When men are the face of women

In the week when Women’s Day is celebrated throughout the world, a video of six men taking the oath of office in place of their wives, who were newly elected to the village panchayat, went viral. The oath was taken in the presence of the panchayat secretary, a government employee who looks after the daily administration of the village or a group of villages. The six were from Paraswara, a village in Chhattisgarh, nearly 138 km from the State capital Raipur.

The fallout has been anger from women’s rights activists who say this denies women the opportunity to empower themselves and one that undermines democracy itself. The 73rd amendment to the Indian Constitution ensured that Panchayati Raj Institutions, local self-governments at the village level, became a key part of democracy, with elections every five years and at least a one-third reservation for women.

Even as the video has put the spotlight on Paraswara, men discharging duties on behalf of their wives, mothers, or any other female member is common in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere. Up to 20 States, including Haryana, Assam, and Kerala, besides Chhattisgarh, out of 29 in India have a 50% reservation for women in panchayats.

A step behind

Santoshi Chandravanshi, 40; and Nirabai Chandravanshi, 45, two of the elected women representatives (panch) say they had gone to attend the last rites observance of a relative who had died. Sarita Sahu, 30, a third, says she was attending a wedding. These claims are repeated by their respective husbands, Suresh Chandravanshi, Narad Chandravanshi, and Rajendra Sahu.

Suresh insists that it was only the death in the family that kept his wife away from the oath-taking ceremony. “In future, if she is in the village, she will attend all meetings,” he says. His wife nods in the background. However, Suresh’s older brother, Vinay, who lives in an adjacent house in the same compound, tells another story.

Santoshi and her husband Suresh Chandravanshi, Nirabai and her husband Narad Chandravanshi at Santoshi’s home. Santoshi and Nirabai are two of the elected women representatives who did not attend the oath-taking ceremony.
| Photo Credit:
SHUBHOMOY SIKDAR

“This is a dehat (village) and the elderly were clear that the women, even those elected, would not attend the oath-taking ceremony because 400-500 men would be there. We cannot simply wish away the way things are done in the village. We have to abide by them,” he said. Through the village, ‘Syan man mana karise (The elders refused permission to attend)’ is a refrain.

In another part of the village, a youth, Sonu Shriwas, who is the local barber, says the same thing: that the elderly had asked the women to stay away.

He, however, differs with the diktat, as does Sadhna Tamboli, who teaches in one of the schools that falls within the panchayat’s jurisdiction. “Women have the right to lead. If they have won, they should be the ones taking the oath,” she says.

Of the six women, four are Chandravanshis, a subset of the Kurmi OBC community that forms a major chunk of the voting population of nearly 1,200. Nearly all the families with the same surname are related to each other.

Sanjay Chandravanshi, 32, a panch who has been elected this time to the panchayat of 13 people, was among those who took oath. He says a panch member has to facilitate water supply, tackle electricity problems, and see to drainage issues. “It is important that male members accompany the women. If someone is needed at night, there is no question of the woman going; the husband will have to step in,” he says.

For Santoshi, a typical day starts at 5 a.m., with household chores. She then heads to the fields for agricultural work. She, Nirabai, and Sarita are not aware of the duties of a panch member and turn to their husbands when questioned by the media.

Other than the fields, women mostly stay indoors, not even going to the markets. “They participate in agriculture only in their middle ages onwards,” says Sanjay. But even that participation is a recent fallout of a labour crunch.

The women have nothing to say on their husbands taking the oath, but the men from the Chandravanshi families defend themselves. “I never read it; I just held the paper,” says Suresh. His daughter Seema, 25, who is visiting her parents from her marital home, says that in the village she lives in, 25-30 km away from Paraswara, it is the same. “The women are elected but the men perform the duties,” she says.

A campaign seeking votes for a woman candidate in the recently concluded panchayat elections in Chhattisgarh’s Kabirdham district.  
| Photo Credit:
SHUBHOMOY SIKDAR

Rajendra admits that he read the oath and that he is in the wrong. He hopes that it doesn’t have detrimental consequences. “Yes, we have made a mistake, and we won’t repeat it in the future. As far as the work is concerned, she has five years to learn,” he says, of his wife.

