Panchayati Raj, 73rd Constitutional Amendment and Women

Bidyut Mohanty If reservations for women in panchayati raj institutions are to lead to their empowerment in real terms, social, economic and political conditions which facilitate and encourage their participation need to he created.
IN A p r i l 1993, the 73rd (Constitution Amendment) Act came into force and accordingly, all the states have amended their laws relating to local self-government. Since it is for the first time in the political history of India that one-third of the total seats in its local self-government institutions have been statutorily reserved for women, the legislation has several important implications for the empowerment of women. It has created a silent revolution in the country. However, in our view, the reservation itself can only be regarded as the first step in this direction. It is necessary to create proper social, economic and also political conditions to enable women to participate effectively in the local government institutions without endangering the positive values of the prevailing family systems. In 1959, the Balwantrai Mehta Committee suggested that an agency should be set up at the village level which would not only represent the interests of the village community but would also take up the development programmes of the government at its level. The gram panchayat which was to constitute this agency was, therefore, perceived as an implementing agency of the government in a specific, namely, developmental sphere. In 1977, the Asoka Mehta Committee recommended a fundamental change in this concept of panchayati raj. It asked for transformation of the panchayat from an implementing agency to a political institution (George Mathew, Status of Panchayati Raj in India, Concept, 1995). In order to implement this recommendation the need for constitutional amendment was felt. It, however, took more than a decade for the first steps in this direction to be taken in the form of the 64th Constitution Amendment Bill which was defeated in Rajya Sabha. In 1992, another legislation, the 73rd Amendment Bill was introduced in parliament which adopted it in the same year. It became an act in the following year. The important features of this act are: (1) Panchayats will be considered political institutions in a truly decentralised structure. (2) The gram sabha shall be recognised as the life line of the panchayats. The voters of the village/villages w i l l constitute its members. The panchayat shall be accountable to the gram sabha. (3) There w i l l be direct election in all the three tiers of governance: gram panchayat at the village
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of the panchayats are limited. For example, the 'sarpanches' and chairpersons of the panchayats are supposed to implement the schemes under Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, Indira Awas Yojana, etc. In the case of Kerala, for instance, the panchayats have to supervise the tutorial colleges! Nonetheless, the act has ushered in a new era in which the villagers can at least try to decide their own destiny.
FACTORS AFFECTING WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

level, taluka or block panchayat at the intermediate level and zilla panchayat or parishad at the district level. (4) Insofar as the empowerment of women is concerned the act has provided that at least one-third of the total seats at all levels shall be reserved for women of whom one-third shall be from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. In this context it is important to note that at least one-third of the total posts of the office-bearers at all levels w i l l also be reserved for the women. The Orissa government has made it mandatory that wherever the chairperson is a male, the vicechairperson's post would be reserved for a woman. Before the 73rd Amendment, women used to be co-opted into the panchayats. (5) Each panchayat w i l l have a tenure of live years and in case it is dissolved by the state government fresh election will be held within a period of six months. (6) The election to local bodies has to be conducted regularly. (7) There w i l l be a separate election commission and also a finance commission for panchayats in every state. (8) It is obligatory on the part of the centre as well as the state to provide adequate funds for the panchayats to enable them to function properly. In addition, the panchayats will have their own fund raising capacity on the basis of the local resources. (9) Some states like Rajasthan, Haryana and Orissa have debarred the candidates having more than two children from contesting in the election with a view to controlling population growth. However, given the low average age of marriage of girls (19), they would have crossed the two-child norm by the time they contest for elections. Hence it will be difficult for the states to get suitable women candidates for the panchayat election. (10) Some state acts like those of Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and the earlier act of Karnataka have the provision of nyaya panchayat to settle the disputes at all the three levels. The new act does not make it obligatory for states to provide for nyaya panchayats to solve local disputes. Secondly, although the objective of the act is to build the panchayat as an effective decentralised political institution at the grass roots level, the division of functions in its 11th schedule makes it in reality, essentially an implementing agency for developmental activities. In other words the resource raising capacity

