Who holds the reins? My Encounter with Women Sarpanches in Haryana
What I enjoy the most as part of the Chief Ministers’ Good Governance Associate Program is being on the field. It gives me the opportunity to interact with the local population, understand the challenges on ground, and learn something new every day from those conversations. On one such visit to a village, I met a man who introduced himself as the Sarpanch (Village Head) of that Gram Panchayat. I took his word for it, thinking that there was no incentive for anyone to lie to me, especially, since I was accompanied by other government officials. A few days later, an officer asked me about my visit. He told me the man I had met was not the sarpanch, but rather the husband of the sarpanch as that panchayat had a woman sarpanch. The Gram Panchayat I had visited, it turned out, was reserved for a female candidate. He explained to me how the man I had met is usually referred to as the “Sarpanch Pati” or the sarpanch’s husband. It is common, he told me, for the female sarpanch to simply act as a proxy for a male member of the family — the father, father-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, or husband — who actually runs the show. I remember this conversation vividly because it led to a journey that has been the most defining aspect of my experience as a CMGGA.
Coming into the CMGGA programme, one of the areas I wanted to work on was women’s empowerment. I wanted to understand the impact of the government schemes and policies that focused on empowering women. Haryana is infamous for its deep rooted patriarchal structures, crimes against women, skewed sex ratio, and the Khap panchayat. When I was assigned the district of Karnal, only 35 kms from Panipat, where Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, launched the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana in 2015, I realized there was no better place to indulge my curiosity. I began by working with the Women and Child Development Department on various projects. Through casual conversations with the District Programme Officer, in charge of the department at the district level, I was able to understand the social context of the state and the district. She shared her own experiences of interacting with the “sarpanch patis” and what she thought about the involvement of women sarpanches in the panchayat’s work.
As pervasive as the problem appeared to be, I wanted to try to address it. I approached the Deputy Commissioner (DC) with a proposal to conduct block-level training for the women sarpanches in the district. The DC was encouraging and put me in touch with the Haryana Institute of Rural Development (HIRD). HIRD is responsible for capacity building of functionaries, both government officials and the elected representatives of the Development and Panchayati Raj Department in Haryana. We approached the faculty in HIRD to help us with the curriculum design. To understand the needs of women sarpanches, we conducted a needs assessment exercise in all the 6 blocks of Karnal. We identified the areas that needed most attention and reached out to the relevant departments to bring them in to conduct the training. Every month, the training would focus on 2–3 topics, ranging from healthcare, education, and rural employment to maintenance of records and knowledge of the various registers for panchayat work. Our plan was to target all 175 women sarpanches, of the total 382 sarpanches in the district.
We kick-started the trainings with a baseline survey against which we would assess the impact of the sessions. We successfully conducted the first round of training for the women sarpanches in all the 6 blocks of Karnal. Fifty four percent of the women sarpanches attended the training, a figure much higher than we had expected. In a few blocks, we feared no one would turn up and the preparation would go waste. As I witnessed the trainings, a slew of questions crossed my mind. Did the training session meet my expectations? Can a training session really empower women engulfed by the stringent patriarchal structures with no agency of their own? Can training guarantee an increase in their involvement in a historically dominated field? Surely, I was being hard on myself, but I couldn’t help ask. Was the effort enough? Was it worth it? Was there something else we could do? In attempting to answer these questions, I’ve identified the challenge areas we truly need to overcome — political, contextual, and legislative. Some of them are intentionally progressive, but with limitations, others are deep rooted in our society and yet, others are existential.
Reservations in Electoral Politics
It has been almost 25 years since the 73nd amendment to the Indian constitution, which introduced the Panchayati Raj Institution with reservations for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and women. Every year, 33% of the Gram Panchayats at a district-level are reserved for women, which means that only women candidates can stand for elections from those panchayats. Each election year, this list changes so that every Gram Panchayat is represented by a woman at one point or the other.
The policy, in principle, is just, but the local politics in Haryana, predominantly run by men, has found a way to take advantage of the policy. Men who are interested in running for elections, but cannot, have found a way to get power by fronting a female candidate from their family on their behalf. The woman eventually ends up becoming the proxy for the male member who, in reality, is working on ground as the sarpanch. The villagers are well aware of the fact that they are voting for the candidate’s husband or father or brother and not for the woman standing for the elections. On asking the villagers the name of the woman sarpanch who headed the panchayat, the most common responses I received were the name of sarpanch’s husband or “uski patni (his wife)”.
During a conversation regarding how much women sarpanches are able to work in the panchayat, a sarpanch from the Gharaunda block of Karnal said, “Sarpanchi bahut experience se aati hai” (Being a sarpanch comes with experience). She explained how it is difficult for her to understand the functioning of the panchayat as a new comer in this domain and veterans can do a better job. She further elaborated how her family members asked her to stand for the elections because the seat was reserved for a woman candidate, otherwise, her brother-in-law would have stood. She told me how her brother-in-law is extremely interested in the work and handles a majority of it.
Minimum Qualification in Electoral Politics: A boon or a bane?
Just months before the 2015 Panchayat elections, the Government of Haryana introduced a minimum education qualification of matriculation for male general candidates and middle school for female and SC candidates. While the intention of the government was to motivate educated people to come forward for elections, it resulted in many seasoned sarpanches being ineligible to stand for the elections. With no other male member of the family meeting the minimum qualification criteria, many seasoned local politicians asked an educated woman in the house to stand on their behalf. I was happy to see that 175 Gram Panchayats out of 382 have female sarpanches in Karnal. This is more than the mandated 33%, indicating that a few general seats have also been filled in by women. I cannot claim that the introduction of minimum education as criteria has increased the number of women sarpanches, but during my research, I met a few sarpanches who were asked by their family members to stand for elections because of the education qualification.
