Abstract

Provisions of reservation had conferred a greater encouragement to women’s participation in politics. It has significantly enhanced their participation in the decision making process and their empowerment in the political sphere and space. The 73 rd Amendment Act of 1992 mandates the participation of women in local self-governance. This Amendment provides greater opportunities to women to take part in the decision making of local governance system. Tripura has a three-tier structure of Panchayet Raj Institutions (PRIs) which comprises of Gram Panchayet (GP), Panchayet Samiti (Block Level) and Zilla Parishad (District Level) since 1993. Village committee function as the lowest tier in the local self governance system in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), as per the establishment of Village Committee Act, 1994. This paper makes an attempt to analyze women’s participation in TTAADC village committee. It will further delve into women’s empowerment through political participation and their active engagement in local governance. This paper is a case study on Gandacharre Sub-Zonal, Dhalai Zonal, Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTADC), North-East India.

Introduction

Constitution of India part 3 of Article 14-18 has mandate the Right to Equality and equal opportunity for all. The relating chapter of right to equality is speaking about the special provisions which being made for ST, SC, OBC, Women and Children for their upliftment. It is the constitution of India which makes provision for women reservation and empowerment. After 73 rd Amendment Act, 1992 Tripura has taken a step towards women’s political participation and empowerment like other states of India.

The 73 rd Amendment Act inserted an Article 243 (D) in the constitution which deals with reservation of seats and political offices for women in RPIs. The main features of the Article are 1) One-third of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in every panchayats shall be reserved for women and such seats may be allotted rotation to different constituencies in Panchayets [ Art. 243-D(1)]; 2) One-third of the total numbers of seats reserved for women under clause 1 shall be reserved for women belonging to SCs and STs [Art. 243-D(2)]; One-third of the total number of offices of Chairpersons in the Panchayet at each level shall be reserved for women (Art. 243-D(4). After learning about the reservation women started to take interest in politics as well as empowerment through participation. The trend of the indigenous women participation in the politics signified India as a largest democracy in the world.

The paper has made attempt to analyse women participation in Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council village committee. The District Council was established as an independent Council in the tribal areas within the state through TTAADC Act 1979, pass by the parliament. The Council was set up in 18 th January, 1982 as an Autonomous Body in the state under the 7 th Schedule of the Constitution. Later on, with the objective of entrusting more responsibilities and powers has given to the TTAADC. The 49 th Amendment of the Constitution of India extended provisions of the 6 th Schedule in Tripura from 1 st April 1985. The TTAADC has covers four revenue district of the state, which is about 68% of the total of the state. The District Council has 84% of Schedule Tribes, Schedule Caste 5% and other communities have 11% of population.

Here, paper also attempted to highlight powers and functions of the District Council. It has 28 elected members and 2 tribal members nominated by the Governor of the state. Out of 28 constituencies 25 constituencies were reserved for indigenous 3 reserved for Schedule Caste. District Council is vested with both legislative and executive powers. The chairperson of the TTAADC is responsible for the conduct of legislative functions. An executive council of members with a chief executive member discharges the executive functions of the District Council.

The Headquarter of the TTAADC is situated at Khumwlwng of West Tripura. It has been divided into 5 Zonal and 37 Sub-zonal offices. It has 527 village development councils. There is 13 blocks under the territory of TTAADC.. The District Council has 462 revenue villages which is spread over 151 tehisils. The District Council has runs 1375 primary schools and 442 social education centres. The District has some taxation powers but in reality its expenditure is substantially covered by the funds received from the state government.

Chart : 1 The structure of TTADC

The powers and functions of the TTAADC village committee are as follows :

1. The Village Committee shall initiate the development schemes for their Village areas on the control and guidance of the Executive Committee.

2. Subject to such rules as may be prescribed on behalf by the Executive Committee, the Village Committee may exercise all or any of the following functions:-

(i). Sanitation and conservancy of the Village areas;

(ii) Cleaning and maintaining of Village roads and paths;

(iii) Construction and maintenance of Rest house in the village;

(iv) Maintenance of children, adult and women education;

(v) Construction, maintenance and improvement of well and water tanks for the purpose of drinking, bathing and washing of the villagers.

The village committee shall have the power to levy and collect fees within its jurisdiction. Money collected by the Village Committee in accordance with rules as may be prescribed by the District council Act and shall be credited in the Village Committee Fund. The funds may be collected under the following sources:

1. The village committee shall establish and maintain fund to be called “Village Committee Fund”, and there shall be placed to the credit there of;

i) Such contribution from the District Council as may be made to this fund.

ii) Such contribution from corporation, societies, and other public bodies.

