Karnataka turns into a senior citizen as she steps into the 65th year since formation in 1956 — a state with several sterling firsts to her credit. One of the top ones on that list is women’s empowerment.
There is certainly still a long way to go and Karnataka does not have a J Jayalalitha, a Mamata Banerjee, Sushma Swaraj or Mayawati, a Sonia Gandhi or Sheila Dixit to point to as a powerful female political figure. The state, though, does have strong cultural, entrepreneurial and sportswomen heroes.
The stars in the state’s development, particularly over the last four decades, are the unsung heroes of Karnataka’s grassroots, the women elected representatives in the state’s gram, taluk and zilla panchayats. Karnataka, with her usual pioneering vision, brought in reservation for women in all tiers of the state’s Panchayat Raj system in the 80s under rural development minister Abdul Nazir Sab, better known as ‘Neer Sab’, in the Ramakrishna Hegde (1983-85) government. Women representatives and the Panchayat Raj institutions were further empowered by the M Veerappa Moily (1993), H D Deve Gowda (1994-96), S M Krishna (1999-2004), B S Yediyurappa (2008-2011) and the Siddaramaiah (2013-2018) governments.
Against odds
Despite laws in their favour though, women elected representatives — ‘EWRs’ in the language of the Panchayat Raj Department — have had to struggle, fight prejudice starting from their homes, work all hours twice as hard as their male counterparts to be ‘worthy’ of being elected. Statistics from a study on the gram panchayats in Kodagu district by M S Shylaja of the Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development show that hardly 9 percent women elected representatives get re-elected and a mere 5 percent get elected from unreserved seats as they face near overwhelming odds against male counterparts. About 26 percent though, continue to be active in leading political parties and about 50 percent of them take ‘independent decisions’.
Their story is dotted with silent struggles and silent successes, a story of resilience and determination, a story of empowering their villages, towns, districts and state through pure commitment and endurance. “It’s the tolerance and the patience that we bring to the job which marks out the work of a woman elected representative over the male,” says Prema Timmanagoudar of Radder Naganur Gram Panchayat in Nargund taluk of Gadag district.
Prema is turning 65, just like Karnataka. And like the state, her enthusiasm is boundless, energetic and catching. “We elected representatives need to be ordinary and see ourselves as ordinary, be just like the people we represent and move among them in the same way. We get great results when we do that,” points out the grandmother who has learnt English to speak with her American grandchildren.
Gangasamudra Milk Cooperative office
A job well done
Karnataka has topped the Swachh Bharat awards four times and rural development officials credit women elected representatives with a tremendous contribution in this achievement. Prema’s Radder Naganur has working toilets in every household, which she says was managed through constant interaction, discussion with and persuasion of the men and women in the village.
“It is often extremely difficult for us,” says Neela Murthy, 29, of the Kanthapura gram panchayat in Nagamangala taluk of Mandya district. “I hold an MBA, but our gram panchayat officials would only inform my husband of meetings, hold discussions with him instead of me. When I found out, I gave them strict instructions that they should speak only to me. My husband supported this, but these are the kind of odds that we women elected representatives face.”
Neela, like Prema, has won awards for her work as gram panchayat president. There is clean drinking water in all the villages under her administration; garbage collection is done efficiently and effectively; the gram sabhas make allocations from government projects to the correct recipients and publicly discuss village affairs which have been conducted regularly and genuinely.
“Our contributions are there, but are not visible,” Neela contends. “We have strong elected representatives in our state like Laxmi Hebbalkar and Shobha Karandlaje. But their achievements are belittled or they are spoken of loosely. That is the mindset that we have to fight. We need to make good use of the opportunities we get and make sure we get the recognition for our efforts as well.”
Rural Development and Panchayat Raj secretary Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta, in the forefront of the fight for women’s empowerment in all the posts that she has held as an IAS officer, underlines their contribution to the state’s evolution: “Over the years, women leaders have grown to become an unmistakable force at the grassroots. They have shown the ability to build consensus, to lead, to innovate, and face challenges. In recent months, during the Covid-19 pandemic, women panchayat leaders and members have done exemplary and visible work in the GPTFs (gram panchayat task forces), disseminating science-based information, conducting relief work, managing institutional quarantine centres and overseeing the distribution of essential anganwadi rations and school rations. They have worked side by side with frontline workers in the efforts against Covid-19. I believe that women have made local governance more diverse, inclusive and responsive.”
(The author is a former journalist from Karnataka, currently working as a software engineer in the US.)