1. INTRODUCTION:

Decentralisation facilitates social, political, economic and legal changes, which may enable people living in poverty and insecurity to participate meaningfully in shaping their future (Pettit 2012). Democracy ensures freedom, and decentralizing the democratic process enables all segments of society to participate in the process. Empowerment and participation are seen as outcomes of decentralisation, both positive, and seen as means and ends.

Some empowerment programs focus on giving people access to resources, information, options and opportunities to improve their situation. Decentralization is based on the decision to distribute benefits, as local public expenditure by local government will reflect the need for local services. Centralization also creates and maintains the economic capital necessary to achieve social change. Social scientists argue that empowerment creates a sense of community feeling, fosters competence, leads to freedom, and enables effective cooperation (Kalin 2003; Sen 1999). J.S. Mill saw decentralisation as a school of political talent leading to genuine popular participation. Kabir (1999) states that empowerment is not just a means to achieve development goals, but an end in itself, and a process ‘by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability’.

Decentralization fits in to inclusive development structure as it itself is a model of development, which enables empowerment and upliftment of the marginalized and the poor guaranteed by institutional framework. The affirmative actions of the governments enable their participation. The very purpose of decentralisation is to develop plans for activities at the local level with the participation of all the sections of the community represented through the voices, for example gram sabha in India. Since decentralisation facilitates democratic governance that is representative, accountable, transparent and accessible to the public, it is likely to embrace inclusive development. It has been introduced in countries across the world as a mechanism to improve governance and service delivery.

A silver lining for inclusive growth in India was drawn by the 73^rd Constitutional amendment made in 1992, which mandated and promoted the participation of women in panchayat raj institutions (PRIs) at village, taluk and district level. These provisions were momentous. They promoted social, economic and, political empowerment of women. Equal opportunities for women to participate in panchayat activities and work for community development is enabled by political empowerment. Being a panchayat member is itself a pride for village women, Further, working for the community transfers into gaining respect of the villagers. Social empowerment boosts the self-confidence of the women representatives. Economic empowerment sustains the participation. The economic empowerment has been realised through women component plan, financial assistance to self-help groups, gender budgeting and indulging in bank transactions leading to financial literacy. It is likely that both social and economic empowerment are attained with political empowerment.

The government of Karnataka enacted the Karnataka Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act 2010, which makes provision for increased reservation of seats for women in PRIs from 33% to 50%. This provision allows ladies to contest for elections and serve the society. A strive has been made on this paper to review the literature to explore how some these provisions have stimulated the participation and empowerment of women.

2. UNDERSTANDING DECENTRALISATION AND EMPOWERMENT:

Crook and Manor (1998) define decentralisation as the transfer of powers from central government to lower levels in a political-administrative and territorial hierarchy. According to Faguet (2021), “Decentralization is the devolution by central government of specific functions, with all of the administrative, political and economic attributes to democratic local governments that are independent of the center within a legally demarcated geographic and functional domain”. Decentralisation is defined in different ways in the literature. Gregersen et al (2004) describe political, administrative, fiscal and market decentralisation and propose distinction between deconcentration, delegation and devolution.

Decentralization should be understood as the transfer of powers, functions and resources from a central decision making authority to a local level government or authority to facilitate planning and execution at local level.

Empowerment is generally referred in terms of oppression of the targeted group. It could be empowerment of women, of the poor, of a community, or any vulnerable section of the society. Empowerment could be gaining one’s own power or giving or transferring power to someone else. Women empowerment refers to the creation of an environment for women where they can make decisions of their own for their personal benefits as well as for the society. It includes legally induced provisions or that arise out of human behaviour as respectful gesture towards women. Such empowerment enhances social, economic, political and legal strength of the women ensuring equal rights, respect, dignity, liberty and financial strength. , to ensure equal-right to women, and to make them confident enough to claim their rights, such as freely live their life with a sense of self-worth, respect and dignity, have complete control of their life, both within and outside of their home and workplace, make their own choices and decisions, have equal rights to participate in social, religious and public activities, in education, have equal social status in the society, etc.