2. The District Council may place at the disposal of the village committee the following sources of revenue accruing with the areas;

i) Cattle pound. ii) Local rates. iii) Cart, cycle, boats, other means of conveyance but shall not include taxes the mechanically propelled vehicles, etc.

Provision of reservation

The Village Committee Act 1994 passed by the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, which has received the assent of the Governor on 28-04-1994. The Village Committee means a Committee constituted Accordance with the provision of paragraph 3(1)(e) of the Sixth Schedule to the constitution of India and this Act. The TTAADC, authority has completed the 527 Numbers of Village Committee Election in the year 2006 and 2011. The provision of reservation for women was adopted 33% in the TTAADC village committee election 2006. In accordance to the 73 rd and 74 th Constitutional Amendment of reservation policy for women in the rural and urban Local Self Governing Bodies in India. However, 50% reservation of the women d has been implemented in the village committee election 2011 as per 110 constitution Amendment Bill, 2009.

Allotment of seats in the Village Committee in accordance to the population is measure under the flowing Scale :-

Source : TTAADC village committee rules 2006.

Objectives of the study

I. To explore the women’s empowerment through political participation.

II. To highlight an active participation of tribal women in local governance.

III. To emphasis the powers and function of the TTAADC village committee.

IV. To analyse the political status of tribal women in the concern study areas.

V. To study the impact of the provision of women reservation in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council.

VI. To understand and identify the problems faced by the tribal women members in the recent politics.

Methodology

To meet present study, Gandacharre Sub-Zonal of Dhalai Zone, Tripura, North-East India has been selected purposively because this sub-zone of TTAADC is one of extreme remote area. To collect information, one-fourth of the total village committees of the study area have been selected. For complete assessment of this study empirical and analytical research methods have been used. Empiricalresearch in a sense, an individual case study was undertaken, data was collected from various resources by formal interviews with officials personal of the areas. Open and closed end questionnaire have been applied. On the other hand, Analytical research in a sense, facts or information has been used from books, booklets, Gazette notifications, news papers, register of ordinary resident, etc.

Findings of the study :

Gandacharre Sub-Zone is one of the thirty-seven sub-zone of the TTAADC, is situated in the Gandacharre sub-division of the Dhalai Tripura. This sub-zone has been divided into nineteen village committees. Out of nineteen village committees fourteen village committees are fully dominated by tribal and five village committees are mixed with tribal and non-tribal. In the nineteen village committees, there are one hundred seventy-three representatives, out of that seventy-eight woman were elected as representative in the 2011 TTAADC village committee election. There are sixty-nine tribal women representatives out of seventy-eight representatives. Ten tribal women representatives are holding office of the chairperson and three are occupied office of the vice-chairperson. The scenario highlights success of the greater democracy and provisions of women reservation Bill, 2009. It is an evident of emerging trends and a high participatory of nature of womenfolk in decision making. It is observed most of the people predominately dependent on huk cultivation and agriculture. Now, I would like to go on to provide some of the cases studies of this paper.

A. The first Village Committee I surveyed is Saima ADC Village. It is situated 3.5 Km away from the sub-zonal office. The Village Committee is divided into 6 wards and has eleven members. Four positions are reserved for ST’s and five for SC’s. Out of the eleven seats five are reserve for women. Here, two seats are occupied by Tribal women. The office of the chairperson is occupied by Tribal women Smt. Fularani Chakma. She is 42 years old and mother of two children. This ADC village is dominated by one party in all seats.

She discharges her duties smoothly. She presides over the meetings of the Village Committee and gave her opinion on any issues. Her opinion is mere important in any policy decisions in the Village Committee. As she is strong representative she does not face any major problems. But she feels that she needs more awareness, training, workshop, etc. for the proper implementations of the project and to give good governance to the villagers.

When I questioned her as to whether she would contest the next elections even if the seat was unreserved, she responded that I must contest the elections to enjoy greater democracy of India. Her political family background, education and economic soundness have apparently made a significant difference.

B. Next Village Committee which I have surveyed is Bhagirath ADC village committee which is located around 25 kilometres from its sub-zonal office. There are 3003 populations and 718 families. The Village Committee is divided into five wards and has nine representatives (seats). This Village Committee is completely dominated by tribal so all seats is for tribal reserved. Here, four seats are reserved for women representatives. A tribal dominated area all women representatives are tribal women. The office of the vice-chairperson is holding women representative Smt. Pramila Tripura. However, three women representatives are observed illiterate and face many problems to communicate the office in different issues. Although they are illiterates they have potential to ask questions, speaks on different issues in the Village Committee meetings.