Indian culture and social ethos have to a large extent been influenced by a patriarchal value system. There are, of course, regional variations - in the northern states the prevailing attitude is more discriminatory against women than in the southern states. But here again, there are notable exceptions as can be seen from widespread female infanticide in certain parts of Tamil Nadu, particularly Salem district. Even dowry taking has registered an increase in certain parts of another southern state, Kerala, which is considered to be a model state insofar as the status of women in terms of literacy and access to health care facilities is concerned. As a result of these deeply entrenched social attitudes and practices, women by and large have not been independent decision-makers in the country. Their 'decisions' in most cases have been influenced by the wishes and dictates of the male family members. They are guided by a patriarchal social system and, therefore, are discriminated against in terms of access to food and health care. Keeping this in view, the World Development Report on Population 1994 has accorded to women the central place in the population policy. In terms of access to food, a lot has been w r i t t e n on the inter-personal requirement of food (L C Chen, 'Where Have A l l the Women Gone? Insights from Bangladesh', EPW, 1982). But it is also true that in a crisis situation, women do not get their legitimate share of food because in the preference scale of the 'karta', who distributes food to all the members of the family, they occupy a lower place and hence can get only a smaller share (Paul R Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal,

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OUP. New York, 1982). Sometimes, women of their own volition do not lake nutritious food because of the wrong perception about their position and requirement in the traditional cultural and social set up. With regard to health care, discrimination against females is also reflected in the type and relative frequency in utilising the same. The data show males receive better medical treatment than females in all age groups but this is more prominent in case of children (sec Jocelin Kynch and A K Sen. Indian Women: W e l l - B e i n g and S u r v i v a l ' . Cambridge Journal of Economics. Vol V I I : 3 and 4, 1983; Dasgupta, Monica, Selective Discrimination against Female Children', Population and Development Review, Vol 13:1, 1987). The author for example has shown that even in Punjab the second girl child is often neglected in terms of medicare. This kind of discrimination against women cuts across castes and classes. Even though there are monetary transactions among the low caste women which arc kept hidden from the male family members, these do not go very far in enhancing their social power though they are slightly better placed in this respect than the lower middle class women. With regard to health care, only the women in Kerala have access to any worthwhile medical facilities, partly because of their awareness. Recently, the women of Punjab too are reported to have acquired a better health status. Could this be because a large number of men in the armed forces come from the state and their supreme sacrifice in military operations has given the war widows a value and status in the society? If this indeed is the case, it. apart from pointing to a sad state of affairs, is a phenomenon which may not last for long. That women of India in general and git I child, in particular, are discriminated against has been reflected in statistical terms. According to the Census of 1991, the sex ratio (females per thousand males) is 929 and has been declining since 1901, with a marginal increase in 1981. In 50 per cent of the states the sex ratio is below the national average. With regard to women literacy rate, only 39 per cent of the total female population above seven years of age are literate. In some of the northern states female literacy rate is much below the national average. For example, the female literacy rate of rural Rajasthan is only 12 (Census of India 1991), Insofar as the school enrolment is concerned, there is a huge gap between boys and girls. Of course, recently the life expectancy at birth of females has exceeded marginally to that of males. This can be explained in terms of more females in the age group of 60 and above compared to males. However, in the younger age groups the female mortality rate has been higher than that of males leading thereby to "a missing 100 million women" in successive censuses. But the most disturbing point regarding women is that the visible and invisible Economic and Political Weekly

violence against them is increasing. The crudest form of violence is killing girl children before they are even born. This is prevalent even in the metropolitan cities of Bombay and Delhi where aborting of the female foetus is widely resorted to. Persons in small towns and villages also eliminate the girl child because of poverty in some cases but mostly because of bias. In many cases, it is consumerism and commodification of women which has led to this kind of situation. Even today, female babies are killed by the midwives in Bihar on payment of Rs 60 and a saree. This is done not only among members of the high castes but also those of the lower castes. Economically, women possess weak bargaining power, except perhaps in some parts of the north-east and Kerala. Agarwal (1994) who has examined extensive ethnographic evidence points out that south Asian women not only do not own land but also do not control it in spite of having progressive legislations. Even in matrilineal societies the women inherit the landed property but have very little control over the management of the same. According to the Census of India 1991, only 29 per cent of the women are recorded as working in an economically gainful way. At least 90 per cent of them work in the primary sector. In the industrial sector, they predominate in the household industries characterised by seasonality, uncertainty and low skill formation. In the tertiary sector, women get employment in othe services' including domestic service (M K Premi and S Raju, Gender Issues in Workforce Participation in 1991 Census of India, Report to UNIFEM. 1994; Bidyut Mohanty, Women and Work: An Analysis of 1991 Census Data on Orissa, Report to UNIFEM, 1994). According to the Eighth Five-Year Plan, around 30 per cent of the households in India are woman headed households and are below the poverty line. Lack of resources could make women a less effective group insofar as resource allocation is concerned Since the beginning of the planned development, women have been viewed as a deprived section requiring welfare measure. It was only in 1975 that a UN Declaration compelled the national government to shift the emphasis of its women's programmes from welfare to development. More attention was given to health, education and employment. In 1985, after the Women's World Congress at Nairobi, a national document was prepared laying down forward-looking strategies for women's development. In this document the question of their political participation was highlighted and it was recommended that 35 per cent of the total seats should be reserved for women. The document is known as the National Perspective Plan (1988). It was also recommended that some posts should be reserved for women at the block and village level bureaucracy. On the economic front a number of income generating schemes