A sarpanch from Nilokheri block of Karnal explained how she stood for the elections because her brother-in-law did not qualify the education eligibility. Her brother-in-law is looking after most of the work in the panchayat.
Pardah Pratha: Blinded with tradition
Pardah Pratha, or covering the face with a veil, is still a reality in Haryana. Women in a few areas of the state are expected to cover their faces in the presence of any male member other than their husbands, especially if they are elder to them. I’ve met women sarpanches who observe this pratha, making it difficult for them to perform their role as a village head. They are unable to move around in the village without a pardah, therefore, finding it challenging to monitor various projects in the village, even if they want to.
I once asked a woman sarpanch about the number of panch members present in the last Gram Panchayat meeting. She thought for a long while before answering. When I asked her why she couldn’t remember, she replied “Woh maine meeting main ghunghat daala tha na toh mujhe pata nahi ki kon kon aaya tha” (I was wearing a veil in the meeting, so I could not see who all attended the meeting).
Household Chores: Who will make the tea?
We used the needs assessment discussion to also understand the general challenges women sarpanches faced in the village. During one of the discussions in the Gharaunda block, a few women shared how they have to make infinite cups of chai (tea) for the people, usually men, who keep coming to their house for panchayat related work or any grievance. The only catch is, they don’t necessarily meet the real sarpanch. Instead, they generally meet the sarpanch pati or brother or father because they are the people doing the actual work. The women complained how they don’t get a chance to sit with them because their sole responsibility is to cater to refreshments.
While a few sarpanches were cribbing, a sarpanch from the same block had an idea. She is one of the very few active women sarpanches in the district. She shared how she wakes up in the morning, makes an estimated number of cups of tea and stores it in the thermos. This way, she doesn’t have to go to the kitchen and make the tea every time somebody visits her; she just serves it from the thermos. She found a solution to a problem which she was facing because she was motivated enough to be a sarpanch and wanted to take care of the household chores as well as the panchayat works. That was her decision and her family supported her.
It infuriates me how women are implicitly expected to do both, is it even fair? A sarpanch from the Gharaunda block once explained to me why it was impossible for her to go against her family and the village norms. She said, “Sarpanch toh hum sirf 5 saal ke liye hain, par iss panchayat main toh hamain zindagi bhar rehna hai” (We are sarpanch only for a period of 5 years, but have to live in the village for the entire life).
Mobility
When we were conducting the needs assessment, we received feedback from almost all the women sarpanches that the training should be in the block office as it is not more than 10–15 kms from their respective villages and they can easily travel to the block offices. We kept this in mind while scheduling the trainings. On the day of the training, almost all the women sarpanches were accompanied by their husbands or another male relative. Most of these male relatives were the ones who were doing the actual “sarpanchi.” All the women sarpanches had travelled with the assumption that the training wouldn’t last long, and the male relatives thought that they would be able to finish some work at the block office in the meanwhile.
None of them were prepared for the 4–5 hour long training we had planned. They were dependent on their family members and it was not their decision whether to stay or not. I remember how one of their husbands barged into the training and told me “Madam sarpanch ko toh ghar chalna hoga, koi aya hai ghar pe aur chai paani bhi dekha hai usko ghar ka” (The sarpanch would have to leave the training as there are some guests at home and she has to take care of their refreshments as well). Some would greet me with comments like “Khana bhi toh banana hai” (The sarpanch has to cook the food as well). For effect, some would enter with crying babies.
Maintaining the decorum of a training session was becoming a challenge every day in every block.
Political Priorities: Do the women matter?
The “sarpanch pati” is someone who is recognized in the village. People vote for him, and not for the proxy woman candidate. He is the person who mobilizes the community on ground and has a pulse on local politics. During elections, be it panchayat, assembly, or parliamentary, he is involved in coordinating election efforts. For all practical purposes, once the proxy woman sarpanch is elected, the sarpanch pati runs the show. The political will to enforce the reservation policy would be low, because stricter on-ground implementation of reservation for women would result in taking away power from the dominant gender. This could backfire and result in a loss in support to the incumbent government. The reasons to maintain status quo are plenty, and the incentives to support gender equality through political representation are few.
Quality of Capacity Building
Designing and implementing an intervention that aims at breaking societal structures can be challenging, and government institutes like HIRD lack the capacity to design and run such programs. HIRD’s training focus is to transfer the technical knowledge in terms of rules, acts, and procedures, but there is little they can do to challenge contextual limitations and then build a curriculum around it.
For the majority this might be the first time as decision makers, and so imparting training to woman sarpanches requires a different set of skills all together. To bridge this expertise gap, it is important to collaborate with organizations like UN Women, UNDP and the Hunger Project, etc., so that the government can leverage their experience of working in multiple states on similar issues. Quality can be ensured with such partnerships.
For the several reasons mentioned above, the monthly training of women sarpanches, did not play out as I had originally imagined. After the first round of training, I stepped back to rethink the strategy. I decided to pursue the proposition as a research project and delve deep into the issue. This way, I am able to document the current status of the role performed by women sarpanches and all the challenges they face. Sometimes, it is overwhelming to grapple with the existential question of “can it ever happen?” Especially, when you interview a woman sarpanch who has never stepped outside the gates of her house. But, I enjoy every bit of my fieldwork — talking to the sarpanch and the sarpanch patis, understanding the village atmosphere and documenting it, and realizing how much I did not know about the problem.