The degrees of exclusion, which could be in the form of socio- political and cultural denial and rejection are associated with the extent of instability/insecurity and conflict of interests and may range from mild and personal to intense and collective (Singh 2009). Crucq and Hemminga (2007) identify efficient and accountable administration, better regional development, inter-government competition, more regional diversities and preferences leading to increase in welfare and stimulus to innovation in public policy design as the advantages of decentralisation. Disadvantages include costs and benefits of spillover effects not being taken into account a smaller number of people benefitting from scale economies in the provision of public goods, likeliness of taxes levied by decentralized regions being inefficient from a national point of view, lack of scale economies in tax collection and difficulty in redistribution of income between high- and low-income groups.

The capacity to undertake a number of tasks either individually or in groups and having access to society resources is enabled and strengthened by empowerment. And this is important and true in the case of women. Empowerment brings in well-being of individuals, families and communities as they gain means to participate in decision making and question the wrongdoings. It undermines gender inequality by giving equal opportunities for women to participate in economic, political and social activities.

3. DECENTRALISATION AND ECONOMIC: Empowerment/Development of Women:

According to Kabeer (2009) women’s economic empowerment is considered as an entry point into other forms of empowerment, which contributes to the development of human capital and human capabilities, including their own. He defines women’s empowerment as “the processes of change through which women expand their ability to make strategic choices about their lives and to participate on equal terms with men in bringing about desired changes in the society in which they live”. UN (2024) specifies that women’s economic empowerment is essential for achieving women’s rights and gender equality, leading to attainment of some of the goals of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Women’s economic empowerment is attained when there is equal participation in work, equal wages, social protection, access to markets and, control over their resources, time, life, and recognition of their voices and participation in decision making. The economic empowerment is attained through education or through affirmative actions of the government ensuring due share to women.

Achieving women’s economic empowerment is not an easy task in a male dominated society. But institutional intervention with the help of all the stakeholders supported by legal framework can help them fight for their position and justice. Inclusive economic growth can be addressed by achieving women’s economic participation. According to UNDP, ''development can be inclusive - and reduce poverty - only if all groups of people contribute to creating opportunities, share the benefits of development and participate in decision-making'' (www.undp.org). Inclusive development ensures the participation of marginalised and excludes groups in the development process, wherein they become one of the stakeholders.

In India the 73rd Amendment to Constitution of India is a major step initiated with respect to promoting inclusive development through mandatory participation of disadvantaged groups including women. It provides equal opportunities for the participation of women through reservation at all levels of PRIs. Aziz (2000) and Chattopadhyay and Dufflo (2007) opine that the reservation or affirmative action across the world has brought in significant changes in rural political life.

In Andhra Pradesh, the social and economic empowerment of women in early twenties was possible through awareness campaigns and mass mobilization, which led to anti liquor movement by women in coastal Andhra and large scale organisation of women's SHGs helping them to manage and save resources (Jairath and Sajja (2009). Manor (1999) opines that although currently there is limited influence of decentralization on women's empowerment overtime the affirmative actions could help them assert effectively. This could be because, earlier the SCs themselves followed the tradition of sitting on the floor and not entering temples in the villages, while they were discouraged by non SCs in their economic empowerment (Lalita 2009). So the improvement was not visible but, evolving gradually. Women were doing well through SHGs and Thara Bhai (2009) feels that to initiate this gradual process there is need for the support from civil society and government.

The reservations in PRIs has increased the number of women members and has helped the development of tribal women who have become aware of their voting power, duties and responsibilities of panchayat members and were being supported by their family members (Nagraj and Pallavi 2013). Decentralisation has led to an increased participation and representation in India leading to the participation of the young and educated women in to panchayat elections most of them wanting to re-contest (Chandrashekar and Kadam 2012). Based on their study of five districts in Madhya Pradesh Behar and Yogesh Kumar (2002) opine that constitutional provisions had helped women to move forward and demonstrate their capacities, but any attempt to go against male dominance resulted in appropriation of the power.

Although women had entered politics due to reservations, their role in administration was nominal as they were found to be depending on their husbands for such activities (Patil 2009). Further the later reports the lack of education, knowledge about panchayat administration, poor economic status of members and president made the dominant caste people to control GP administration as the presidents and members were largely dependent on dominant castes for agricultural work. Similar opinion arises from Singh (2009) who indicates that women in Uttar Pradesh have always remained on the periphery, which is due to illiteracy, proxy candidature, low status of women in family and society, early marriage, poverty, burden of domestic chores, etc., as he finds one of the women presidents in the sample villages not knowing about the number of households in her village, about collection of taxes by panchayat, name of block panchayat, area of her panchayat, etc., all due to her illiteracy and the low status faced by her in the village. However, Singh concludes that reservation had improved the bargaining power of SC women who have been using panchayats for socio-political gains and are approachable to village women for their problems.