The video sparked a probe by the Chief Executive Officer of the zila panchayat, Ajay Kumar Tripathi. The inquiry found that the secretary “Pranveer Singh Thakur has committed serious negligence in discharging his official duties”, and he was suspended. “This is contrary to the provisions contained in the Panchayat Service (Conduct) Rules 1998,” the document signed by Tripathi said.

Despite this, Thakur remains a popular figure in the village, and many want his return citing the work he was doing, though they do not specify what work. In a gathering in the village around noon, where men discuss the fallout of the video, smoking chillams, they say they are ready to surround the Collector’s office to ask for his reinstatement.

Tripathi refused to comment, saying that the necessary action had been taken. Kabirdham Collector Gopal Verma was also unavailable to speak on the matter.

A step forward

In the whole post-election exercise and the debate that has been sparked by the video, one name stands out in Paraswara village. There are banners painted on walls seeking votes for Geeta Ahriwar for the post of sarpanch. Though she lost the election, certain factors make Geeta an outlier. First, Geeta contested for the sarpanch’s post, which was unreserved for women. Second, her publicity material doesn’t use her husband’s name, which most women, right from the village wards to the city mayor’s post, do.

Geeta is more vocal than the women panches and explains the family’s motivation for fielding her. “We are Harijans, and over the years we felt that we have been systematically excluded from all government schemes,” she says, pointing to a pile of bricks meant for a house construction under a rural housing scheme. Her father-in-law claims the funds were never allotted. She says she lost because she didn’t have the wherewithal to distribute alcohol and cash.

Geeta Ahirwar, who stood for the post of sarpanch in Paraswara village but lost.  
| Photo Credit:
SHUBHOMOY SIKDAR

D.N. Suryawanshi, a retired college principal from Durg, who has guided many research scholars on theses related to the Panchayati Raj system and its implementation at the ground level, believes that the panchayat secretaries are primarily at fault when such violations come to light.

“Their role is to implement the law, but they not only accept the established village norms but also sometimes willingly flout the rules. Rural couples may be unlettered and unaware of the procedures, but he is not,” he says.

Legal experts such as Sonam Chandwani, a managing partner in the Mumbai-based law firm K.S. Legal and Associates, feel that what happened in Paraswara is a procedural violation and a direct subversion of democratic principles and gender representation in governance.

“The oath-taking of elected representatives at the village level is governed by the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Adhiniyam, 1993 [amended in 2008 to expand women’s quota to 50% in gram panchayats], and its election rules under the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Nirvachan Niyam, 1995. These laws mandate that only elected representatives can take oath and assume office,” says Chandwani. She adds that the incident should be treated as an attempt to nullify affirmative action meant to empower women in rural governance.

A paper published in 2024 by the think-tank Observer Research Foundation Indianotes that India climbed eight places in the 2023 Global Gender Gap report (ranking 127), when it added the indicator of inclusion of women in local governance. “Only 18 of the 146 countries surveyed have achieved representation of women of over 40 percent in local governance,” it noted.

Suryawanshi says that there is a sense of inertia in villages, where women are reluctant to participate in the system. “Some years ago, during a field story, I asked a group of women panches in Jeora Sirsa village of Durg if they regularly attended the meetings held in the Collector’s office four times a month. They said they do not go because all they got is a samosa, but giving up daily wages and spending on transport to go to the meeting is not worth it,” he says.

He contrasts Paraswara with Patora village, also in Durg. “This was one of the 50-odd villages adopted by the Bhilai Steel Plant [a unit of the Steel Authority of India Limited]. They had better access to healthcare and education. The level of awareness was so high that the woman sarpanch mobilised women and ensured that a liquor shop was closed down because the men’s productivity suffered with alcohol consumption. Awareness can make all the difference,” he adds.

This year’s Women’s Day theme calls for an unlocking for opportunities ‘For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.’

shubhomoy.s@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew