Why indeed are political parties in India so anxious to adopt reservation of seats for women in legislatures? This is because they see in this move a brilliant opportunity to appear progressive and just while in reality they secure their own male seats in legislatures and extend their own patriarchal and familial dominance. So chances are that the practice of proxy leadership in state and national politics, hitherto absent, could become visible, writes former IAS officer Sunil Kumar
‘Voting by proxy’ is a well established feature in the corporate world and is generally regarded as a welcome feature which safeguards the interests of small shareholders. Section 105 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013 provides that a member, who is entitled to attend to vote, can appoint another person as a proxy to attend and vote at the meeting on his behalf. ‘Proxy war’ is another well known term where powers try to weaken their adversaries by not engaging in direct confrontation but getting someone else to do the fighting. They operate from behind the scenes. However, ‘proxy leadership’ in politics, is not such a welcome feature and has nuances that are quite at variance with those mentioned above.
The type of proxy leadership seen in India, appears to be a unique Indian contribution and innovation or ‘jugaad’ in politics. The prevailing practice of ‘Pradhan Pati’ or proxy leadership especially in Gram Panchayats has evinced keen media interest in recent times and even elicited a PIL in the Supreme Court. The recommendations made in a report prepared by an Advisory Committee constituted by Ministry of Panchayati Raj on the subject have been widely covered and favourably commented upon by the media. I suppose the interest generated by the web series ‘Panchayat’ aired on OTT has also contributed to interest in the subject.
The recommendations made by the Committee appear sound and in the nature of actions which can be implemented by government departments and agencies working at national and state levels. The Committee has identified a wide range of subjects ranging from patriarchal norms, cultural codification conditioning roles, economic dependency, capacity constraints to weak enforcement mechanisms which serve to create conditions in which this practice can thrive. However, the report looks at the practice after the woman representative has been elected. It would, however, be appropriate to take a quick look at how this practice has evolved in India.
At this stage one may wonder if rule by Bharat, brother of Lord Rama, for fourteen years when Rama was exiled, can be termed as an instance of ‘proxy leadership’ since Bharat never sat on the throne and instead kept the ‘padukas’ of Lord Rama on the throne and ruled in his name. While, prima facie, it appears to be so but then it is very different from the way we understand proxy leadership in Indian context today. It has very strong gender connotations and seems to showcase women as weaker sex and unfit for assuming political roles in modern day India. Further, there is no place for consent of the elected woman representative (EWR). Given the state of patriarchal relations and the prevalent power asymmetry in the family, power is de facto assumed to be vested in the male relative even if not by law.
Patriarchy is not something unique to India. It is present even in other societies and the difficulties faced by women leaders in politics is well documented. Even someone like Angela Merkel is reported to have remarked during an event to mark hundred years of women’s suffrage in Germany that “today no one will laugh when a little girl says she wants to be a minister or the German chancellor.” But one does not come across instances of ‘proxy leadership’ in other countries where the spouse boasts of being the ‘Pradhan or Mukhiya Pati’ and does not hesitate to even undertake official duties on behalf of his elected spouse. These could range from interacting with officials, attending meetings, participating in public functions etc.
The Indian Constitution adopted on 26th November 1949 did not provide for reservation for women. In the Constituent Assembly debates, even the fifteen women members were not in favour of reservation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies. They believed that ‘tokenism’ would not improve the situation of women in any real sense and that the system would ensure their representation in due course. However, that was not to be. The number of women law makers in Lok Sabha has continued to vary in the range of 4 to 15 percent in India in last 75 years if we take only the number of MPs into account. In the Vidhan Sabhas it ranges between ‘nil’ representaion in Mizoram to high of 14.44 percent in Chattisgarh. The average representation in Vidhan Sabhas of all States is around 9 percent.
However, we do not come across examples of ‘proxy leadership’ in politics in roughly the first fifty years of independent India. This can be attributed to the fact that there was no reservation for women in Lok Sabha and/or Vidhan Sabha and politics continued to be a ‘male bastion’. Women who were in politics were relatively well educated and connected. This issue came to the fore in 1990s when Smt.Rabri Devi, wife of Shri Laloo Yadav, was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar following the arrest and imprisonment of Shri Yadav in the Fodder scam. Shri Laloo Yadav continued to call the shots and even clear all important files from ‘prison’ (the IPS Mess in Patna was notified as ‘prison’) before the Chief Minister would affix her signature to formally approve the proposals and clear the files.
But things began to change when provision to reserve one-third seats in rural and urban local governments was inserted into the Constitution vide the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendment Acts (CAA) in 1993. Elections to local governments commenced from 1994 and women reservation became effective. Since, there is constitutional provision for reservation of one-third seats for women in local governments, all State Panchayati Raj and Municipal Acts have had to provide for the same. Since 2006 when Bihar became the first State to provide for 50 percent reservation for women in local governments, twenty more States and two UTs now provide for the same. The number of EWRs in India is a staggering 1.5 million which is the largest in the world. This is largely due to the presence of EWRs in rural and urban local government.
Politics is widely regarded as the ‘rightful domain’ of men and women are perceived to be ‘unfit’ for politics. Deep rooted social, cultural, economic bias come into play. In India there is a tendency to try and beat the ‘system’ and this is at work in most situations. So if we have to list out the characteristics of ‘proxy leadership’ in politics, then it would entail the following:
- Reservation of seats for women
- Electioneering dominated by male relatives of women candidates
- Family matters more for voters than the women candidates
- Power is exercised by male relative of EWR
- Bureaucracy ‘overlooks’ the violation of law & society is comfortable with the perpetuation of the status quo
- Politics continues to remain a ‘male domain’.