targeting women such as Development of Women and Child in Rural Areas (DWCRA) were introduced. In addition, provisions were also made to keep certain proportion of women as beneficiaries in all the developmental schemes like IRDP, JRY, NRY, TRYSEM Thus, we find a host of national and international events coupled with the complex social and economic factors influencing the decisions as regards the status of women, culminating in the reservation of 33.3 per cent of the total seats for them at the panchayat level. Since women do not have much social and economic power, they are also unable to exercise any political power Evidence from parliament, state legislatures and trade unions clearly shows that the women's representation in them is insignificant. In political parties, important posts are also not given to women. In fact, the New Delhi Document on Women in Development (1985) was aware of this problem and remarked " ..despite the rapid growth of informal political activity by women, their role in the formal political structure had virtually remained unchanged". After a decade, not much perceptible change has taken place on the national scene except the 73rd Amendment of the Constitution. If it is implemented, around one million women would come to the national politics from both panchayats and municipalities. But not all states have been enthusiastic about holding elections to the local self-government bodies Further, a comparative study of all the state acts reveals that there is less scope for a decentralised process of decision-making than before Many people feel that even though onethird of the posts have been reserved for women, there may not be enough candidates. But experience in several states is to the contrary. For instance, in the village panchayat elections in Karnataka held in December 1993,43.4 per cent seats went to women. In West Bengal also, they were more in number than the reserved quota. Moreover full 20 years have passed since the new phase of the women's movement started in this country and a number of women activists have come up who can take active part in the political process. However, to draw them into this process, a dialogue has to be initiated between the various women's organisations and political parties The need of the hour, therefore, is to bring women to the centre-stage of the political process and for this, besides the government.

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voluntary organisations, intellectuals and women activists also have to come together. There are several other factors which explain low participation of women in the p o l i t i c a l process. These factors are criminalisation and factionalisation of politics, emergence of fundamentalism at a macro level and lack of awareness regarding legal and economic aspects of the society, which prevent women from taking part in the public sphere. This indicates that the reservation of scats is a necessary but not sufficient condition for women to take part in the political process in an effective manner. At the same time, it has to be admitted that the new political process will not present a very unfamiliar situation because the developmental schemes have been able to absorb some of the women in the organised sector. For example, many more women are working in blocks, schools and banks than before. And their family members have already adapted themselves to this new situation. In addition, different schemes like DWACRA, J R Y , T R Y S E M and the National Literacy Mission have brought women out of their households and in contact with the outside world.
NEED FOR RESERVATION OF SEATS

According to some experts, the reservation of seats for any section in a system may not change it basically. Instead of Mangat Ram, the most influential and corrupt person of a village, Mrs Mangat Ram will assume power and she w i l l be a mere proxy of her husband. In fact, this has been proved in Rajasthan where elections were held recently. According to S Ramanathan, who has been working on Panchayati Raj politics in Rajasthan, in one panchayat, the jats fielded a consensus woman candidate from their own caste. But this was not liked by the harijans who fielded another woman candidate from their community. The jats ined to persuade the harijans to withdraw their candidate but to no avail. Finally, it became a prestige issue for the jats. Pathram Jat whose wife was a candidate took off his turban and placed it before the harijans! The harijans were put in a dilemma. They withdrew their candidate and were given some compensation money ( U m a , 'Challenges and Opportunities: A Study of Women Panchayat Representatives in Karnataka', Institute of Social Studies Trust, Bangalore, 1995). A panchayat in Maharashtra became an a l l - w o m e n panchayat because the gujjar and koli communities were at loggerheads with each other and they decided to have an all-women panchayat. ( M a d h u K i s h w a r , 'Social Empowerment and W o m e n ' , keynote address at National Conference on Women and Panchayati Raj, New Delhi, 1995). The experience is not very different in Karnataka and Orissa either. However, according to Mathew (1994), things changed within two years of the election in Karnataka. The elected women members of zilla parishads in the 3348

