Man smarter, but women?

Where women are mere proxies (The Hindu, February 24, 2002)
By Mahesh Vijapurkar
MUMBAI FEB. 23. As many as 13 women won from `open wards' defeating men rivals in the recent Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections. Their strength is now an all-time high of 89 or 40 per cent in a House of 227.

This is a new benchmark of female participation in mainstream politics. In smaller towns across Maharashtra, it has been only tokenism in women's empowerment. Quotas have been filled, and often, by women who are proxies for males in their families.

Since 1990, Maharashtra had a policy of 30 per cent reservation for women in all local self-government bodies, from gram panchayat to the municipal corporations, marking it out as ``progressive''

In the legislature where no quotas are yet set, it has been just 15 per cent presence. However, the male dominant tradition still holds sway in smaller towns and villages though some exceptionally well-run all-woman gram panchayats are found. They, however, are not a rule.

Even in Mumbai, a woman politician is not on her own. A woman corporator was not allowed to take telephone calls from newspapers during election time and the husband insisted that he be interviewed instead.

In another instance, a male politician told the returning officer that a caste certificate of his was good enough to judge his wife's while filing her nomination paper. In the countryside and small towns, even if she is elected, she is only a `vahini' (sister-in-law) with the male conducting the business of politics.

Here is yet another telling instance. The Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, was felicitating women directly elected to the reserved posts of presidents of town civic councils. When it was time for photographs, their men-folk were in the forefront and the women had to wait for their turn. When a Congress party official pointed this out to Mr. Deshmukh, he reportedly conceded ``in our society, this is how it is''.

A whole lot of women have entered politics because their husbands' wards were reserved for women. Men-folk sit in the offices of presidents and often, no decisions are taken without the male nod. Executive officers of some local bodies provide a place for their husbands in the standing committees. When this was brought to their notice, political leaders conceded that ``it is a reality'' and it ``would be long before the women manage to come into their own''.

Though this practice is not widespread, it is a marked feature of the political landscape of Maharashtra. To start with, a whole lot of them contest to keep the seats warm for the male members of their family _ father, son, husband or even a brother- in-law _ who lost the option since the reservation for women had kept them out of the reckoning.

Senior politicians, all men, speak of ``difficulties'' in finding enough women or ``women with the right background'' even to fill quotas.

Medha Nanivadekar's ``Empowering women: assessing the policy of reservations in local bodies: a report'' five years ago commented, ``The proxy women manifest a naive consciousness which has internalised or is at least guided by the perceptions and orientations of the men, thereby, forming some distorted perception of their own condition. They totally lack in articulating views about women's issues.''

Ms. Nanivadekar even ``found one example where a person got married just before the election in order to field his better half in his constituency''.

What her study said five years ago is true even today. In Maharashtra, a coinage has gained currency: `dheed sadasya' meaning in Marathi `a member-and-a-half' and denoting a woman whose `elected life' is run by the male.

It is obvious who ``the half'' is. The trend in many gram panchayats is that elected woman sarpanches, using an enabling provision in the law, hand over their authority to an upasarpanch who is often a male.

Ms. Nanivadekar's study says the proxy arrangement has brought in a mindset not conducive to promoting women's empowerment.