This Village Committee has very poor connectivity, no facility of electricity, lack of drinking water, and means of other communications too. Most of the families are dependent on huk cultivation for their livelihood.

Women representatives of this surveyed area found less interest in politics as they are lack of awareness in politics. Though they categorically denies being a puppet in the hands of the local politician, as they pointed out they does attend in the meetings of the Village Committee but they does accept the fact that they have not been able to use the Village Committee fund for doing some substantial work for the upliftment of women in their area as most of the funds are traditionally earmarked for the village development projects. Citing their illiteracy and lack of income generating assets they would not able to dedicate fully in decision making.

C. Another Village Committee where I went to surveyed is Ratan Nagar ADC Village which located Km far from its main headquarter Gandacharre. Smt Champabala Tripura is holding the office of the Chairperson who belongs to schedule tribe. She is politically conscious and regularly presides over the Village Committee meetings and was also actively involved in deliberations that were carried out in the meetings, often expressing her views over the issues raised therein. Though she was not fully conversant with the rules and regulations of the Village Committee meetings\the Village Committee manual but still her awareness level was clearly a touch above other Village Committee chairperson hailing from SC\ST and OBC categories. She had an idea of the major expenditures of the Village Committee and could even tell me about some of the schemes that were being carried out for poverty and unemployment eradication. She accepted that she was not all that comfortable sitting with other male members of the Village Committee and that their attitude at times could be uncooperative if not contemptuous. She does accept the fact that being a woman chairperson has raised the expectations of the women of the village and assures that though she does find it difficult to raise women’s problems in the Village Committee as much as she would like to but even then she does try to do as much as she can given the constraints she has to face.

She emphasises on the need for more awareness on rules and regulations, shames, planning, implementation of the projects and schemes, political issues, education, etc. she also says that TTADC can hardly implements any schemes and project as they have no direct funding system from central government. For that in the ADC village committee has to keep main link with state administration as all kinds of the works is implemented by state government. Instead of sub-zonal office they have to communicate Rural Development block and has to work instruction and implemented work of the block administration.

D. Laxmipur ADC Village Committee is another village committee which I have surveyed. It is located 5 Km far from the sub-zonal office. It has divided into nine seats. Four seats is reserved for women in this village. Three seats are occupied by tribal women one seats holding schedule caste women. The office of the chairperson is holding tribal women representative Miss Laxmi Bala Chakma. After interviewed village chairperson it is observed that she was not aware of the rights and responsibilities that came along with being the Village Council Chairperson apart from attending the meetings of the Village Committee. She shares her lack of knowledge on the rules and regulations of the Village Committee. She blame on her poor literacy and accepted that lack of education and hectic family chores were major obstacles she had to counter. she did not command much respect from other male members of the Village Committee primarily because she was a woman and that too from the scheduled Tribe. She expressed the view that though reservation for women was a welcome move but it would perhaps be better if there was some means of getting a steady income for as she says ultimately it is the money that counts. She would like to see more schemes are initiated to provide employment and income to women. The interview revealed that she was grossly unaware of the operational details of the Village Committee and could not satisfactorily respond to queries about how the Village Committee fund was utilised or allocated and which were the main items of expenditure.

E. Jagabandhu ADC Village Committee I have surveyed is located 8 Km far from its mainstream Gandacharre sub-zonal office. It has 1012 families and 4430 populations. The Village Committee has been divided into 6 wards. There are eleven seats in this Village Committee of which five seats is reserved for women. This Village Committee is also dominated by tribal so all the women reserve seats belong to tribal women. Here, office of the vice-chairperson is holding unmarried women Miss Pramita Tripura. The Village Committee is dominated by one party, CPI(M).

When I questioned her about the projects and scheme implementing in Village Committee she would hardly name few scheme which was being run for the alleviation of poverty in her area, even though the schemes were supposedly operational. When I questioned her as to what exactly she is required to do in the Village Committee meetings she said that she had to be there for the meetings and then would be required to put her signature on the minutes of the proceedings.

Apart from that there was less active participation in the deliberations that were carried out but they reiterates that they does attend the meetings and listens attentively to all that was going on and even offer their opinion “ when asked for”. They accept that there are marked instances of discrimination and bias against women in that area but were not sure how the issues could be tackled through the Village Committee. They does maintain that specific cases , if and when brought up before the Village Committee, would be successfully redressed but apart from these few instances the Village Committee in their view was not a forum for such gender-based issues as the Village Committee was primarily responsible for undertaking the development of the village.

