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The electoral field may now be getting more gender balanced, and that is a good sign for the future

It is good to see a total of 22 women poised to take their oaths as lawmakers in the 11th parliament — the highest number of female lawmakers ever.

Women in the workforce are currently contributing to about 34% of our total GDP growth, which is no small matter considering that women make up about 29% of the total labour force.

There is no reason for parliamentary participation of women to lag behind, and this year we have seen better numbers than past years, although the number of women in parliament is still small relative to the number of men.

Historically, our political culture has always been tipped in favour of men, and money and political muscle have usually taken precedence over competence; as a result, women have not gotten a fair chance.

The electoral field may now be getting more gender balanced, and that is a good sign for the future.

This year, prominent faces include Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, JaPa leader Rowshan Ershad, and Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury.

Less prominent politicians and newcomers face a tougher battle, and although there are quotas in place for women in politics, most parties tend to bypass any such rules by putting women in minor posts.

As Bangladesh moves forward, the country needs gender equality in all sectors, and with women making major contributions in every field conceivable, there is no reason their numbers should lag behind in the political process.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

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Konta: Voters queue up outside a polling booth in Chhattisgarh on Nov 12, 2018.

Of 8,249 contestants across five states, 696 (8.4%) were women. Of these, 62 (9.1%) were elected as members of legislative assembly (MLA) in their respective state legislatures.

Chhattisgarh: was called a ‘backward’ state by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in an address at Jamia Millia Islamia University in April 2018. However, the state ranks the highest in the country on women’s employment indicators such as the worker-population ratio (WPR), which shows the number of persons employed per 1,000 persons. It is the first state where the Election Commission of India set up five all-women ‘sangwari‘ polling booths.
 

Note: Data for 2015-16. *Per capita income data are for 2016-17. The lowest score on an indicator is marked in red.
Source: National Family Health Survey 2015-16, Fifth Annual Employment Unemployment Survey

Mizoram: It lies at the other end of the spectrum. A state with a literacy rate of 89.27%, much higher than the national average (74.4%), and ranking second among the five states in women’s employment (WPR 52.2%) and per capita income (Rs 1,28,998) has not elected any woman to the state Assembly in 2018.

A state with 19,399 more women than men has only ever had two women ministers in the last 31 years–Lalhlimpui Hmar in 1987 and Lalawmpuii Chawngthu in 2014 (by-elections).

Mizoram also scores the highest (96%) of the five states on women empowerment indicators such as autonomy in domestic decisions.

There is no easy correlation between women’s empowerment indicators and female representation in the assembly.

Madhya Pradesh: The number of women legislators in Madhya Pradesh decreased from 29 in 2013 to 21 in 2018. The state presented the lowest numbers in women’s employment (WPR 15.9%) and women’s empowerment indicators such as say in decision-making, ownership of assets and individual agency. The state also recorded the lowest per capita income (Rs 74,590) among the five states.

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party had released a separate manifesto for women in Madhya Pradesh. Entitled ‘Nari Shakti Sankalp Patra‘, it promised auto-gear bikes to meritorious girl students, among other things.

Rajasthan: Ruled by a female chief minister, Vasundhara Raje, in the last term, Rajasthan saw a drop in number of female MLAs from 27 in 2013 to 23 in 2018. Although female voter-turnout (74.7%) was higher the male voter-turnout (73.8%) in the state, there was an overall drop in the female voter-turnout from 2013 (75.23%), according to State Election Commision data.

The state records the lowest female literacy rate (56.5%) and ranks last in the list of women who have completed 10-11 years of education, as IndiaSpend reported on December 5, 2018. Its  numbers for women’s employment are considerably low (WPR 18.8%).

Telangana: The young state which has only been to the polls twice elected six women MLAs (5%) to its 119 seat assembly, lower than the 2014 elections in which nine women MLAs were elected.

Legacy proved influential
Legacy played a key role in these assembly elections. Legacy seats are those that are for long occupied by members of the same political family or those with political connections, or legacy candidates.

In Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, there were 67 legacy candidates, according to an analysis published by Indian Express on December 7,2018.

Of these, 35 (52%) won, according to an IndiaSpend analysis.

In Madhya Pradesh, there were 36 legacy seats and nine were contested by women legacy candidates. Of the 21 MLAs elected in 2018, seven elected women were legacy candidates.

Rajasthan had six women candidates contest 23 legacy seats. All six who won came from strong political backgrounds.

Of the 13 women MLAs elected in Chhattisgarh, five women were legacy candidates.

“There is a shared belief in parties that women will not be able to contest as strongly as men and hence parties refuse to give independent women candidates a ticket,” Praveen Rai, a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, told IndiaSpend. Women who have served in the party for a long time and/or have their own support base are given a ticket.

Quotas would help
Since there is no mandate for political parties to set aside seats for women contestants–as is the case at the panchayat level, where at least 33% of the seats are reserved for women–parties are partial to male candidates.

A study of the results from panchayat elections showed that quotas at that level enable more women to contest for higher-level positions in state legislatures and national parliament. Constituencies that are exposed to an average of 3.4 years of gender quotas at the local level had an additional 38.75 female candidates running for parliament–an increase of 35% between 1991 and 2009, the study published in January 2018 by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics said.

