Village women leaders fight back

By KS Shaini
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Indira Kushwaha has fled her village after she was threatened (Pics: Prakash Hatvalne)

Shyama Tomar is an elected woman leader of a village council in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh

But her status in India's male-dominated heartland did not stop a male colleague from allegedly slapping and tearing off her clothes in full view of people in a busy public square in June.

Shyama, 45, says her only "crime" was to discontinue the free supply of water carried by tanker trucks in her water-scarce village to a hotel owned by her colleague, a 60-year-old vice president of the same village council.

After taking over the village council, the feisty teacher-turned village council leader found that proceeds from the sale of water supplied by the council to villagers by tanker trucks over five years had been an abysmal 506 rupees ($11).

During her first year in the job proceeds from selling water climbed over 20 times, a clear indication that money from earlier sales was being siphoned off.

"It was not my personal insult. It was insulting the position I occupy," says Shyama.

She is the not the only woman village council leader in Madhya Pradesh who is facing the ire of her male colleagues for asking too many questions.

Indira Kushwaha, the head of Mahoikala village in Chhattarpur district, was allegedly dragged out of her house, nearly stripped naked and paraded around the village by a group of men in June. Her son was also beaten up.

Undeterred

She says her crime was refusing an influential upper-caste family in the village a sum of 50,000 rupees ($1,112) from the 179,000 rupees ($3,980) of government funds for development work.

Shyama Tomar was slapped and abused in full view of people

Indira remains undeterred after the attack that her forced her to flee her place and take up home in a neighbouring village.

"Come what may, I will not allow anyone to loot village council funds," she says.

Of the nearly 400,000 elected positions in Madhya Pradesh's 10-year-old three-tier panchayat system (village council system), women occupy 134,368 seats.

Still, many women leaders have to face the ire of their male colleagues for refusing to kow-tow to them, to clear inflated development bills or simply giving a cut of government funds.

Shyama Tomar's work with the Bagli Nagar village council is a good example - ever since she took over five years ago, revenues have gone up nearly 20-fold and translated into better roads and civic amenities for the 15,000 residents.

But it has been an extremely tough going - she has been allegedly abused and beaten up by her male colleague, and a dozen criminal cases have been registered against her by her colleague and his supporters.

"Not a single case was registered against me in my 22 years in government service as a teacher. It seems I became a habitual offender the moment I took office," Shyama says wryly.

Feeling humiliated and helpless, she says she did not come out of her house for three days and even contemplated putting in her papers.

Proxy leaders

"But then, I decided not to give up. I will work for my full term," Shyama says now.

Analysts say elected women village councils leaders continue to face humiliation, abuse and physical violence from their male colleagues and, sometimes, the male-dominated village establishment.

Women leaders were earlier called proxies of their male relatives

They say most women leaders have cracked down on village corruption with a heavy hand angering the establishment further.

It is now almost a decade since women breached the hitherto male bastion of the village councils, thanks to a law reserving one-third of the positions for them.

It took them several years to emerge out of the shadows of their male relatives, keen to use them as mere rubber stamps.

In the early days the women leaders were often called proxy leaders, implying that their husbands, fathers and brothers actually ran the show.

Analysts say the patriarchal society was finding it difficult to adjust to the reality of women occupying positions of power and responsibility.

Ten years down the line, most of the women leaders have definitely come of age.

The women village council leaders of Madhya Pradesh like Shyama and Indira are proof of that.