Women’s Political Participation and Leadership in Local Governance

Abstract

Local governance is the level of the state that is most close to citizens, and the inclusion of women in it is crucial to the issue of the inclusiveness of democracy in practice. This paper is an examination of the participation and leadership of women in local governance in India with the aid of secondary data obtained from Election Commission of India (ECI), Ministry of Panchayati Raj and published research. It charts the development of the legal landscape, starting with the Committee on the Status of Women, moving to the Seventy third and Seventhy fourth Constitutional Amendments and finally to the rise of reservation in some states to 50 per cent. It looks at the proportion of women in local bodies, the proportion of women in Parliament and state legislatures, and the shrinking and even flipping of the gender gap in voter turnout. It then examines research activities regarding the performance of women leaders and the challenges they encounter, amongst others, proxy representation, social norms, limited resources, and disadvantage due to caste. The paper suggests that reservation has catapulted women into public offices in unprecedented numbers, and created a concomitant change in priorities and attitudes, but also that a mere presence of numbers does not necessarily equal effective leadership. It calls for capacity building, devolution of real power and protection from proxy rule and safer political spaces for women's leadership to be substantive.