For state assemblies, an additional 67.8 female candidates ran for office in constituencies with an average exposure of 2.8 years of quotas, IndiaSpend reported on June 30, 2018, based on the article.

“One should make it mandatory [or] legislate for political parties to nominate/give tickets to a fixed number of female candidates,” Sanjay Kumar, director at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said.

(Abhivyakti Banerjee, a Master’s student of Political Science at M.S.U., Vadodara, is an intern at IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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pic courtesy : Social media

If we look at the women contesting in the elections this year and the number of women that have emerged as winner the output is very poor, thereby justifying the demand for reservations for women in the elections.

In total, 186 women contested the elections this year, but only six managed to secure a win whereas in the 2013 elections, 85 women contested the elections and nine emerged as winners. As expected, the 6 women are from the two major political parties in the state: Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Indian National Congress, with both having three winners each. Of the six women who won this year, three won from ST seats while three won from general seats. No SC or Muslim woman managed to secure a victory.

The 6 women are : D. Anasuya (ST); B. Haripriya (ST) and Sabitha Indra Reddy from congress; (INC); Rekha Naik, (ST);  Suneetha Reddy; and Padma Devendar Reddy from TRS. In 2014 among the nine women MLAs, there were 2 SC, 2 ST and 5 others.
Political participation of women remains poor but what is surprising is the seats allotted to women from the political parties are very few from most of the parties.

The number of seats allotted to women from some of the major parties are as mentioned below and also depicted in a graph:
 

With participation of women being a mere 5%, the visibility of women looks like nothing but lip service. While women constitute 49% of the total population in India, their share in state assemblies remain abysmally low. The scene in all other states of India is more or less the same, even where the Chief Ministers and party heads are women.

India ranks 151 of 193 countries as on 1st November 2018 according to the data compiled by ‘Women in national parliaments – Inter parliamentary Union’.

The results of this year in Telangana State once again stress on the demand for women’s reservation bill to be passed so that in the General elections slated in 2019 we can see enhancement of political participation of women running for parliamentary elections.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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A stark gender disparity remains in the country’s parliamentary polls
 

Although all political entities in Bangladesh have endorsed women empowerment in politics over the years, nomination in the parliamentary elections continue to elude the country’s female politicians.

In the 11th general election, which is scheduled for December 30, only a handful of women have been granted election candidacy among more than 1,800 candidates.

Among the major parties, the Awami League, the ruling party, has nominated only 19 women among its 258 candidates for the upcoming polls, while its alliance partners Jatiya Party has nominated only two out of 173, and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal only 1. 

BNP, along with 20-party alliance and Jatiya Oikya Front, has nominated only 16 candidates in 300 seats. 

In the 8th and 9th parliamentary elections that were held in 2001 and 2008, the situations were similar: a total of 39 women contested the polls in 2001 and 59 in 2008. 

For the past few decades, the face of Bangladeshi politics has been two women – Awami League President Sheikh Hasina, and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia. 

In 2013, Bangladesh also saw the first woman to be appointed as the speaker of parliament – Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury. 

In the 10th parliament, the leader of opposition was also a woman – Raushan Ershad, presidium member of Jatiya Party. 

Yet, women are struggling to climb up the ladder of leadership and policy-making in the country’s politics. 

What is holding the women back? 
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, several senior leaders of Awami League and BNP said male leaders generally get preferences because culturally they have far higher chances of winning votes than their female counterparts. 

“We live in a patriarchal society, where women do not get support from their male counterparts to progress in politics,” said Sahara Khatun, Awami League presidium member and former home minister, who is contesting the polls from Dhaka 18. 

Sources said the Awami League’s reliance on only the seasoned female politicians and the 17 incumbent parliamentarians, who can ensure a win, came into play when its 19 candidates were selected.

“Our male leaders fear that our female leaders cannot perform like them. That is why we get only a few female candidates during the elections,” Sahara Khatun said. 

Senior leaders of the ruling party told the Dhaka Tribune that around 100 female aspirants collected and submitted their nomination application forms. 

Awami League presidium member Ramesh Chandra Sen, who is a member of its parliamentary board, said it was the party policy that led to the nomination of such a few female candidates. 

“Awami League is a big party, and it has many eligible and experienced female candidates, but we did not pick all of them due to the party policy,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

Similar to the Awami League, the BNP focused on popularity when it nominated its female candidates. 

“We nominated those who are popular among the voters,” said BNP Standing Committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury. 

Asked why there are such a few female candidates compared to their male counterparts in the general polls, Amir Kashrut reasoned that people are culturally not willing to vote for women.

“Our female leaders are quite eligible and tested, but to break this trend, our female politicians have to work and gain the trust at the grass roots level,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

He further said the BNP had plans to nominate 25% female candidates in the 12th parliamentary election.

Where are women in party leadership?
According to Representation of the People Order (RPO), all registered political parties in Bangladesh must ensure one-third representation of women in their committees by 2020.