state had become more vocal and were taking more interest in the functioning of their institutions than earlier. In spite of this possibility of women representatives emerging as mere proxies in the beginning, there is a need for reservation of seats for them because of the social and economic conditions in which they are placed. We know how women and girl children are discriminated against all over India in varying degrees. Coupled with that is the fact that even the highest political bodies of the country, namely, parliament and state assemblies have not any worthwhile representation of women. Table I shows their participation in the Lok Sabha has not come up to even 10 per cent between 1952 and 1991 A similar picture is evident at the assembly level as well, irrespective of the female literacy rates in the states [Santha 1995]. The trade unions and political parties also did not take any active interest in promoting women's participation in the political process even though the women's movement had started in 1974. So there is definitely a case for reservation of seats for women in political institutions, which however need not continue indefinitely. Along with the reservation of seats, other steps like awareness generation through propaganda, t r a i n i n g , media publicity, etc, should be taken up to make it really effective in empowering women.
IMPLICATIONS FOR WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

So far elections for panchayats have been held in 11 states, namely, Rajasthan, Haryana, Orissa*, West Bengal, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. In some other big states like Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Gujarat the elections are overdue. When all the states have held their elections, around one million women w i l l become part of the political set up. However, the statelevel data on women's representation is scanty and lacks uniformity. For example, although zilla parishad elections are due in Orissa, around 25,000 women have already become elected members of its panchayat bodies. Again, in Uttar Pradesh where panchayat elections were held in A p r i l , a reported 15,000 women pradhans have been elected. In Tripura which went to polls last year, around 1,894 women were elected conforming to the one-third ratio. Also Tripura has one all-women panchayat in a tribal area. The chairperson of this panchayat who, of course, is a tribal, has promised to remove illiteracy first. Of course, the number of elected representatives w i l l be higher if we take into account the women elected from the general seats. But data on this is not available. According to an official spokesperson, Karnataka had overfulfilled its quota for women and around 43 per cent o f the total seats were filled by them. In the case of West Bengal, women constituted 35 per cent of the total elected representatives, (Development Alternatives, 'Women in

Panchayati Raj: A Study in West Bengal' at a Seminar on Women in Panchayati Raj; Perspectives from various states, April 2729, Institute of Social Studies Trust, 1995). We also have some data on the sarpanches (at the lowest level of the panchayats) for some states which is given in Table 2. Evidently all the states have fulfilled the statutory requirement in respect of the number of women in their panchayats and two of them, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, have even overshot the target. T w o years have passed since the Constitutional Amendment came into force. Both Karnataka (1987) and Maharashtra (1990) had already held elections before the act's enforcement and mandatory reservation of seats for women under it. According to Mathew, women from the dominant castes, lingayats and vokkaligas. formed 60 per cent of the elected women members at the level of zilla parishad in Karnataka. A similar picture emerged from a primary survey conducted in Orissa. Around 66 per cent of the women elected members in the state are from karans (kayasthas) and khandaits (cultivating castes). In yet another study relating to Orissa, it is revealed that the percentage of non-scheduled castes (57) in the posts of upa-sarpanches is higher than that of scheduled castes (28.6) and scheduled tribes (14.3). But in the ward membership, the lower castes dominated. For example, the percentage of scheduled tribes constituted 45.9 and that of scheduled castes 27.3. In contrast, women from general castes formed 27 per cent. With regard to the marital status, it is noticed that almost all women elected representatives are married. Also at least 16 per cent of the total women representatives in Orissa are widows. The same phenomenon was revealed in another study done by Mohanty in other parts of Orissa. The West Bengal study by Development Alternative (1995) showed that around 84 per cent of the women panchayat members are married. The Orissa study by Mahapatra shows that the percentage of the literate women at the sarpanch level is higher than that at the ward membership level. For example, in the former case, it is 86 per cent and in the latter it is only 68 per cent. In the case of Karnataka, surprisingly, we find that only 20 per cent of the women representatives are literate. Of course, Bijapur, to which the figure relates, is a relatively backward district. According to Mathew, women representatives lagged behind their male counterparts insofar as the literacy level is concerned. For instance, 20 per cent of the men are either professionals or post-graduates as against only 5 per cent of the women elected. In contrast to the Karnataka experience , the West Bengal study suggested that all the women elected members were literate. But most of them had not gone beyond the middle school stage. The above micro studies, which are based on small samples are, no doubt, not an adequate mirror of the educational status of December 30, 1995