F. A comparative study is taken to analyse the tribal women office bearers’ position in the Village Committees of Gandachare Sub-Zonal during 2006 -2011 and 2011- till date. It is reveals that 36.84% and 42.10% tribal women occupied office of the chairperson and vice-chairperson respectively in the tenure of 2006-2011. In 2006-2011 tenure total tribal women representatives office bearers is 39.47%, in respect to 33% reservation policy. However, implementation of 50% reservation policy has increase participation only in some extent. In 2011, it has been observe that 52.63% tribal holding office of the chairperson. In the other hand, they can occupy only 15.79 % office of the vice-chairperson. Here, it shows that reservation policy has been made injustice. Instead of increasing tribal women or women participation in the decision making it became decreasing 39.47% to 34.21% in the position of office bearers. This situation became due to lack of awareness in politics, decision making, education, economic, communication, etc.

It has identified that provision of reservation mandatory few women to enter in politics and thus forced by their family members or relative to participate in politics. Therefore, many women representatives do not know that for what they have been selected or elected to represent womenfolk and work on behalf of them.

Impact of Women Reservation:

Reservation policies have a great impact on women’s representation in TTAADC Village Committees. Women participate more in the political process in TTAADC village councils in which seats are reserved for women. Women’s experience of being involved with the Village committee has transformed many of them. They have gained a sense of empowerment by asserting control over resources, officials & most of all, by challenging men. They have become articulate & conscious of their power. Despite their low- literacy level, they have been able to tackle the political & bureaucratic system successfully. They have reported regular attendance at village council meetings. They have used their elected authority to address, critical issues such as education, drinking water facilities, family planning facilities, hygiene & health, quality of healthcare & village development. They have also brought alcohol abuse & domestic violence onto the agendas of political campaigns. Women representatives devote more energy to women-specific issues than men do, and get more successful in passing legislation on women’s issues when they propose them. However, the primary responsibilities of women in rural areas in India, besides working on the fields, are to fetch water, fuel & to take care of children. In the present study it has been reveals, reservation policies have encourage women to participate greater democracy and in greater decision making.

Suggestions :

1. Need to awareness against provisions of reservation policy, rules and regulations, advantages, etc.

2. Need to encourage them to take leadership role in decision making and also to meet social responsibilities.

3. Need proper awareness by campaigns, workshops, trainings, seminars etc for appropriate utilization of available funds provided by government.

4. Need to have supportive mechanism to ease domestic-burden and enable them to participate actively and discharge their political duties effectively.

5. Improvement in Education, Health, Economic and social issues.

Conclusion :

The adoption of legislative approach to women empowerment through the reservation of seats in Panchayat Raj institutions and that too at a time when the government has shown a keen commitment to implement various employment and poverty eradication schemes at the very grassroot levels and increasing the role of local self governments in the implementation of plans, is definitely a desirable and welcome move and should ideally prove to be effective. But the conclusions arrived at on the basis of the empirical survey do not hint at such as success story materialising ,at least not of yet. It would only be fair to conclude that the provision of reservation of seats in PRI’s , although seems apparently laudable has merely inducted a few women in the political process and raised their status temporarily without evincing any desirable signs of their active participation in decision making in the interests of women. Though it is indeed heartening to note that in the 2011 Village Committee elections of TTAADC women have captured less then 50 per cent seats. There is unanimity about the fact that their performance is primarily hindered on account of illiteracy, lack of mobility, poverty coupled with little or no access to productive assets, womanness, family responsibilities, corrupt\ indifferently uncooperative government officials, male militancy and traditionally orthodox biased social institutions, and despite recognizing the fact that a lot should be done for promoting girls education, for providing vocational training to women, for improving the health, maternity and sanitation facilities, for organising and uniting them for fighting against social evils like sexual exploitation, domestic violence etc, they still find themselves unable to take up the gauntlet for there is an intricate web of adverse factors which effectively infringes their desire and ability to do so. Undoubtedly the political process of empowerment provides collective strength to women. Individually a woman feels week, shy and vulnerable but when they do get a platform we see them shedding that mantle readily and form a class to fight for their rights and amelioration of women related problems and issues. Rightly observes Noble Laureate Mohammad Yunus , “ Empowerment leads to political power and political power leads to decision-making.” Institutional changes are needed in civil society, the media, political parties, legislatures and the judicial system in order to support women’s policy agendas and to make the transition from policy to practice.

Despite the fact that women’s effective participation in the Village Committee leaves much to be desired and also recognizing that women representatives are mostly either subservient to the militantly dominant male class or at best dummy surrogates planted to serve the vested interests of their masters, to conclude that women’s reservation in the Village Committee has not made a mark in terms of improving the grim scenario faced by women in general and poor and low caste women in particular, would be an exercise in fallacy.

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