50% reservation for women in Panchayats.

It's been long that I have wanted to write about this. I strongly believe that well educated and empowered women can do miracles to our society.

On August 27th, 2009, The Cabinet of India approved 50% of reservation for women. Great decision. Now, we should be having woman sarpanchs and maybe, even a chairwoman in our villages. The rural woman would not be any less than their urban counterparts. In fact, they could be more powerful as far as the authority of Sarpanchs and the chairwoman go.

But the ground reality is very different. Let me give you an example of my own village here. In 2002-2003, the Sarpanch's election in my village was reserved for women. There were about 4-5 women contesting for the seat. Considering the condition of women in rural India, this, by any means, was never a bad figure. The fact was that the villagers were actually voting for the respective husbands of those women. Each of these candidates were just that -- a mere candidate. They were, in reality, proxies for their men back home who wanted to run the affairs of the village but couldn't do so because the seat was to be used by someone of the female gender.

Finally, the elections happened and we, in the village, had a women sarpanch. A funny thing happened once -- one of those days, I was in a shop while spending time with some of my dear villagers and one of those, a fine gentleman, then remarked, "Here goes our Sarpanch". I had never seen our lady Sarpanch and bitten by curiosity, I went out of the way to have a look. There was no sign of the lady. It was her husband.

So when I heard the news about the 50% reservation for women labeled as "Breaking News", I, for a moment, did not know to feel happy or sorry for it all. After all this has happened, rules are made and done with and the breaking news banners have mellowed down -- all would be left of it will be the political claim, a sham, a tamasha -- that the bureaucrats and the netas did so much to empower the women folk of those far flung villages.

At that time, where would be those women, the one in those remote villages who stood in that sarpanch election, I can only wonder.