Economic and Political Weekly

women panchayat members. But they make one point clear that majority of the women elected in the eastern as well as the southern parts of India are not illiterate, except in the backward districts. With regard to the age composition of the women members, it is to be remembered that Karnataka was the first state which had lowered the yoting age to 18 years. According to Mathew, political parties there found it extremely difficult to get candidates in the higher age groups, i e, above 45. They could persuade only the younger women to contest the election. As a result, more of them were inexperienced in politics than men since they entered at a younger age, vis-a-vis men. U M A study group also noticed the same trend, namely, that women in the childbearing age group are coming forward to j o i n p o l i t i c s i n spite o f domestic responsibilities. Both the studies of Orissa and that of West Bengal confirmed the above trend. The experience of Maharashtra which had conducted the panchayat elections earlier revealed similar features in one of the micro studies of the state (Stree Aadhar Kendra, Women in Decision-Making: A Study of Women in Gram Panchayats, Maharashtra, paper at a seminar at ISST 1995). At this point, mention should be made of the emergence of all-women panchayats. We have nine of them in Maharashtra (Chitra Bhandari. ' A l l Women Panchayats of Maharashtra' People's Action, 8:2 1993), one each in Tripura and West Bengal and nine in Madhya Pradesh. One study group (Aalochana) is conducting an extensive research among the members of the allwomen panchayats in Maharashtra. But systematic data is not available as yet. In Tripura, as was noted earlier, the all-women panchayat is located in a predominantly backward village where the entire population consists of scheduled tribes (785) and scheduled castes (592). The panchayat has nine members. The sarpanch, a tribal, is an old woman (80). She has set eradication of illiteracy from the village as her top priority (The Sentinel, August 25.1994). In contrast, the Kultikri Gram Panchayat of West Bengal is located in a general area having some tribal and scheduled caste population. According to a study conducted by a team of the Indian Express. March 5, the performance of the women of Kultikri in the sphere of welfare of the village community could be rated as satisfactory. A l l of the 11 members of this panchayat are young (30) and have not passed even high school. Yet, they have managed government projects involving Rs six lakh. They have tried to utilise the waste land resources by setting up shrimp farms and mango orchards. In this way they have been able to create employment opportunities. According to the study, each and every girl child is attending the school. It is also significant that the women members are less corrupt than their male counterparts. Not much information is available on the Madhya Pradesh all-women Economic and Political Weekly

panchayats except that some are located in the tribal area. The all-women panchayats of Maharashtra (see Chitra Bhandari) have become the centre of attraction. These panchayats are located in the f o l l o w i n g districts: Metikheda (Yavatmal district), Ralegaon and Nimgaon Boghi (Ahmednagar), Vitner (Jalgaon), Salod, Yerandgaon and Nandgaon ( A m a r a v a t i ) , Yenora (Wardha), Brahmangarh (Pune). According to the author, the Ralegaon all-women panchayat is working well but the credit for this goes to a male social worker. Nana Hazare, 'father' of Ralegaon Sidhi who has solved the water problem in that area in co-operation with the villagers. Panchayats like those of Vitner, Metikheda, Yerandgaon, Salod Nandgaon and Yenora are under the influence of the Shetkari Sangathan. But only the panchayat in Vitner termed as Jyotiba Phule village with a population of 2,000, located at foothills near Tapti river has done well. Drinking water here is available through taps and the incidence of alcoholism has declined. Unlike in Ralegaon women's leadership has taken shape here. Kishwar points out that this village panchayat has implemented 'Laxmi Mukta Scheme' whereby women have been given land. In contrast, in the Brahmangarh panchayat, women came into power because the husbands had migrated to Bombay and the women have stayed in the village. This tradition has been continuing since the 19th century. There are nine women members and all of them have studied up to the seventh standard. The author says that they are ' a l l o w e d ' to assume power and act accordingly. But whether the male migrants still hold the strings insofar as the important decisions are concerned, Bhandari had not looked into. Bhandari concludes by saying that even though the women have been elected and have formed panchayats. they have not been empowered except in a few cases. In those cases the personality of the women mattered a lot. The Indian Express study has confirmed Bhandari' s observation. In places like Ghera. Puranderand Bittargaon. women sarpanches have learnt the lesson the hard way. On the other hand, the woman sarpanch of Ralegaon depends entirely on Nana Hazare for taking up any kind of activities. Medha Kotwal Lela and Sinorcita Gopal Singh who looked at all-women panchayats in Maharashtra for Aalochana relt that women here are working more effectively than the women sarpanches of other panchayats because the former could get encouragement and strength from the fellow women. Members of all-women panchayats have shifted the developmental priorities of the villages. They could do it because the NGOs are backing them. In Brahmangarh, for example, the members of Lai Nishan party are active among the people. In Metikheda, the Setakahi Sangathan is helping the all-