The operation of ‘proxy leadership’ in politics becomes evident from the stage of electioneering itself. First, the candidate has to canvass for party ticket. Here the running around would largely be done by the husband/ father/ father-in-law and occasionally the wife/daughter/daughter-in-law would be in toe. It would be a rare sight to find a woman canvassing for her ticket all on her own. However, there could be some successful women from any field, especially from cinema, sports, corporate world, who could be wooed by the political parties to contest on their tickets. But they would remain an exception. Given the increasing propensity of political parties to give party tickets to ‘crorepati’ candidates, likelihood of tickets being given to grassroots workers is very limited. Chances of obtaining tickets would improve manifold if they came from well established ‘political families’.
Next comes the process of canvassing for votes. Once ticket is received, nomination has to be filed. This process has to be very impressive – a large motorcade and the candidate accompanied by her mentor – father, father-in-law or husband. Entire process is scripted in such a way that voters should be left under no confusion regarding for whom they are voting…and this is certainly not the woman candidate but the male patriarch of her family. Entire edifice of proxy leadership can be understood through de-construction of symbolism inherent in a hoarding put up by candidates. At one end on the left side would be the woman candidate – her head covered with her saree, hands folded in pranam, a large bindi/sindoor (depicting her marital status) and a beatific smile on her lips. At the top would be portraits of party leaders and the party symbol would be in the centre and on the right side would be the face of her family patriarch – her husband or father/father-in-law. The size of this portrait would be at least 1.5 times larger than that of the woman candidate and the face would denote ‘power’ – large moustache, beard, thick gold chain around the neck and donning a Rayban. His relationship with the candidate would be clearly mentioned. So it is crystal clear to all voters that by pressing the election symbol on the EVM they are in effect voting for the patriarch. No wonder, neither the voters, candidate nor the patriarch even for a moment feel anything horribly wrong when the male relative exercises ‘proxy leadership’ after elections have been won.
Now that 106th CAA has been enacted and one-third seats have been reserved for women in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, are we going to see a repeat of ‘proxy leadership’ in State and National politics as well? This is a question that would naturally emerge in the minds of readers.
So far there is no evidence of political parties giving tickets to more women candidates to contest elections whether of the Lok Sabha or the Vidhan Sabha after the passage of the 106th CAA. There is no data in public domain which suggests that any national political party has made special efforts to enrol women in their party cadre and grant them positions of authority in the party organization. Women continue to receive ‘token’ representation. It seems political parties are waiting with bated breath to see how the delimitation exercise is undertaken and which Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha constituency are declared as ‘reserved’ for women candidates. Once that is done, chances are that they would take the easy way out of giving party tickets to women drawn from the families of their existing MP/MLA. In this way, the family bastion would not be affected, power would continue to remain in the family and the hurt ‘male ego’ would be mollified to an extent. Thus, without ruffling feathers India would herald a ‘quiet revolution’ (this is something we seem to excel in – a revolution without any ‘sound and fury’)!
Why indeed are political parties in India so anxious to adopt reservation of seats for women in legislatures? This is because they see in this move a brilliant opportunity to appear progressive and just while in reality they secure their own male seats in legislatures and extend their own patriarchal and familial dominance. So chances are that the practice of proxy leadership in state and national politics, hitherto absent, could become visible.
The point being made is that the way political parties function, elections are fought, election campaign run and voters vote and approach their representative carries the seed of ‘proxy leadership’ and it flowers when officials turn a blind eye to an illegal practice! Thus, the political parties and the State Election Commission for local Government elections (and Election Commission for Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections) would need to take steps to curb this practice which is a blot on the functioning of Indian democracy. Hoardings and other publicity materials like the one mentioned above must be deemed to come under electoral mal practice and suitably dealt with, including disqualification of the candidate. Political parties would need to put in place suitable mechanisms and develop institutions to deal with cases of sexual harassment /gender discrimination and take conscious steps to enrol more women as party workers at all levels.
The bottom line remains that there is lot of ground to cover as far as right of women is covered and these must extend to all spheres of life starting from the ‘private domain’ symbolised by the family to ‘public domain’ such as work place. This would include the political sphere. Remnants of existing beliefs that continue to prevail in society about which the noted reformer Shri Gopal Ganesh Agarkar had written over 136 years ago in his article ‘The Purpose behind Sudharak’, would need to be discarded. To quote Agarkar:
“It is an established belief that men have the duty to acquire knowledge, and women have to nurture the offspring; that men are owners and women their servants; that freedom is for men and slavery for women; that women have no other way of life but marriage, and no world except their home; that widowhood is their greatest vrata (vow) and acquisition of knowledge their greatest vice….”
In such a scenario, tokenism like women reservation in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha may not alone be enough as has been seen in case of reservation of seats for women in local governments. While the theory of ‘unitended consequences’ may come into play at a much later stage, at this point it seems to be a clever misappropriation of the tenets of equality, liberalism and women’s rights. These are turned on their head and harnessed to the juggernaut of male domination and male acquisition of political power. Instead of just focusing upon training the EWRs after their election and putting in place some legal provisions (which will adorn the law books), a more effective approach could be to also have mass campaigns to encourage women in education and public spaces, in careers and in membership of political parties or political movements.
A re-run of ‘proxy leadership’ by the male patriarchs of the political families who currently control politics would cost the country dearly in terms of opportunity lost. Good governance, safe public spaces, equal opportunities in society, economy and polity are essential for not only women empowerment but also building a developed country.
(Sunil Kumar is a Visiting Faculty in Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, Pune and a former civil servant. Views expressed are personal.)
