevention of contagious diseases;

(ee) rendering assistance in inoculation and vaccination and enforcement of other preventive measure for safety of human being and cattle prescribed by Government Department concerned;

(ff) rendering assistance to the disabled and destitutes;

(gg) promotion of youth welfare, family welfare and sports;

(hh) establishment of Raksha Samiti for :-

(a) safety of life and property;

(b) prevention of fire and extinguishing fire and safety of property during outbreak of such fires;

(ii) plantation and preservation of Village forest;

(jj) Removal of social evils like dowry;

(kk) granting loans for the purposes of -

(i) providing medical assistance to indigent persons in serious and emergency cases;

(ii) disposal of dead body of an indigent person or any member of his family; or

(iii) any other purpose for the benefit of an indigent person as may be notified by the State Government from time to time subject to such terms and conditions as may be prescribed;

(II) (i) carrying out the directions or orders given or issued by the State Government, the Collector or any other Officer authorised by the State Government in this behalf with respect to the measures for amelioration of the condition of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes and in particular in regard to the removal of untouchability;

101

(ii) perform such functions as may be entrusted to it by Zila Panchayat or Janapad panchayat by general or special orders;

(iii) to exercise and perform such powers and functions as the State Government may confer on of entrust to under this Act or any other law for the time being in force in the State;

(iv) with prior approval of janapad panchayat may also perform other functions as it may desire to perform:

Provided that where any such function is entrusted to the Gram Sabha, it shall act as an agent of the State Government, Zila Panchayat or Janapad Panchayat, as the case may be, and necessary funds and other assistance for the purpose shall be provided to it by the State Government, Zila Panchayat or Janapad Panchayat, as the case may be;

(mm) plan and manage basic amenities;

(nn) select beneficiaries under various programmes;

(oo) implement, execute and supervise development schemes and construction work within the Gram Sabha area;

(pp) control and monitor beneficiary oriented schemes and programmes;

(qq) promote general awareness amongst the people at large;

(rr) organise voluntary labour and contribution for community work and promote

the concept of community ownership;

(ss) to plan, own and manage minor water bodies up to a specified water area situated within its territorial jurisdiction;

(tt) to lease out any minor water body up to a specified area for the purpose of fishing and other commercial purposes;

(uu) to regulate the use of water or rivers, streams, minor water bodies for irrigation purposes;

(vv) to exercise control over institutions and functionaries in all social sectors transferred to or appointed by the Gram Sabha."

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  APPENDIX-V

THE CONSTITUTION (SEVENTY-THIRD AMENDMENT) ACT, 1992

Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the Constitution      (Seventy-second Amendment) Bill, 1991 which was enacted as       the  Constitution  (Seventy-third   Amendment) Act,  1992

                   STATEMENT OF OBJECTS AND REASONS

Though  the  Panchayati Raj Institutions have been in existence for  along  time, it has been observed that these institutions have not beenable  to  acquire  the  status and dignity of  viable  and   responsivepeople's  bodies  due  to  a number of reasons  including   absence  ofregular    elections,     prolonged      supersessions,    insufficientrepresentation  of  weaker sections like Scheduled  Castes,  ScheduledTribes  and  women,  inadequate  devolution  of  powers   and  lack  offinancial resources.

2.   Article  40  of  the   Constitution which  enshrines  one  of  theDirective  Principles  of State Policy lays down that the State  shalltake  steps  to organise village panchayats and endow them  with  suchpowers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function asunits  of self-government.  In the light of the experience in the lastforty years and in view of the short-comings which have been observed,it  is considered that there is an imperative need to enshrine in  theConstitution  certain  basic and essential features of Panchayati  RajInstitutions to impart certainty, continuity and strength to them.

3.   Accordingly,  it  is   proposed  to add a  new  Part  relating  toPanchayats in the Constitution to provide for among other things, GramSabha  in a village or group of villages;  constitution of  Panchayatsat  village and other level or levels;  direct elections to all  seatsin  Panchayats  at the village and intermediate level, if any, and  tothe offices of Chairpersons of Panchayats at such levels;  reservationof  seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in  proportionto  their  population  for  membership of  Panchayats  and   office  ofChairpersons  in  Panchayats at each level;  reservation of  not   lessthan  one-third of the seats for women;  fixing tenure of 5 years  forPanchayats  and  holding elections within a period of 6 months in  theevent  of  supersession  of   any  Panchayat;    disqualifications  formembership  of  Panchayats;   devolution by the State   Legislature  ofpowers  and  responsibilities upon the Panchayats with respect to  thepreparation  of plans for economic developments and social justice andfor  the implementation of development schemes;  sound finance of  thePanchayats  by  securing  authorisation from  State  Legislatures   forgrants-in-aid  to  the  Panchayats from the Consolidated Fund  of   theState,  as also assignment to, or appropriation by, the Panchayats  ofthe  revenues of designated taxes, duties, tolls and fees;  setting upof  a Finance Commission within one year of the proposed amendment andthereafter  every  5  years  to   review  the   financial  position  ofPanchayats;   auditing of accounts of the Panchayats;  powers of StateLegislatures  to  make  provisions  with   respect  to   elections   toPanchayats  under  the superintendence, direction and control  of  thechief  electoral officer of the State;  application of the  provisionsof  the said Part to Union territories;  excluding certain States  andareas  from  the  application  of the provisions  of  the   said  Part;