women panchayat. The emergence of allwomen panchayats is a unique outcome of the positive discrimination policy. These women are engaged in developmental activities in an active way wherever NGOs are helping them. However, leadership of the elected members is lacking in such cases. T w o years have passed since the amendment bill became law. Yet, elections are not over in all the states. Even major states like Bihar and Tamil Nadu are yet to conduct their elections. The future of the elected women representatives is bristled with many problems because of their social and economic background. Majority of them may remain illiterate, wives or sisters of someone, ignorant of rules and regulations. In addition, they may be dealing with an insensitive bureaucracy. Many of them w i l l be proxy members. As a result of the reservation of the seats now granted, women of both high and low castes would sit together in the same place although, traditionally, they have been barred from sharing a common place. This is likely to create some conflicts. Moreover, the women of the lower castes may not be inclined to go against the wishes of the higher caste women because of their unequal status. Again, in respect of women's active participation in the political process, the role of the family also needs to be considered. The family, as an institution cutting across the caste and class line as well as regions, allocates power, authority and resources in a biased manner which is not favourable to women and children in general, and girl c h i l d , in particular. They are always undeservedly undervalued and their work is invisible. This bias against them is specially evident in north India, except in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to some extent. Further, women of different ages and castes will take part in village affairs. This may upset the existing pattern of behaviour in the family. The young ones could offend the elders, including husbands. There would be reversal of roles. If the male and female members of the family do not adapt themselves to the new situation, it w i l l face tensions and this age-old institution itself will undergo adrastic change. Finally, the role of caste panchayats needs to be highlighted. These panchayats consist of the older members of the caste who would like to preserve their caste traditions. Thus, the caste panchayat would not like women to come out publicly and to take part in political meetings since it would go against the tradition. Similarly, the village elders may harass women panchayat members if they raise their voices against social evils such as child marriage and sati. Given the above background, whether the 73rd Amendment would be able to bring about a significant change in the existing situation leading to political empowerment of women is still an open question. Micro studies available from West Bengal as well as Orissa indicate that the elected women
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representatives do not have enough say in the decision-making process. But other studies, from Maharashtra and Karnataka, give a different picture. The National Perspective Planning for women had envisaged the insensitivily of the male bureaucrats to the gender issue and recommended that 50 per cent of all grass roots functionaries must he women. The Perspective Plan also recommended relaxation of the educational qualification for women along with a short training course for them Under the present set up, all developmental schemes and allocations of funds for women's welfare are routed through collectors, BDOs and other officials. What is more, the developmental schemes have a household approach with the unit equated with its head who of ten happens to be a male. Hence, the women of the household get neglected. Administrators do not also take much interest in the specific problems of women. Of course, over the years a number of schemes specific ally for the benefit of women have been devised, but administrators have been giving only lip-service to them. Since the elected women representatives would not immediately be in a position to grasp the significance of the schemes, administrators would have ample opportunity

10 by-pass them completely. Very often there is no transparency about the decisions. Further, there are not many women officials available nor are all women officers sensitive to the women' s problems. Many women officers think that having attained a certain status, they belong to a superior category and can deride village women. Widespread red tapism robs the schemes of their dynamism. For all these reasons, women should be made aware of the deficiencies of the bureaucracy and the bureacrats should be made more sensitive to the needs of women. In sum, it seems that women have to cross many hurdles before becoming effective partners in the decision-making process

Note
[I am grateful to Rajan for computer assistance and to Satyanarayan for his valuable comments and final editing However, the author is responsible lor the content of the paper. J * By the time we finished writing tins article, the news regarding dissolution of Local Bodies in Orissa was published. The government has resorted to Article 2-13N for dissolving the panchayats and municipalities under which it is not obliged to hold the election within six months of the dissolution It is a fatal blow to the political empowerment of women.