In June 2017, the Election Commission asked 40 parties for reports on their progress. Out of the 40, 37 responded, but the numbers were far from impressive.

The Awami League has 15 women in its 81-member Central Working Committee – nearly 19% representation. The party’s 17-member Presidium includes four women, while the 40-member Advisory Council has two women. Not one of the eight organizing secretaries is a woman. 

The BNP is in far worse situation, with only one woman in its 19-member Standing Committee – Chairperson Khaleda Zia – nearly 13% representation. The 73-member advisory body has six women, two among 10 organizing secretaries are women, and 65 women are part of the 502-member National Executive Committee.

Jatiya Party has seen a significant rise of women leadership in the past decade, according to its report to the Election Commission. 

“Just 10 years ago, they were 1%-2%, and now they are well over 10%,” the party’s former secretary general ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader told the Dhaka Tribune in June. 

Among the 37 parties that submitted a progress report to the EC, left-leaning Gano Front is the only party with 33% female participation in their committees.

The lack of faith and support
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, a senior female leader said political parties in Bangladesh always talk about women empowerment and encourage women to take part in election.

“But when the elections come, these parties choose males over female candidates. Even the top brasses of these political parties do not have confidence that their female candidates can engage as much as the male politicians in the party programs,” she added, requesting not to be named. 

Shampa Basu, nominated by the Socialist Party of Bangladesh in the Dhaka 8 constituency, said the main reasons why the male-female representation in the elections is so overwhelmingly uneven are because the female leaders do not get much support from the party.
“The men are always talking about equal rights, but it has yet to be implemented. That is why our females are staying behind,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.

Many other leaders complained that they are pushed toward the reserved seats. 

“Women are still being treated as women, not as people, by all political parties,” Selima Hossain, a former minister and BNP vice-chairman, said at a discussion on women’s leadership in the general elections, organized by Democracy International in Dhaka on November 13, which was attended by around 50 women leaders of the Awami League, BNP and JaPa. 

“How will women empowerment take place, if for decades women are not given the option to get nominations but are set aside to fill reserved seats?” she asked at the discussion.

What must be done?
Political scientist Dr Rounaq Jahan said the political parties often used the excuse that women cannot win in general seats because they do not have the necessary money or muscle power.

“But it is the parties’ responsibility to ensure that the lack of funds or the muscle power do not become the deciding factors,” she said. “They need to make a commitment to train a sufficient number of their female members to contest and win general seats in parliament.”
Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik Secretary Badiul Alam Majumder said: “The 2009 RPO was issued to accelerate political empowerment of women. But we believe a remarkable representation instead of symbolic representation will create opportunities for women to enter the centre of power in the political process.”

Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanam said parties will have to pro-actively ensure the elimination of any environment that is detrimental towards women joining politics.

Katie Croake, chief of party of Democracy International, said: “The women aspiring for general seat nominations are talented and inspiring role models in their constituencies. It is time for their political parties to increase women’s voices in the elected parliamentary seats.” 

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune
 

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Together, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram are home to 93 million women. Among the MLAs these states have voted in, only 9% are women, down from 11% from the previous 2013-14 assembly elections, when female candidates had won 77 of 678 seats.

Only in one state, Chhattisgarh, has there been an increase in the proportion of female MLAs, even though more female candidates contested elections across all five states than the last time.

Mizoram will continue to have zero female representation in its state assembly. Women comprise 49% of the state’s population of 1 million-plus population.

“Women might be coming out in higher numbers to vote but in order for democracy to be truly representative, more women MLAs and MPs need to have a seat at the table,” said Rithika Kumar, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. “We have seen at the panchayat and municipal level that women are not only capable of winning elections but also getting re-elected.”

In fact, female representatives are more likely to provide public goods that take into considerations women’s needs, Kumar said. “It’s simple—women need to have an equal say in matters that affect them, the economy and society at large,” said Kumar. “It’s time for all big parties to step up and walk the talk and give more tickets to women.”

How the states voted
Although more women have been contesting elections across the five states over the last three elections, they have not been winning in greater numbers–women’s representation at the assembly level has failed to match the increment in the number of candidates.  

Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number of female candidates this year–235 of the total 2,716 contestants–higher than the 108 in 2013 and 226 in 2008. However, its number of successful women candidates is at its lowest, at just 22–down from 30 in 2013 and 25 in 2008.
In Rajasthan, 182 female candidates contested out of 2,291 (8%) in 2018, up from 152 of 2,030 in 2013 (7%) and 154 out of 2,194 (7%) in 2008. In 2008, 28 women won the elections to become MLAs and in 2013 the number was 25, but this year it has fallen to 23. In 10 years from 2008 to 2018, the proportion of female candidates has fallen from 14% to 11.5%.

Nevertheless, the proportion of female winners was higher than that of female contestants–women comprised 11.5% of the winners in Rajasthan, even though women contestants comprised only 8% of all contestants. Similarly, 9% of contestants in MP were women, and 10% of winners; 10% of contestants in Chhattisgarh were women, and 14% of winners.

Source: Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), State Assembly Reports 2018-2008, MyNeta.info

Note: Figures used for number of contestants refer to the number analysed by ADR and may not reflect the total number of contestants in all cases. *Telangana voted for its first assembly in 2014, ahead of separation.

Chhattisgarh is the only state where more women contested as well as won over previous years–13 (14%) of its 90 available seats were won by women candidates, up from 10 (11%) in 2013 and 11 (12%) in 2008.

At 13, the state’s legislative assembly will have its highest number of women representatives over the past three elections.

Mizoram did not elect a single woman, though its number of female candidates has been rising year-on-year. In 2018, 18 female candidates contested state elections, 200% and 100% higher than in 2013 and 2008, respectively.

Party-wise breakdown
Both the Congress and the BJP fielded no more than 12% women candidates, as per National Election Watch, an umbrella organisation of NGOs working for electoral reforms and improving governance. In absolute numbers, the BJP fielded more, 80, the highest number among all parties, while the Congress fielded 70.

An estimated 79 female candidates contested independently of any party affiliation, 40 under the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and 303 under various regional parties.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the winner in Telangana, gave tickets to the lowest proportion of female candidates, at 3%. The BSP, led nationally by a woman, Mayawati (who goes by one name), had 9% female candidates.

Source: National Election Watch by Association for Democratic Reforms
Note: Figures used for number of contestants refer to the number analysed by ADR and may not reflect the total number of contestants in all cases.

Among the winners, the maximum number of female candidates belong to the Congress, which will have 33 women MLAs across the five states.

It is followed by the BJP with 21 female MLAs. The TRS has elected three women MLAs, the BSP will have two and the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh Jogi and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party one each.

One female candidate won as an independent.

Source: National Election Watch by Association for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Commission
Note: Figures used for number of contestants refer to the number analysed by ADR and may not reflect the total number of contestants in all cases.

In the last state assembly elections, the BJP had the most female MLAs, and its number of women MLAs has more than halved–from 50 in 2013 to 21 in 2018.

The TRS similarly has half the number of female MLAs–from six in 2014 to three in 2018.

(Sanghera is a writer and researcher with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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This is because women legislators are likely to be less criminal and corrupt, more efficient, and less vulnerable to political opportunism or attempts by politicians (mostly male) to stay in power, said the May 2018 paper from the United Nation’s University, World Institute for Development Economics Research.

“While there is evidence that raising the share of women politicians has substantive impacts on the composition of government spending, there is scarcely any evidence of how it influences economic performance…,” said the paper’s authors. They said their study was the “first systematic examination of whether women politicians are good for economic growth”.

The researchers examined election data for 4,265 state assembly constituencies between 1992 and 2012, which spans four elections in most states, a period of “strong economic growth”, during which share of state legislative assembly seats won by women increased from about 4.5% to close to 8%.

To isolate the causal influence of a leader’s gender on economic growth, the study focused on constituencies where women beat male MLAs by a small margin and those where men won against women MLAs by a similarly narrow margin.

Women light the way
To assess the economic impact of electing women MLAs, the researchers superimposed state-level election data on NASA satellite images to track the annual average “luminosity growth”, or the spread of electrification over an electoral term, a proxy for economic growth.

In constituencies run by women, this growth was 15.25 percentage points higher than those run by men, which translated to a 1.85-percentage-point rise in the gross domestic product (GDP) growth compared to constituencies that voted for men.

“Given that average growth in India during the period of study was about 7% per year, our estimates indicate that the growth premium for constituencies stemming from their having a female legislator is about 25%,” the paper said.

The economic progress witnessed in women-led constituencies does not come at the cost of lower growth in neighbouring male-led constituencies, the study found. To find out why, the researchers explored gender differences related to corruption, efficiency (completion of federally funded road infrastructure projects) and motivation–factors linked to growth in developing countries.

Men go to the dark side
Analysing the affidavits of elected MLAs, the study found that while, overall, men are twice as likely to have criminal charges pending against them, in closely-fought elections, this was significantly higher for elected male MLAs compared to women.

Women MLAs were also, on average, also younger.

While the study found about 10% of women legislators had pending charges, this was about 32% for men. An analysis of female and male MLAs accused of crime revealed that women legislators had significantly fewer charges than men.

“We estimate that this can explain about one-quarter of the difference in growth between male- and female-led constituencies,” the researchers wrote.

To support their findings, the paper ran quantitative research experiments, used in another 2014 study, to measure gender difference in corruption while holding office, as understood through an MLA’s net accumulation of assets and wealth during an elected term. These data become available when MLAs file affidavits before contesting the next election.  

The study found the annual rate at which women MLAs accumulate assets while in office is 10 percentage points lower than it is for men.

“These findings align with experimental evidence that women are more fair, more risk-averse, and less likely to engage in criminal and other risky behaviour than are men,” the researchers concluded, citing other studies from 2001, 2008 and 2010. “It establishes corruption as a likely contributor to the economic advantage of women legislators,” they wrote.

Women more effective at delivering infrastructure for growth
To assess the gender difference in efficiency of elected legislative members, the paper analysed the growth of road networks.