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continuance  of  existing laws and Panchayats until one year from  thecommencement  of  the proposed amendment and barring  interference  bycourts in electoral matters relating to Panchayats.

4.  The Bill seeks to achieve the aforesaid objectives.

NEW DELHI;                                       G. VENKAT SWAMY.

The 10th September, 1991.

  THE CONSTITUTION (SEVENTY-THIRD AMENDMENT) ACT, 1992

                                                [20th April, 1993.]

An Act further to amend the Constitution of India.

BE it enacted by Parliament in the Forty-third Year of the Republic ofIndia as follows:-

1.   Short  title  and commencement.-(1) This Act may be  called  theConstitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992.

(2)  It  shall  come  into  force on  such  date_680  as  the  CentralGovernment may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.

2.   Insertion  of new Part IX.- After Part VIII of the  Constitution,the following Part shall be inserted, namely:-

                        `PART IX                     THE PANCHAYATS243.   Definitions.-  In  this  Part,  unless  the   context  otherwiserequires,-

(a) "district" means a district in a State;

(b)  "Gram  Sabha" means a body consisting of persons registered  inthe electoral rolls relating to a village comprised within the area ofPanchayat at the village level;

(c)  "Intermediate  level"  means   a level  between  the  village  anddistrict  levels  specified  by  the Governor of  a  State   by  publicnotification  to  be the intermediate level for the purposes  of  thisPart;

(d)  "Panchayat"  means  an institution (by whatever name  called)  ofself-government constituted under article 243B, for the rural areas;

(e) "Panchayat area" means the territorial area of a Panchayat;

(f)  "population"  means  the population as ascertained  at  the  lastpreceding census of which the relevant figures have been published;

(g)  "village"  means  a village specified by the Governor  by  publicnotification  to  be  a  village for the purposes  of  this   Part  and

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includes a group of villages so specified.

243A.   Gram  Sabha.- A Gram Sabha may exercise  such  powers  andperform  such  functions at the village level as the Legislature of  aState may, by law, provide.

243B.   Constitution of Panchayats.- (1) There shall be constituted inevery  State,  Panchayats  at the village, intermediate  and   districtlevels in accordance with the provisions of this Part.

(2)  Notwithstanding  anything  in clause (1), Panchayats at  the  in-termediate level may not be constituted in a State having a populationnot exceeding twenty lakhs.

243C.   Composition  of Panchayats.- (1) Subject to the provisions  ofthis  Part,  the Legislature of a State may, by law,  make  provisionswith respect to the composition of Pancayats:

Provided that the ratio between the population of the territorial areaof  a Panchayat at any level and the number of seats in such Panchayatto  be  filled by election shall, so far as practicable, be  the  samethroughout the State.

(2)  All the seats in a Panchayat shall be filled by persons chosen bydirect  election from territorial constituencies in the Panchayat areaand;   for  this  purpose, each Panchayat area shall be  divided   intoterritorial  constituencies in such manner that the ratio between  thepopulation of each constituency and the number of seats allotted to itshall,  so  far as practicable, be the same throughout  the  Panchayatarea.

(3)  The  Legislature  of  a State may, by law, provide  for  the  re-presentation-

(a) of the Chairpersons of the Panchayats at the village level, in thePanchayats  at  the intermediate level or, in the case of a State  nothaving  Panchayats at the intermediate level, in the Pancayats at thedistrict level;

(b)  of the Chairpersons of the Panchayats at the intermediate  level,in the Panchayats at the district level;

(c)  of the members of the House of the People and the members of  theLegislative  Assembly  of the State representing constituencies  whichcomprise  wholly or partly a Panchayat area at a level other than  thevillage level, in such Panchayat;

(d)  of  the members of the Council of States and the members  of  theLegislative  Council  of  the  State, where  they  are   registered  aselectors within-

(i)  a  Panchayat area at the intermediate level, in Panchayat at  theintermediate level;

(ii)  a  Panchayat  area at the district level, in  Panchayat  at  the

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district level.

