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India - The Hunger Project in Tamil Nadu: Empowering Elected Women Leaders

Tamil Nadu held panchayat (village council) elections in two phases starting on the 13th and 15th October in 2006 in all 12,618 gram panchayats. All districts went to the polls and 1,16,488 representatives were elected in all three tiers of the Panchayati Raj Institutions. Among them are 39,364 women representatives. They are the new panchayat leaders – Icons of change in Tamil Nadu.

Following the elections, the newly elected women representatives (EWRs) are strong, enthusiastic, vocal and most likely more literate than their counterparts in the rest of India. The state boasts a very active federation of elected women representatives, which provides a platform through which the members lobby and undertake advocacy of policy issues that hinder their leadership.

Through their strong leadership, the EWRs of Tamil Nadu were able to change the existing law relating to the Rotation of Reservation. Unique in the whole country, Tamil Nadu now has a rotation of positions especially for women and Dalits once in ten years.

Women's Leadership Workshop 

In 2007, being that it was the first year after local body elections, the partners focused on holding Women’s Leadership Workshops (WLWs). Many of the newly EWRs who are entering the public arena for the first time lack confidence, information, and knowledge of roles and responsibilities. They feel isolated in their new role. Therefore, Women’s Leadership Workshops have been created keeping the needs of the newly elected women leaders in mind. The purpose of these workshops is to build their self-confidence and help them in preparing themselves for their new role. The participatory style of the workshop provides for sharing and learning from each other’s experiences and discovering their own strength. The workshop seeks to instill and facilitate:

• Creation of a sense of self-esteem and dignity;
• A shift from a mindset of "I cannot" to "I can;"
• Understanding of the self as a woman, caste, class, religion, and leader;
• Understanding political citizenship;
• Articulation of a vision for their communities;
• Skills to be effective panchayat leaders;
• Understanding society as a system and understanding how power imbalances operate;
• Creation of a sense of solidarity with others committed to this cause; and
• Emphasis on the importance of the participation of women in regular panchayat meetings and Gram Sabhas (general body meetings).

As of October 2007, ten WLWs had been completed in seven districts with a goal of holding 31 WLWs by year's end.

Pre-Election Campaign

In the last half of 2006, The Hunger Project decided to implement SWEEP – Strengthening Women’s Empowerment through Electoral Processes – to encourage more women to contest in the panchayat elections. The objective was also to avoid election of proxy candidates and to appeal to the voters to elect genuine and capable candidates interested in bringing positive change in the village panchayats. Twenty-three field-level partner organizations collaborated with The Hunger Project to implement SWEEP in 1,892 panchayats in 22 districts of Tamil Nadu.

The results of the SWEEP campaign are listed below:

• Women trained to contest in elections: 21,134
• Women trained to work as booth agents: 6,709
• Women trained to work as counting agents: 3,348
• Women filed their nominations for ward members: 2,772 (13%)
• Women filed for the post of Presidents: 768 (3.60%)
• Women won as Ward Members: 1,281 (6.06%)
• Women won as Presidents: 257 (33.46%)

Two "Training of Trainers" workshops were held to train field-level staff to implement SWEEP in 16 districts. An all-women Dalit drummers troupe called "Shakti" was commissioned to spread the message of a clean and representative election through dance and drama.

The Hunger Project continues to work with ten partner organizations and is now focusing more on building the capacities of tribal and Dalit women in Tamil Nadu.

Shakti troupe spreading the message through dance and song

State-Level Convention of Elected Women Representatives

In a recent move to welcome the newly elected women representatives, The Hunger Project, in collaboration with other partners, organized a state-level convention of elected women representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions to celebrate International Women’s Day at Trichy on March 10, 2007. One thousand and four hundred newly elected women representatives participated in the convention, entitled "We Govern," and shared their experiences of the election process and their hopes and aspirations for the coming five years. The convention was held to focus on the role of women representatives and help the participants understand the powers vested in them for ensuring a more efficient and independent governance of local bodies. "Democracy would prosper in those local bodies which are bestowed with women representatives," observed former Chairperson of the State Women’s Commission, Dr. Vasanthi Devi, exhorting them to imbibe the qualities of a leader and serve the people. Emphasizing the need for quality education to rural children, she urged the representatives to monitor the strength of teachers in rural schools and their attendance.

Women Leaders Presenting their Charter of Demands to the Government.

Following the Convention, the 1,400 Dalit panchayat representatives present across party lines were of the view that Tamil Nadu has a long way to go in implementing the 73rd Constitutional Amendment in letter and spirit. Because (a) the culture of local self-governance as envisaged in Part IX of the Constitution is uneven in the State; and (b) the Panchayat Raj reforms are not institutionalized -- the worst victims are the women and Dalits who contest the constitutionally mandated panchayat elections, the Dalits who get elected as members, as well as those occupying the offices of Vice-President or President. Tamil Nadu, which has achieved remarkable success in political process and economic development, is far behind in the area of social development because of the caste system. This is reflected in all walks of life. Today it is even more acutely felt as the new generations of panchayats have come into existence.

Therefore the Elected Women Representatives of Local Government of Tamil Nadu placed before the Government of Tamil Nadu 17 demands.

Some excerpts:

1. Though five months have passed since the PRI elections and the elected women representatives have been sworn into power, the roles and responsibilities are not yet handed over to the newly elected representatives of the panchayats. This results in non-functioning of the panchayats. Hence we urge the Government of Tamil Nadu to intervene in this issue and to ensure the handover of responsibilities to the respective Panchayat Presidents.

2. All arrangements must be made for imparting special training to the women and Dalit elected panchayat members enabling them to understand their rights and responsibilities in the third tier of Government, i.e. the panchayats.

3. We demand that Section 205 of Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act 1994 which has given powers to the District Collector to remove the Panchayat Presidents from Office without enquiry should be repealed by making an amendment to the Act. Because of the prevalence of Section 205, the SC/ST members are the worst affected.

4. We demand the Tamil Nadu Government to stop indiscriminate sand mining in river basins. This has resulted in the depletion of drinking water and irrigation water resources. Despite court orders and The Tamil Nadu Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1959 and Mines and Minerals (Regulations and Development) Act 1957, regular illegal sand mining and discharge of effluents from dying factory are taking place. This is resulting in contamination of water resources and depleting of water tables. We urge the Government of Tamil Nadu to take reparatory measures to safeguard the livelihood resources of the panchayats where sand has been over quarried.

5. We also demand that all the rights over the common property resources shall be vested to the panchayats so as to protect the livelihood resources of the panchayats.

6. The livelihood resources of panchayats such as land, water, minerals etc. are going to be depleted by the implementation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and hence we demand that the Government of Tamil Nadu should frame guidelines that before implementing SEZ, the concerned District Administration should get a mandated NOC from the respective Panchayats.

Strengthening Women's Participation in Governance

The process of engaging with elected women representatives to strengthen women’s participation in governance was initiated with the SWEEP process before the panchayat elections in 2006.

Thereafter, Women’s Leadership Workshops (WLWs) have been held for all the elected women in the area. Follow-up workshops to the WLWs have also been planned for the women Presidents and Ward members.

Outcomes:

· Women worked as booth agents and counting agentsl

· Women contested for general seats for the first time.

· Women contested elections for second and third terms.

· Women outnumber men in Gram Sabhas significantly.

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