While male and female politicians are both likely to attract federally funded road building projects in their constituencies, women MLAs are more likely to oversee completion, the study’s data showed.

The share of incomplete road projects in constituencies run by women was 22 percentage points lower than those run by men.

The study did not find any significant difference in the size or cost of projects undertaken, suggesting women are more effective at completing projects, and, hence, infrastructure for growth.

“More clearly, since road construction in India has been shown to produce higher returns in terms of job mobility for men than for women, our findings establish that women are not only good at serving the interests of women,” the researchers wrote.

Women MLAs more motivated, men more opportunistic
To analyse the gender differences in legislators’ motivations to perform in their constituencies, the study divided the sample into “swing”–where the victory margin was less than 5% in two consecutive elections–and “core” constituencies. Consecutive closely fought elections involve greater competition with electoral incentives for MLAs to work harder, they found.

In swing constituencies, growth did not depend on the legislator’s gender, or the difference in performance between women and men legislators was insignificant.

However, in the analysis of non-swing or core constituencies, the study found that constituencies run by women have significantly higher growth rates than those led by men.

“One explanation of this is that women legislators are less opportunistic and exhibit higher intrinsic motivation,” the researchers wrote.

9% of MLAs in India are women
Currently, of 4,118 MLAs across India–where 48.5% of the population is female–only 9% are women, according to the 2018 Economic Survey of India.

Differences in preferences between men and women play a role in determining the better economic performance of women legislators, according to the study.

“We provide important new evidence at a time when women are increasingly participating in government across the globe,” the researchers wrote, drawing attention to the Women’s Reservation Bill of 2008, pending parliamentary approval for over a decade. The bill seeks to reserve a third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha (Parliament’s lower house) and state legislative assemblies.

“The feminisation of politics is one of the most exciting political phenomena of our time,” the researchers wrote. “Yet, we do not know what it portends for growth, the rising tide that is thought to lift all boats.”

(Saldanha is an assistant editor with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Salma, the Tamil poet and author, found her ticket to freedom when she contested the Tuvankurinchi town panchayat elections. In 2004, Salma joined the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and contested the state assembly elections. Disillusioned by entrenched sexism and lack of spaces for women, she now wants to quit and return to grassroots activism.
 
Salma, a celebrated Tamil poet and novelist, believes that it was her literary talent that caught her the biggest break in her life. During the course of her term as the head of the Tuvarankurinchi town panchayat in Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu in 2004 she caught the eye of K Kanimozhi, fellow poet and DMK member of parliament.
 
Salma joined the DMK and two years later, party supremo Karunanidhi offered her an assembly ticket from Marungapuri constituency in Tiruchirapalli district in 2006. Karunanidhi is a writer himself and had read her recently published novel on the inner lives of Muslim women, Irandaam Jaamangalin Kadai (The Hour Past Midnight).
 
In 2006, Salma’s political career seemed set for a meteoric rise. But today, disillusioned with party politics, she wants to quit and return to grassroots activism. “You cannot survive in this all-male world of politics without making compromises,” she said.
 
Why would an ambitious and skilled woman leader be embittered enough by politics to abandon all she has achieved?
 
In our five-part series on women in Tamil Nadu’s panchayat politics, we established how women like Salma have transformed (part 1) local governance while battling gender prejudices, financial constraints (part 2), casteism (part 3) and physical threat (part 4).
 
Many of these women deserved larger platforms for public work. But IndiaSpend investigations across six districts across Tamil Nadu showed that few of these achievers were allowed to move up the political hierarchy by entrenched sexism.
 
In the two decades since the 33% reservation for women in local governance, at least 18,244 women from general category, 6,408 from scheduled castes and 416 from scheduled tribes have become panchayat heads in Tamil Nadu, according to data from the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission. A total of 277,160 women leaders have held office across all levels of urban and rural governance–as panchayat ward members, union and district panchayat members, mayors and councillors in urban local bodies.
 
Hardly any of these capable women made it to significant positions in party politics, the state assembly or parliament. Why is this happening? IndiaSpend investigations showed that male-dominated party structures ensure that women face impediments every step of the way.
 
We will establish through personal stories how, instead of empowering women to take on bigger roles, parties actually work to limit their roles and discourage them from electoral politics.
 
15% women panchayat leaders would like to join mainstream politics
 
Despite the fact that Tamil Nadu has had a strong woman chief minister like J Jayalalithaa, few women have made it to positions of strength in the state’s politics.
 
Over the last 20 years, participation in local governance has infused a new sense of political consciousness and aspiration among women leaders. In the 32 women-led panchayats IndiaSpend surveyed in six districts of Tamil Nadu for this series, 30% women said they would like to contest the upcoming panchayat elections even when their seat was an unreserved one. Also, 15% women said they would like to enter mainstream electoral party politics if given a chance.
 
But there is resistance to a woman taking over what is considered a male domain, say women leaders. Salma had contested the assembly election but lost by 1,000 votes. “I would have won if the structures within the party that were supposed to build my campaign were supportive,” she said. “Instead, they actively worked against me. The sad truth is men don’t want women to share what they think is exclusively theirs.”
 