(4)  The  Chairperson of a Panchayat and other members of a  Panchayatwhether   or   not  chosen  by   direct   election   from   territorialconstituencies  in the Panchayat area shall have the right to vote  inthe meetings of the Panchayats.

(5) The Chairperson of -

(a)  a Panchayat at the village level shall be elected in such  manneras the Legislature of a State may, by law, provide; and

(b)  a Panchayat at the intermediate level or district level shall  beelected by, and from amongst, the elected members thereof.

243D. Reservation of seats.- (1) Seats shall be reserved for-

(a) the Scheduled Castes;  and

(b) the Scheduled Tribes,

in  every Panchayat and the number of seats of reserved shall bear, asnearly  as may be, the same proportion to the total number of seats tobe  filled  by direct election in that Panchayat as the population  ofthe Scheduled Castes in that Panchayat area or of the Scheduled Tribesin  that Panchayat area bears to the total population of that area andsuch  seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies ina Panchayat.

(2)  Not  less  than one-third of the total number of  seats  reservedunder  clause  (1)  shall  be  reserved for  women   belonging  to  theScheduled Castes or, as the case may be, the Scheduled Tribes.

(3)  Not  less than one-third (including the number of seats  reservedfor  women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes)of  the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in everyPanchayat  shall be reserved for women and such seats may be  allottedby rotation to different constituencies in a Panchayat.

(4)  The offices of the Chairpersons in the Panchayats at the  villageor  any  other level shall be reserved for the Scheduled  Castes,  theScheduled  Tribes  and  women in such manner as the Legislature  of   aState may, by law, provide:

Provided  that the number of offices of Chairpersons reserved for  theScheduled  Castes  and the Scheduled Tribes in the Panchayats at  eachlevel  in  any  State  shall  bear, as nearly  as  may   be,  the  sameproportion  to  the total number of such offices in the Panchayats  ateach  level as the population of the Scheduled Castes in the State  orof  the Scheduled Tribes in the State bears to the total population ofthe State:

Provided  further that not less than one-third of the total number  ofoffices  of  Chairpersons  in the Panchayats at each  level   shall  bereserved for women:

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Provided  also  that the number of offices reserved under this  clauseshall be allotted by rotation to different Panchayats at each level.

(5)  The  reservation  of  seats under clauses (1)  and  (2)  and  thereservation of offices of Chairpersons (other than the reservation forwomen)  under clause (4) shall cease to have effect on the  expirationof the period specified in article 334.

(6) Nothing in this Part shall prevent the Legislature of a State frommaking  any  provision  for reservation of seats in any  Panchayat   oroffices  of  Chairpersons in the Panchayats at any level in favour  ofbackward class of citizens.

243E.   Duration  of  Panchayats, etc.- (1)  Every  Panchayat,  unlesssooner  dissolved  under  any law for the time being in  force,   shallcontinue  for five years from the date appointed for its first meetingand no longer.

(2) No amendment of any law for the time being in force shall have theeffect  of  causing dissolution of a Panchayat at any level, which  isfunctioning  immediately before such amendment, till the expiration ofits duration specified in clause (1).

(3) An election to constitute a Panchayat shall be completed-

(a) before the expiry of its duration specified in clause (1);

(b)  before the expiration of a period of six months from the date ofits dissolution:

Provided  that  where  the  remainder   of the  period  for  which  thedissolved  Panchayat would have continued is less than six months,  itshall  not  be  necessary to hold any election under this  clause   forconstituting the Panchayat for such period.

(4) A Panchayat constituted upon the dissolution of a Panchayat beforethe  expiration of its duration shall continue only for the  remainderof  the period for which the dissolved Panchayat would have  continuedunder clause (1) had it not been so dissolved.

243F.   Disqualifications  for   membership.-(1)  A  person  shall   bedisqualified  for  being  chosen  as, and for being,  a   member  of  aPanchayat-

(a) if he is so disqualified by or under any law for the time being inforce  for  the purposes of elections to the Legislature of the  Stateconcerned:

Provided that no person shall be disqualified on the ground that he isless  than  twenty-five  years of age, if he has attained the age oftwenty-one years;

(b)  if  he  is  so  disqualified by or under  any  law  made  by  theLegislature of the State.

(2)  If any question arises as to whether a member of a Panchayat  has

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become  subject  to any of the disqualifications mentioned  in  clause(1), the question shall be referred for the decision of such authorityand in such manner as the Legislature of a State may, by law, provide.

