Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore Sep 10:  A Seminar on women’s participation in Panchayat Raj institutions was held here on Sunday September.9.

Speaking on the occasion former minister T Lalitha Nayak opined that women before seeking reservations in panchayat must demand empowerment. “Political reservations without empowerment would not yield results” Nayak declared. 

Moreover, she bluntly remarked that reservation for women in gram panchayats has resulted in a mockery of the democratic system. 

Citing an instance, to support her statement, she referred to a village in Bellary district where a scheduled caste women, who although elected as gram panchayat president was debarred from presiding over the gram sabha meeting. According to her women’s representation in majority of the panchayat raj institutions were merely “symbolic” as men wielded powers as “de facto” rulers.

In the course of the seminar Nayak gave some statistics about the literacy rate among the women gram panchayat members. Accordingly she said out of a total of 99,402 gram panchayat members, 14,800 are women and 4006 out of this are illiterate. Of the 130 gram panchayat vice-presidents, 103 are illiterate. 

In view of these glaring facts she questioned bluntly “When the rate of illiteracy is so high amongst the elected women representatives, how can the objectives behind a women’s reservation be fulfilled?”

Therefore, she stressed on the need to focus first on empowerment of women. Only when a woman is socially and economically empowered, can she function effectively both on political and administrative fronts, she declared.