Born into a conservative Muslim family in Tuvarankurinchi as Rajathi Rokiah, Salma’s political career should have been an inspiration for young women dealing with oppressive traditions. As was the custom in her village, Salma had been taken out of school the moment she turned 13.
 
She was confined to a room along with her sister. They took turns to peer at the world outside through the one small window in the room. “After puberty, you lose the outside world. One by one, all my friends got locked up. That’s how it is for Muslim girls in my village,” she said.
 
Since there was no paper to write, Salma took to writing about her isolation and loneliness on the newspaper-wraps in which household groceries came. At 21, she was arm-twisted into a marriage to Malik, a political aspirant attached to the DMK. In Salma, a Channel 4 documentary on her life, she talked of abuse: “He once threatened to pour acid over me. I was so scared that I used to put my little baby’s face on mine while sleeping so I could be safe.”  
 
 
It was poetry that saved Salma. “I would stand in the wet bathroom and write. I had to hide paper and pen among my sanitary napkins because my husband destroyed many of my poems,” she said in the documentary.
 
In 2000, her mother sent some of her poems to a publisher in Chennai, and these became a collection called Oru Maalaiyum, Innoru Maalaiyum (One Evening, Another Evening) and were written under the pseudonym Salma.
 
Salma continued to work in anonymity till politics entered her life.
 
In 2002, Tuvarankurinchi was declared a seat reserved for women and Malik asked Salma to contest elections for the post of the town panchayat chairperson. “I was surprised. He had never allowed me to step out of the house. But it was an opportunity to work for women’s issues,” she said.
 
The 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution, that mandated a minimum 33% reservation of seats for women, scheduled castes and tribes in local governance, turned out to be her ticket to freedom.
 
Salma was popular among the women of her constituency. She travelled the world to share her experiences as a woman leader in local governance. Soon after came the first big break in politics and the subsequent events that left her disappointed.
 
The upper-caste, male exclusivity of the political space is a challenge for women trying to move up the hierarchy.
 
Once their panchayat term ends, women have no avenues for growth
 
So what happens to most women leaders when their five-year term in local governance comes to an end?
 
“They go back to where they came from–inside their homes,” said Salma.
 
A majority of women contest elections in panchayats from seats reserved for them and mostly vacated by their male relatives or other (mainly upper caste) male contenders. Our investigations showed that men view panchayat presidency as their domain, one which women must give up once their term ends.
 
“So many women become interested in politics by the time their term ends,” said Salma. “But they may never get another chance. On rare occasions where the husband is ready to concede the seat, people around ask: Why is he giving his wife another chance.’”
 
Dalit women panchayat leaders find it near impossible to contest general category seats because that might upset the precarious caste relations in the village.
 
Sharmila Devi, the dalit woman leader of Thirumanvayal panchayat in Sivagangai district, who solved the persistent water problem of her village, knows she cannot contest again even though she wants to. It is a given that unreserved seats go to dominant caste men.
 
“In the last elections, the Kallar caste cooperated with us, so we have to cooperate with them in the next election,” she said in a resigned tone.
 

Sharmila Devi, the Dalit panchayat president of Thirumanvayal, solved the persistent water problem of her village. Sharmila knows she cannot contest again even though she wants to. It is a given that unreserved seats go to dominant caste men.
 
Politics is not for ‘good’ women
 
For most women, the struggle begins at home where families find the idea of women in politics distasteful.
 
Rani Sathappan, the former president of K Rayavaram panchayat in Sivagangai district, was a reluctant entrant into rural politics. In 1996, she was persuaded by village elders to contest because they believed she came from the “right” family.
 
During her 10-year tenure, she made far reaching changes in her panchayat, including making it plastic-free. She went on to chair the Tamil Nadu Women Panchayat President’s Federation that was instrumental in lobbying for a fixed 10-year reservation term, and led the protest for a ban against liquor when the state government chose to withdraw it. She also led the team that lobbied with the former union minister for Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar, against the two-child limit for political candidates in Rajasthan, Bihar and Haryana.
 
Had she considered joining mainstream party politics? Rani smiled, looked at her husband sat across her in her living room in Karaikudi and then smiled again. “Nothing like that,” she said knotting her sari end.
 

Rani Sathappan served as the chair of the Tamil Nadu Women Panchayat Presidents Federation, where she lobbied for crucial state and national level policies. But her political career was stymied because her family found it unacceptable. For most women, the struggle begins at home where families find the idea of women in politics distasteful.
 
“Rani was one of the bright leaders from the first cohort of women presidents,” said Kalpana Satish who worked with her during her stint as a trainer to the federation. “She wanted to move up in politics. But her family would not allow her.”
 
Rani is now a trainer for Congress activists in Sivagangai district.
 
Parties need to actively find and promote women leaders
 
Jothimani Sennimalai, the former councillor of Gudalur west panchayat (Karur district) and the current spokesperson for Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress Committee, too made the transition from local to state and national level politics.
 
“People think reservation in panchayats is a magic bullet that opens doors automatically for women,” she said. “The truth is that after panchayat every single door is closed for women–party hierarchy, state assembly, parliament.”
 
