Dalit women members face male bias

At least 43.52 percent of the women respondents said their views and ideas were not considered while implementing projects, and 15.7 percent of them faced abuses from fellow representatives.

Of them, 21.3 percent suffered non-cooperation by colleagues.

Dr Dinesha P. T. of Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, University of Mysore, conducted the study, Dalit Women Panchayat Representatives and Social Exclusion: Myth or Reality? in 2014.

However, Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) director P. Balan said such instances had not come to their notice.

The KILA was focusing on training and documenting exemplary works done by panchayats.

“In my experience, some of the best models have come from panchayats with women presidents like Pulamanthol and Adat,” Mr Balan told Deccan Chronicle.

V. B. Ajayakumar, executive director of Rights, which has been working in the field of the rights of the marginalised, said his personal experience of working with women members in four panchayats were that they were well versed in the local development issues.

“My experience is that Dalit women are often more empowered than their counterparts,” he said. But they were often discriminated against. One Dalit women panchayat president once narrated an incident.

She had, in fact, put forward a project for supplying laptop computers to all girl students from Dalit families. But it was replaced with another project for distributing table lamps after the intervention of her party.

“The idea would have been acceptable if it had been put forward by the party,” Mr Ajayakumar said. “Patriarchal notion was the reason the political parties nominate men to look into the affairs of local bodies led by women. Dalit women members face both the gender as well as caste bias.”