Women crusaders vow end to village’s hassles

In 1979, Saigata made news when the women of the village decided to join hands and maintain vigil over their forests to save them from degeneration, much before the Joint Forest Management policy of the government came into force. Suryabhan Khobragade, 57, who spearheaded the movement then, says, “There was rampant tree-felling and abuse of forest produce and I realised that if I wanted to save the forest, I had to involve the women. Today, our forest is dense once again, the groundwater table has gone up and we have also constructed a lake in the middle of the jungle.” The Resource and Support Centre for Development (RSCD) which organised the convention felt this was the apt venue for the women’s meet.

Though 33 per cent reservation for women was introduced for local self-governance all over India five years ago, Maharashtra is one of the few states that has actively implemented the rules. It is only here that one out of ten villages has to compulsorily have a woman sarpanch on a lottery system, apart from the seats reserved for them. Even then, the going has been tough and women more often than not face a no-confidence motion’ for not listening to the men and taking decisions on their own. At the convention, women narrated tales of husbands beating them up, others attending panchayats on behalf of their wives, and receiving threats from local goons and contractors for refusing to comply with their orders. Takshila Waghdhare, member of the Nagpur Zilla Parishad, says, “My husband told me that if I attended the meetings, I would have to leave the house. After 15 years of marriage, I realised that my house did not belong to me. Fortunately, I got through because my mother-in-law supported me. Today even myhusband stands by me.”

Most women complain that agendas for gram panchayat meetings are deliberately not given to them and that men smirk and pass remarks if they speak. In fact, in some parts of the state like Bhandara district, no-confidence motions’ have become a nuisance. The RSCD, which has been playing an active role in strengthening the panchayati raj system, says that if the trend continues unabated, they might seek an amendment. “We didn’t know that women in other villages too faced the same problems like us. Now that we know, we will fight tooth and nail against them,” said the participants.

Bureaucratic hassles also abound and very few know about the functioning of the State Finance Corporation (SFC), which was set up for reviewing the funding and budgeting of gram panchayats. The Central fund does not reach the gram sevaks and in 1997, when the SFC came out with its first report, people had to go to court to get a copy of it.

At the Saigata convention, the women passed resolutions to approach the government on several issues like compulsory property rights for women in villages, rights over natural resources and framing State policies like budgets keeping women in mind. They also decided to contest through open seats to increase their numbers.

Dr Santosh Kumar of the RSCD says, “It’s true that only 25 per cent of the elected women are assertive. But wherever they have decided to speak up, the villages have prospered. They have almost brought alcoholism to a nil and inculcated the habit of savings among villagers in a big way.”