Women Lead...in Decentralizing Power and Participating in Public Policy in India

This 97-page publication from the Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation (SSF) explores the spaces India has created for women's empowerment through political participation. Released at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) International Conference on Decentralization, Local Power and Women's Rights (November 2008, Mexico), the report features strategies, examples, and case studies illustrating how elected women representatives (EWRs) have ensured that their voices are heard within the different tiers of local government in India.

The initial portions of the document provide context. With the establishment of local self-government (LSG) in 1993, a quota that 33.3% of seats would be reserved for women has "ushered in a new idea and space for women's empowerment". Various tables and charts illustrate specifics; in short, the percentage of EWRs is higher at all levels of panchayat than the mandated 33.3%. While this presence is something to celebrate, SSF stresses that these women "have experienced and continue to experience a lot of hardships...[related to] the overwhelming skepticism that has always greeted any first efforts made by women in entering 'public' hitherto very male domains." Even in the face of hurdles impeding EWRs' effective participation in political processes, SSF argues that EWRs have displayed "exemplary leadership qualities" - not only during their term of service within the panchayats, but beyond.

SSF is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that has been working since 1993 with EWRs from gram panchayats, undertaking research, capacity building, and development of models, tools, and handbooks for women's participation in governance. The Foundation has acted as a hub for communication and information by building networks of women engaged in organic farming, indigenous health, and conservation of biodiversity, as well as women leaders at various levels of governance. Reflective of the organisation's focus on evaluation is its work to develop new gender-related indicators for indices such as the gender empowerment measure (GEM) that are applicable to the Indian context, in the process influencing the "manner in which economic and social statistics are collected, measured and publicized nationally and internationally." Committed to social justice and women's equal rights, SSF's central purpose is to raise a chorus of women's voices for changing their present situation. SSF has also held public meetings on issues of relevance to national and international development.

The next chapter hones in on one specific strategy underlying many of these activities: building collectives of EWRs so that they can assert their voices more effectively within the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) of which they are members. The idea is to combine the experiences of women working to strengthen women's agency through political action. This strategy is illustrated in an SSF project called "Associating Elected Women Representatives in Local Self Government". Working with several NGOs, SSF initiated federating EWRs into an association. Knowledge was pooled and harmonised across the 4 partners, across the 4 states, from local women politicians (LWPs) to NGO representatives and vice versa, from academics to grassroots practitioners and vice versa, from monitoring and evaluation (M&E) experts to practitioners and vice versa. A composite newsletter, "Shared Spaces", has been published to highlight project activities and provide a physical and institutional means for the network to stay connected. Taluk-, district-, and state level information centres feature resource windows designed to help the women members gain information related to the PRI system, the political parties, procedures for contesting elections, methods of filling out forms, and so on. A September 2006 convention for EWRs aimed at providing a platform for exchange of views and experiences - both amongst themselves, and with the Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, civil servants, journalists, and others in attendance. Going far beyond a capacity-building effort, this initiative aims to build a movement of women leaders to address issues as their own by creating a problem solving and support forum, by facilitating experience exchange and peer learning, and by institutionalising a gender perspective. Looking beyond current EWRs to potential EWRs, one of the project partners has conducted several leadership-training programmes for self-help group (SHG) leaders.

Having identified several specific constraints that prevent women from participating effectively at the local level, SSF engaged in a series of projects which are outlined here. For instance:

• A 5-stage action research project focused on building gender budgets from the grassroots level. SSF claims that the framework enabled EWRs to actively participate in budget preparation, thus linking economic governance to political governance. Page 17 illustrates the module that SSF created to capacitate the EWRs and the communities to participate in the budget process and to design and implement the village/ward plan.
• The project "Engaging Local Women Politicians in Public/Macro Policy Making for Improving the Socio-Economic Security of Women in Poverty" aimed to develop the capacity of women in the LSG structures to effectively participate in policymaking at the macro (district and state) levels. Five gram panchayats each in 2 taluks of Bellary district were selected for field survey and data collection, which also included videotaping of interviews with selected local women politicians. These interviews were tools for understanding the EWPs' backgrounds and their perceptions of the socio-economic status of their communities, the quality of the public services in their communities, social practices, and so on. This was also supplemented by focus group discussions (FGDs) and meetings, some of which provided opportunities to discuss various issues with counterparts from other panchayats. Some FGDs also included male members, primarily as a means of broadening the enabling environment for women politicians. As such, the FGDs were a means not only of research but also as a part of the action to help women's voices be heard in the process of policymaking. The project also used videography to record the proceedings of the discussions in which women participated. SSF claimed that this contributed to a greater reflexivity in the women because they were able to observe the degree/extent and quality of their participation, as well as to note where and how they had been more or less effective. They were also able to analyse how the debates had proceeded, and to understand the importance of how different ways of formulating and articulating issues could be critical to the effectiveness with which they were able to exert their influence. It also helped them prioritise and sequence issues and solutions. In addition, 2 films (one 30 minutes in length, and one 12 minutes) were prepared as a direct means of presenting the policy concerns of rural women in poverty. Of the 5 workshops conducted, the last one looked at bringing select women politicians of the taluks, the political leaders, and government officials under one platform to discuss and finalise the policy recommendations which emerged from the earlier workshops. The capacity-building measures included: providing spaces and fora where women could meet and facilitate discussions on issues related to their participation in governance as well as social issues and policy matters; using audio recordings, films and videos, and videography for empowerment; generating awareness through presentation of census data and other secondary data on the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the area; giving information on panchayat raj, decentralisation, electoral reforms, etc.; providing inputs on policy issues by experts; helping women identify resources within themselves for their work; and organising exposure visits to model gram panchayats to learn how improvements in local governance might be undertaken.
• An SSF project focusing on participation of EWRs in the preparation of village-level plans (VLP) sought to engage women in designing how they want their village to be developed. SSF developed a questionnaire to gather the personal profiles of FGD participants and to capture their ideas for solutions to issues involving sanitation, education, health, poverty, etc. Imparting training emerged as a critical determinant of the quality of performance of the EWRs. Literacy training and night schools were two approaches suggested as means for enhancing their education.
• To address the problem of violence against women, SSF crafted a  community-based response which was implemented in 3 phases: 1) Exploring the possibilities of a community that has a social obligation to ensure the well-being of all its members, including women. Central here was the creation of an agency to check and prevent violence against women; as part of this process, Village Justice Committees (VJC)/community-based response (CBR) groups were instituted in all 50 villages. 2) Building the capacities of all VJC/CBR members related to prevention of domestic violence, female foeticide, trafficking, and HIV/AIDS, as well as to inform them about gender budgeting and the PRI system. A key focus here was on ensuring the sustainability of these groups so they could function with an individual identity of their own. 3) Training the VJC/CBR groups in developing action plans through research tools like group discussions, one-on-one interactions with community members, and surveys to understand the problem at hand in its local, specific context. In addition, street plays were carried out to raise awareness and initiate a debate on various issues.

As part of SSF's activities, 32 EWRs from gram panchayats as well as the urban councils were profiled. According to SSF, their work can be considered best practices, as they pertain to their leadership and community development, encompassing a wide variety of schemes and projects, and embodying the spirit of community participation. The EWRs' stories from the 4 districts of Karnataka illustrate the crucial role their family members played in supporting their political action. The case studies begin on page 27.