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Magazine
Grassroots democrats
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JAGAT S. MEHTA writes of a workshop in Rajasthan to empower women officials elected under the Panchayati Raj system.
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THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Learning anew ... at a literacy class in Rajasthan.
AT a recent workshop for women elected under the Panchayati Raj system, drawn from the Bhil villages contiguous to Udaipur city, out of 42 participants as many as 27 had never travelled by train. What was even more striking was that seven had never seen "a railway" though a metre gauge line runs through the district for almost 1000 miles. These revelations indicate the poverty and isolation even of chosen grassroots leaders. This workshop was held between February 28 and March 8 to coincide with International Women's Day organised by the Vidya Bhavan Institute of Local Self Government and Responsible Citizenship.
When the women's empowerment session was planned, the classroom could seat only 25, but when 42 women turned up, some temporary adjustments were made. Four women had children with them and two were nursing mothers.
During a bus ride, the faculty member accompanying them overheard the question "Rail gadi kashi we" (What is a railway?). He then modified the training programme and took the group to the railway station in time for an outgoing passenger train to Marvar Junction. He quietly advanced Rs. 140 to the booking clerk and then made everyone go through the process of buying her own ticket.
But the rail track goes over a bridge on the Ahar (which incidentally used to flow round the year but now carries only sewage except during the monsoon). When one of the women saw the train hanging in the air with no visible contact to the ground, she started screaming that the train was about to plunge into a chasm.
I heard about this incident when I went for the concluding session. This lady had, by then, recovered from the fright and was quite exhilarated by the experience of her first railway journey. When asked what she had learnt over these six days, she replied that she would now advise pregnant mothers that the first injection must be in the second month (not, as they had thought, in the eight month). The mother, she repeated, must be told of the other precautions like B.C.G, polio shots and smallpox vaccinations.
Some other participants volunteered to start or restart their Mahila Mandals. The sarpanch from Pai (a village 20 km from Udaipur) said that "we are determined that no one will be allowed to throw away a girl child". Another from Kavita village said, "We will make sure that both boys and girls are sent to school". The sarpanch from Gogunda said, "We will stop the marriage of young girls and have smaller and spaced families." Quite a few said, "We will try to put an end to corruption and land encroachment on our village common lands."
What emerged from a frank and unforced discussion was that most of them were reflecting a new found self-confidence and capacity for articulation.
Though of Bhil origin and accustomed to ghunghat, (covering their faces) they had become more assertive. Of the whole group, no more than 10 were literate. All had no doubt learnt to sign their names after being elected but most could not count up to 20.
All the non-literate women voluntarily attended a two-hour class on all six evenings and got the hang of devnagari script. They seem to reflect a determination that they would not be fooled by the local bania and quite a few even said that they would not even allow their husbands to guide them in their duties as sarpanches.
There are three to four million grassroots officials elected under the Panchayati system. There are 6,000 in the Udaipur district alone and some 2,000 of these are women.
The experiences of the Vidya Bhavan Institute leads one to believe that though, it is a long and tortuous haul, grassroots democrats, especially women, are on the way to becoming aware of their rights and responsibilities.
The writing is on the wall. The Bhil women, who clambered into the second-class compartment of a train for the first time, have made a symbolic statement. City dwellers — long accustomed to travel by train and by air, can get things done through connections and corruption, who elect politicians charge sheeted as criminals, bureaucrats who relish authority but not public service — should be aware of the time when women start climbing in trains and more haltingly on the ladder of modernity and power.
They may well change our privileged complacency but hopefully, in the process, they will save our democracy for social justice.
The writer is a former Foreign Secretary.
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