Her career trajectory illustrates why it is important for political parties to take affirmative action to identify, absorb and nurture women from grassroots politics.
 

Jothimani Sennimalai, the former councillor of Gudalur West panchayat and the current spokesperson for the Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress Committee, is one of the few leaders to transition from local to state and national level politics. Her career trajectory illustrates why it is important for political parties to take affirmative action to identify, absorb and nurture women from grassroots politics.
 
At the end of her 10-year term (1996-2006) as a councillor, Jothimani was identified as a potential woman leader by the National Youth Congress in a nationwide talent search for young leaders. She had led a successful legal campaign against the sand mining mafia in Karur. In 2007, she was nominated to the national executive of the party where five of 10 positions are reserved for women, minorities, disabled and transgender persons. She was made the general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and the North East. She contested the state assembly elections in 2011 and Lok Sabha elections in 2014, both of which she lost.
 
Even as early as 1977, the former chief minister MG Ramachandran (MGR) launched a special drive to recruit graduate women for the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and state assembly elections.
 
“That is how an ordinary school teacher like me joined politics,” said Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, currently the deputy general secretary of the DMK. She joined the MGR cabinet as minister for small scale industries and subsequently served as a deputy minister of social justice in United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre in 2004.
 

Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, the current deputy general secretary of the DMK, has had a successful political career as a minister in the state and central governments. Back in 1997, former chief minister MG Ramachandran’s special drive to recruit graduate women into his party brought Subbulakshmi, an ordinary school teacher, into politics.
 
The biggest stumbling block: Getting past district party chiefs
 
District units of political parties are a prime example of how reluctant men are to share political power with women. These units are the frontline of party structures and could be an effective recruitment avenue for women leaders. Headed by a district secretary, they are powerful because they supervise booth, panchayat and block-level committees and mobilise voters.
 
In Tamil Nadu, no major political party has a woman district secretary in 30 districts. The lone exception is the DMK which has four women as district secretaries.
 
“The district secretary is a powerful position,” said Salma. “Even a powerful woman leader like Jayalalithaa understood that men just simply cannot imagine working under a woman. So, she did not appoint a single woman (in that position).”
 
This is entirely possible, Jothimani explained. “The district secretary has frontline committees under him that can reach 250,000 voters within 30 days of campaign time,” she said.
 
All parties preach gender equality, rarely practise it
 
The Congress party has a rule that 33% of the district unit positions must be reserved for women but it has yet to implement it, Jothimani pointed out. This is the case with the left parties as well.
 
“We preach equality hence we should practice it. But we have no woman secretary and few women in district committees,” said K Bala Bharathi, the three-time Communist Party of India, Marxist (CPI(M)) legislator from Dindigul.
 
State committees are equally gender-skewed. Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan is the sole woman in the top echelons of DMK. The Congress has not reconstituted its top leadership committee in the last 15 years. And the CPI(M) has 10 women in an 81-member state committee, all of 12%.
 
Women leaders across parties stressed the need to reserve spaces for women, especially from Dalit and Adivasi homes.
 
“There should be at least 33% reservation for women right through the party hierarchy–booth, panchayat, block, district and state level,” said Jothimani. “In fact, I say let it be 50% reservation. That’s a fair representation.”
 
At the moment, the only place where women can be found in large numbers is the women’s wing of a party.
 
“We have petitioned for a minimum reservation of 30% positions for women and minorities at state and district level in CPI(M) in Tamil Nadu. The politburo has yet to decide,” said Bharathi with a laugh.
 
Currently, 52 countries in the world have voluntary party quotas for women in their party positions ranging from 30% to 50%, according to the Global Database on Quotas for Women.
 
Only 6-15% women candidates in elections
 
The natural consequence of gender imbalance at lower rungs of the party structure is that few women are fielded in elections and even fewer are elected as members of legislative assemblies.
 
Between 1996 and 2016, between 6% and 15% candidates fielded in elections were women. In the last state assembly elections in 2016, the AIADMK and CPI(M) fielded 12% and DMK, 10%. The Congress did not field any women candidates.
 

Source: Election Commission Of India reports for Tamil Nadu assembly elections 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016
 
Between 1996 and 2016, women MLAs accounted for 3% to 10% of the Tamil Nadu state Assembly.
 

Source: Election Commission Of India reports for Tamil Nadu assembly elections 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016
 
“Parties claim that they can’t find enough women candidates,” said Salma. “What about the thousands of women who are in grassroots politics? What about the women in the women’s wing of parties? How are all these women so invisible?”
 
Shortage of women leaders: A myth created by parties
 
This myth of this shortage of women candidates is laid bare in a new study by Stephen D O’Connell of IZA Institute of Labour Economics which examined the effect of gender quotas in local bodies on the supply of women candidates for assembly and parliament elections in India. The study concluded that constituencies that are exposed to an average of 3.4 years of gender quotas at the local level have an additional 38.75 female candidates running for parliament–an increase of 35% between 1991 and 2009. For state assemblies, an additional 67.8 female candidates were running for office in constituencies with an average exposure of 2.8 years of quotas.
 