243G.   Powers, authority and responsibilities of Panchayats.- Subjectto  the  provisions of this Constitution, the Legislature of  a  Statemay,  by  law, endow the Panchayats with such powers and authority  asmay  be  necessary  to  enable them to  function  as   institutions  ofself-government and such law may contain provisions for the devolutionof  powers  and  responsibilities upon Panchayats at  the   appropriatelevel,  subject  to such conditions as may be specified therein,  withrespect to-

(a)  the  preparation  of plans for economic  development  and  socialjustice;

(b)  the implementation of schemes for economic development and socialjustice as may be entrusted to them including those in relation to thematters listed in the Eleventh Schedule.

243H.   Powers  to impose taxes by, and Funds of, the  Panchayats.-TheLegislature of a State may, by law,-

(a) authorise a Panchayat to levy, collect and appropriate such taxes,duties, tolls and fees in accordance with such procedure and subjectto such limits;

(b)  assign  to a Panchayat such taxes, duties, tolls and fees  leviedand collected by the State Government for such purposes and subject tosuch conditions and limits;

(c)  provide for making such grants-in-aid to the Panchayats from  theConsolidated Fund of the State;  and

(d)  provide  for Constitution of such Funds for crediting all  moneysreceived, respectively, by or on behalf of the Panchayats and also forthe withdrawal of such moneys therefrom,

as may be specified in the law.

243-I.   Constitution  of  Finance    Commission  to  review  financialposition.-(1)  The Governor of a State shall, as soon as may be withinone  year  from  the commencement of the  Constitution   (Seventy-thirdAmendment)  Act, 1992, and thereafter at the expiration of every fifthyear, constitute a Finance Commission to review the financial positionof the Panchayats and to make recommendations to the Governor as to-

(a) the principles which should govern-

(i)  the distribution between the State and the Panchayats of the  netproceeds  of the taxes, duties, tolls and fees leviable by the  State,which  may be divided between them under this Part and the  allocationbetween  the  Panchayats at all levels of their respective  shares  ofsuch proceeds;

(ii)  the determination of the taxes, duties, tolls and fees which may

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be assigned to, or appropriated by, the Panchayat;

(iii)  the grants-in-aid to the Panchayats from the Consolidated  Fundof the State;

(b)  the  measures  needed to improve the financial  position  of  thePanchayats;

(c)  any  other  matter  referred to the  Finance  Commission  by  theGovernor in the interests of sound finance of the Panchayats.

(2)  The  Legislature  of  a   State  may,  by  law,  provide  for  thecomposition  of  the  commission, the qualifications  which   shall  berequisite  for appointment as members thereof and the manner in  whichthey shall be selected.

(3) The Commission shall determine their procedure and shall have suchpowers in the performance of their functions as the Legislature of theState may, by law, confer on them.

(4)  The  Governor  shall  cause   every  recommendation  made  by  theCommission  under this article together with an explanatory memorandumas  to  the action taken thereon to be laid before the Legislature  ofthe State.

243J.   Audit  of accounts of Panchayats.- The Legislature of a  Statemay,  by  law,  make  provisions with respect to  the   maintenance  ofaccounts by the Panchayats and the auditing of such accounts.

243K.  Elections to the Panchayats.-(1) The superintendence, directionand control of the preparation of electoral rolls for, and the conductof,  all  elections  to  the Panchayats shall be  vested  in   a  StateElection  Commission consisting of a State Election Commissioner to beappointed by the Governor.

(2)  Subject to the provisions of any law made by the Legislature of aState,  the  conditions of service and tenure of office of  the  StateElection  Commissioner  shall be such as the Governor may by rule  de-termine:

Provided  that  the State Election Commissioner shall not  be  removedfrom  his  office except in like manner and on the like grounds  as  aJudge of a High Court and the conditions of service of the State Elec-tion  Commissioner  shall not be varied to his disadvantage after  hisappointment.

(3)  The  Governor  of a State shall, when so requested by  the  StateElection  Commission, make available to the State Election  Commissionsuch staff as may be necessary for the discharge of the functions con-ferred on the State Election Commission by clause (1).

(4) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Legislature ofa  State  may, by law, make provision with respect to all matters  re-lating to, or in connection with, elections to the Panchayats.

243L.   Application to Union territories.-The provisions of this  Part

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shall  apply to the Union territories and shall, in their  applicationto a Union territory, have effect as if the references to the Governorof a State were references to the Administrator of the Union territoryappointed  under article 239 and references to the Legislature or  theLegislative  Assembly  of  a State were references, in relation  to   aUnion  territory  having a Legislative Assembly, to  that  LegislativeAssembly:

Provided  that the President may, by public notification, direct  thatthe provisions of this Part shall apply to any Union territory or partthereof subject to such exceptions and modifications as he may specifyin the notification.