A 'Miracle' Really, but Not Divine

Mina Swaminathan While there have been several analyses of the milk miracle by sociologists and scientists, hardly any attempt has been made to look at the 'organisational' miracle, the tactics and the strategies by which such nationwide orchestration was achieved.
IT can now safely be stated that miracles, like other marketing strategies, succeed on the basis of meticulous planning and organisation, some executive ability and the support of a disciplined workforce, From this point of view, the recent milk miracle' should give us cause to r e l i e d on the underlying hidden elements w h i c h contributed to its remarkable success. Most media attention has been focused on the scientific explanations And these were not hard to locate, many indeed having been aired even on the day of the miracle itself Beside clarifying the scientific principles behind the phenomenon, some discussion has centred around themes like the gullibility of the public, the tendencies to mass hysteria and mass hypnotism, and the power of rumour. The Indian public, specially its educated middle-class sector, has been soundly berated for the ease with which it falls v i c t i m to such miracles'. Some sociologists have also analysed the reasons why the public is so pitiably prone to such rumours. There has hardly been any attempt to study the organisational miracle" itself, the tactics and the strategies by which such a large-scale event was orchestrated. One can begin with the outstanding fact that at about the same time on a particular day, and w i t h o u t any prior notice, approximately the same story was launched, in the same manner, in several cities and urban centres in India, as well as in some centres of Indian population abroad. Does this not straightaway imply some organisation? Can it all be only attributed to the well known axiom that news travels fast, and rumours still taster? But this alone is not enough. Communications theory indicates that the casual spread of rumour alone cannot achieve this kind of coherence. First, the story moves like ripples from a pebble thrown into water. slowing down and petering out gradually, the natural limits being related to the size of the community, w i t h i n which such communication normally travels-the family, the work place, the neighbourhood, etc unless reinforced of course at regular intervals. Second, as illustrated by the well known party game, 'Chinese whispers' the

message gets distorted as it moves. So that after a few dozen steps it is no longer recognisable as the original message - again unless repealed, of course, at regularly spaced intervals. These two basic trends are sufficient to establish that the same message was deliberately planted in several places at the same time - in other words, several pebbles were thrown into the water at the same time at well planned intervals. Third, the pattern of travel, starting from the north and west of India, travelling to specific centres, more marked in certain locations is suggestive. In Madras, for instance, the phenomenon was confined to certain localities, and within localities to certain idols - the locations of the co-ordinators? message givers? - gaining strength only after Doordarshan's I pm telecast; while abroad, specific centres of Indian populations known to be in regular telephonic contact with relatives/business partners in India were the foci -geographical distribution of the cadre? Thus the plan was obviously tailored to take full advantage of the natural rhythms of rumour, based on a clear understanding of communications theory. The latter is true, specially in a predominantly oral culture like India which has its own traditional means of communication. During the freedom struggle, for example, when AIR, then in its infancy, was controlled by the government and the reach and power of the press was far from what it is today, news about the various movements, struggles.satyagrahas and fasts, and even Gandhiji's daily marches and activities spread very fast around the country. Even a century ago. during the 1857 war, strategies like the 'chapathi and onions' were used to convey messages rapidly through the remote countryside But these messages were not casual or unconnected ones - the stones were carefully selected and planted. This leads to the question - in this case, who was sending the message, to whom and why? Which organisation, in today's world, would have the capability, in terms of a large, well spread out and disciplined cadre, to undertake such an exercise? Why and how did it all start at the same time? Why did it last only for a day, if it was not a demonstration? While it is not possible to definitely establish, without further evidence, who was behind it, certainly a study of the 'how' would be most revealing and may even lead directly to the 'who'. This can be done by examining some similar wellorchestrated communication events that have taken place in the recent past. The most outstanding parallel in recent memory is a curious incident which took place in Delhi in September 1976, during the dark day soft he Emergency, when Sanjay Gandhi's coercive campaign for family planning was at its height, and while the resentment of the people had no legitimate forms of expression, and the political parties and leaders who could have led protest were December 30, 1995

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Economic and Political Weekly