Other women candidates who ran for state assemblies were primarily those with prior exposure to local government, according to the study. Women who ran for national parliament were those who had contested but lost in state assembly elections. The study concluded that women are keen to move up in politics.
 
No party support, so women contest as independent candidates
 
Most women, however, noted the study, run as independent candidates because parties are reluctant to give them tickets. The number of women contestants in Tamil Nadu has increased from 144 in 2011 to 311 in 2016. The number of independent women candidates contesting rose from 63 to 97 in the same period, according to data from the Election Commission.
 
But women who are incorporated into major political parties have a greater chance of winning than independents, according to O’Connell’s study.
 
Rani Muniyakanu, the former president of the Vaduvanchery panchayat in Nagapattinam district between 1996-2006, who fought a long legal campaign against the sand mafia in the region, contested state assembly elections on an independent ticket in 2011. She lost in those elections and soon after joined the Congress.
 
“It is difficult to win as an independent candidate but getting a ticket from a political party is very difficult too,” she said.
 

Rani Muniyakanu, who fought a long legal campaign against the sand mafia, contested state assembly elections on an independent ticket in 2011. She lost in those elections and soon after joined the Congress. Political reservations have created a new pool of women leaders who contest elections mostly as independents, studies pointed out, but they are less likely to win than contestants of political parties.
 
The other excuse political parties give is that women are not winnable, said some of the women interviewed. Rajeswari, the Dalit president of Kuruthangudi panchayat in Sivagangai district, was popular for her work and was promised a ticket from Manamadurai constituency but refused at the last minute by the AIADMK in the 2016 assembly elections.
 
“They said the man had a better chance of winning,” Rajeswari said, the disappointment evident in her voice.
 
Jothimani’s party fielded her from Karur constituency in the state assembly elections in 2011 and general elections in 2014; she lost both. In 2016, she decided to contest from Aravakurichi, a constituency she was more familiar with, and started a pre-election voter outreach campaign. The party denied her the seat and she protested publicly against this.
 
A 2010 study on the glass ceiling in politics in the United Kingdom noted that that women (and ethnic minorities) fielded by the Conservative Party were less successful in elections because they were put up in unwinnable constituencies, largely as a window-dressing measure.
 
“Party structures think that, if denied, women won’t fight back,” said Jothimani. “That is a perception I wanted to change when I protested publicly.”
 
Women don’t have enough funds to fight elections
 
A political career needs substantial financial investment–especially around election time–and few women can afford that. Meagre honorariums for women panchayat leaders barely cover their everyday expenses at work, which often eat into their personal household finances. Finding a continued pipeline of finance to move higher in the political hierarchy is rather difficult for grassroots women leaders, especially those from Dalit and Adivasi communities.
 
Jothimani’s 22-year-long political career has largely been funded by her mother. The family owns agricultural land. Most women do not have control over their family finances and, in the absence of their family’s support, find it impossible to enter and continue in politics.
 
“A district secretary, an unpaid position, needs at least Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh a month to carry out his duties. Where do grassroots women leaders find that kind of money?” asked Jothimani.
 
Women leaders IndiaSpend spoke to believe that there needs to be a centralised financing mechanism for political party work to sustain women and marginalised groups. The financing model of the Left parties, according to women leaders, is a better alternative.
 
“MLAs and MPs in Left parties do not take their salaries home. They have to give it back to the party, which is then used to pay full-time office bearers,” says Bala Bharati.
 
Salma recalled ploughing Rs 5 crore into the 2006 elections. “The party only gave a small amount. I had to raise the rest myself,” she said. In 2016, when she wanted to contest again, the party again refused to help her raise any finances.
 
Campaign finance is the sole reason that Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan stopped contesting elections. “When I wanted to contest assembly elections after my stint as a minister in the central government in 2009, election expenditure had shot up to Rs 5 crore. Besides, there was a new practice of giving money to the voters to get support. So I opted to do party work instead,” she says.
 
Sexual exploitation is another problem in politics and there is no redressal mechanism. “Political parties do not follow the Visakha guidelines on sexual harassment,” Salma said.
 
Leaders like Jothimani, though still struggling financially, see the need to change the perception of politics as a career choice for women. When she decided to contest elections in 1996 at the age of 21, she remembers how relatives tried to convince her that it was a wrong choice for an educated woman. Twenty-two years later, people are still trying to convince her to get a “proper” job, she said.
 
“In this patriarchal system, where men hold power and are reluctant to share it, they have very cleverly convinced women that politics is not for them. We need to stop buying into this idea,” she said.
 
This is the last of a five-part series. You can read other stories in the series here:
 
Part 1: The Triumph Of Sharmila Devi And Tamil Nadu’s Women Leaders
Part 2: Meagre Funds, No Salary: How Tamil Nadu’s Women Leaders Still Succeed
Part 3: Why Muthukanni, A Dalit, Had To Build Her Own Panchayat Office
Part 4: Tamil Nadu’s Women Leaders Live, Work In The Shadow Of Violence
 
(Rao is a co-creator of GenderinPolitics, a project which tracks women’s representation and political participation in India at all levels of governance.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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