243M.   Part  not to apply to certain areas.-(1) Nothing in this  Partshall  apply to the Scheduled Areas referred to in clause (1), and thetribal areas referred to in clause (2), of article 244.

(2) Nothing in this Part shall apply to-

(a) the States of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram;

(b) the Hill Areas in the State of Manipur for which District Councilsexist under any law for the time being in force.

(3) Nothing in this Part-

(a)  relating  to Panchayats at the district level shall apply to  thehill  areas of the District of Darjeeling in the State of West  Bengalfor  which Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council exists under any law for thetime being in force;

(b)  shall  be  construed to affect the functions and  powers  of  theDarjeeling Gorkha Hill Council constituted under such law.

(4) Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution,-

(a) the Legislature of a State referred to in sub-clause (a) of clause(2)  may, by law, extend this Part to that State, except the areas, ifany,  referred  to in clause (1), if the Legislative Assembly of  thatState  passes  a resolution to that effect by a majority of the  totalmembership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirdsof the members of that House present and voting;

(b)  Parliament may, by law, extend the provisions of this Part to theScheduled Areas and the tribal areas referred to in clause (1) subjectto  such exceptions and modifications as may be specified in such law,and  no  such  law  shall  be  deemed  to  be   an  amendment  of  thisConstitution for the purposes of article 368.

243N.   Continuance  of existing laws and   Panchayats.-Notwithstandinganything in this Part, any provision of any law relating to Panchayatsin  force  in  a  State immediately before  the   commencement  of  theConstitution   (Seventy-third   Amendment)  Act,     1992,   which   isinconsistent with the provisions of this Part, shall continue to be inforce  until  amended or repealed by a competent Legislature or  othercompetent  authority  or  until the expiration of one year  from   such

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commencement, whichever is earlier:

Provided  that  all  the Panchayats existing immediately  before  suchcommencement  shall  continue till the expiration of  their  duration,unless  sooner dissolved by a resolution passed to that effect by  theLegislative Assembly of that State or, in the case of a State having aLegislative Council, by each House of the Legislature of that State.

243-O.   Bar  to  interference   by   courts  in  electoral   matters.-Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution,-

(a)  the  validity  of  any  law    relating  to  the  delimitation  ofconstituencies  or the allotment of seats to such constituencies, madeor  purporting  to be made under article 243K, shall not be called  inquestion in any court;

(b) no election to any Panchayat shall be called in question except byan election petition presented to such authority and in such manner asis  provided  for  by or under any law made by the  Legislature   of  aState.'.

Constitution,  after sub-clause (b), the following sub-clause shall beinserted, namely:-

"(bb)  the measures needed to augment the Consolidated Fund of a Stateto  supplement  the  resources of the Panchayats in the State  on   thebasis  of  the recommendations made by the Finance Commission  of  theState;".

Constitution, the following Schedule shall be added, namely:-

                          "ELEVENTH SCHEDULE

                            (Article 243G)

1.  Agriculture, including agricultural extension.

2.    Land   improvement,   implementation  of   land   reforms,   landconsolidation and soil conservation.

3.  Minor irrigation, water management and watershed development.

4.  Animal husbandry, dairying and poultry.

5.  Fisheries.

6.  Social forestry and farm forestry.

7.  Minor forest produce.

8.  Small scale industries, including food processing industries.

9.  Khadi, village and cottage industries.

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10.  Rural housing.

11.  Drinking water.

12.  Fuel and fodder.

13.  Roads, culverts, bridges, ferries, waterways and other means  of     communication.

14.  Rural electrification, including distribution of electricity.

15.  Non-conventional energy sources.

16.  Poverty alleviation programme.

17.  Education, including primary and secondary schools.

18.  Technical training and vocational education.

19.  Adult and non-formal education.

20.  Libraries.

21.  Cultural activities.

22.  Markets and fairs.

23.  Health  and  sanitation,   including  hospitals,  primary  health     centres and dispensaries.

24.  Family welfare.

25.  Women and child development.

26.  Social welfare, including welfare of the handicapped and mentally     retarded.

27.  Welfare  of  the  weaker sections, and  in  particular,  of  the     Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

28.  Public distribution system.

29.  Maintenance of community assets.".

 

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A Decade of Women’s Empowerment through Local Government in India-Workshop Report, 2003, New Delhi

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www.humanrightsinitiative.org

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