Women Empowerment at the Grassroots: Lessons from Rural Assam (India)

Abstract

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part two arguments are forwarded. The first argument is that the PRIs as envisaged by the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act 1992 have facilitated neoliberal penetration into the rural India. Panchayats as a means of decentralisation of power has contributed in fulfilling the neoliberal objective of a minimal State since decentralisation is a logical outcome of neoliberal theoretical construction of a minimal state. Panchayat as an agency to mobilise and empower the rural deprived, is used for widening the base of consumerism for the multinational products. This is for the simple reason that consumerism is higher in the socio-economically capable sections of the society. Social mobility and widespread participation are prerequisites for consumerism. The second argument is that although neoliberalism is allowed to penetrate by the Indian ‘welfare' state, such penetration is not without check. The state itself has put resistance to such tendencies. The panchayats are shaped in such a way that they serve as means to State's power exercised through the bureaucracy. Various rural development schemes at the auspices of multilateral agencies are implemented through the panchayats with supervision of the State. While, on one hand, the multilateral agencies are endeavouring to widen the consumer base of the MNCs in the rural areas using the developed transport and communication infrastructures with a dual expectation of- no state interference in the MNCs' operations, and state protection for them at the same, on the other, the state is also exercising control on the multilateral agencies-sponsored development projects by way of supervision through its bureaucracy. Thus a ‘clash of interests' (profit vs. power) between the state and neoliberal tendencies could be noticed. In this clash the greater objective of empowerment of the rural deprived (women) seems lost. Therefore, it can be argued that empowerment of the rural women through panchayats remains farce. This is also  due to, firstly, the majority of the rural women is incapable of becoming the part of grassroots politics, and secondly, the majority of the elected women (victory attributed largely to the reservation policy) is incapable of taking part in the decision making effectively (due to host of reasons). These two arguments are substantiated in the second part of the paper.

This paper is based on primary and secondary data. Primary data used in the second part are collected from field study conducted on women representatives of Gaon Panchayats (GP) in Nalbari district of Assam. For generation of primary data, random sampling method has been employed