4. DECENTRALISATION AND SERVICE DELIVERY BY WOMEN:

Studies also reveal that women representatives in PRIs perform better than male members in providing public services such as water supply and sanitation (Duflo and Topalova 2004; Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Rajasekhar and Manjula, 2011), housing, etc., resulting in better service delivery. In their study of GPs with SC, ST and women presidents in Bangalore rural district, Bhargava and Subha (2009) find that the rural women approach female president with their problems relating to widow pension, access to drinking water, housing, sanitation, family fights, disputes with neighbour, etc., and get it resolved through various programmes. Despite of their dependence on their spouses to conduct and participate in panchayat activities, women are able to put forward their views and agenda (Joshi 2009) for the benefit of their community and self. A study by Ban and Rao (2008) reveals that women presidents were less likely to meet higher level officials than men, although they were knowledgeable about political activities and, the presence of women leaders did not have significant impact on women's participation in gram sabha and their participation in women's organisation, but helped them at least to talk in the gram sabha. Contrary to this argument Buch (2000) in her study of three states viz. Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India documents that women presidents felt improvement in their status, self-confidence, life style and awareness. And more than 50% of the respondents in the study had positive views about women representatives and felt satisfied with their work though they felt that the works were carried out by presidents’ husbands or other male members.

5. HURDLES IN REAPING THE BENEFITS OF DECENTRALISATION:

In a patriarchal and caste-ridden society, the political journey for women is not so smooth as women hesitate to speak in open and participate in public activities (Kulkarni 2011). The later says that women feel uncomfortable because, men can smoothly handle the programmes the lack of support from the family, women’s underestimation of her capacity, clash between the time of meetings with women’s household chores, holding meeting in GP office rather than schools and angawadis, the presence of large number of men, etc. Moreover, it is said that the behaviour of women is always looked by the society in a restricted framework. According to Johnson (2001) there is an improvement in public participation and government accountability due to decentralization, but not so impactful in terms of ability to address rural inequality and poverty.

A study by Sathe et al (2013) carried out in 32 villages of Sangli district of Maharashtra covering a sample of 640 respondents examined the performance of women members in service delivery. The study found the provision of basic services and political participation to be higher in villages headed by female presidents who were in the office for more than 3 years. It is encouraging to note that the presence of SCs/STs and women representatives in panchayats encouraged people to participate actively in development matters as revealed by a study carried out by Bhat and Venkat Ravi (2012). The welfare of women, maternal care, water supply and sanitation, fight against alcohol consumption, improving mid-day meals, attending to school dropout cases, creation of garden for children, construction of toilets, roads, etc., were taken up by the female presidents as found from this study carried out in Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka attended to the programmes on welfare of women, maternal care, water supply and sanitation, fight against alcohol consumption, improving mid-day meals, attending to school dropout cases, creation of garden for children, construction of toilets, roads, etc. In Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, political parties selected women of their choice for GP president.

Women’s ability to function is limited by the circumstances and the prevailing environ, wherein they lack freedom to participate in panchayat activities due to restriction from family, non- recognition of their opinions, getting elected for the first time, etc. So there are hurdles in entry of women in to political arena. But, studies have shown that once in to the political process or in to administration, they may quickly adopt to the socio-political environ and put their maximum efforts to bring in change.

6. IMPACT OF DECENTRALISATION:

There is enormous flow of literature on the process of decentralisation, its inception, factors enabling its foothold, its influence on empowerment of women and vulnerable social groups, best practices in local self-government, political interests interfering in its process, lack of political will to convert constitutional provisions in to reality, lack of power to perform the duties, etc. But, the focus of this paper is to examine the impact in relation to some of above-mentioned factors specific to women’s empowerment.

Earlier arguments by Bardhan and Mookherjee (2007) indicate that decentralisation has not brought in desired results in practical terms due to lack of educated and less aware citizens, social and economic equality, law and order, the ability to run free and fair elections, reliable and trustworthy information channels and, oversight by an active and effective civil society. A study of three panchayats in Orissa by Mohanty (2009) generalises that although the provision of inclusion for marginalised groups has enhanced their participation in the decision-making process at the local level, it is inadequate for their empowerment. His study reveals among other facts that women from reserved category remained faithful to their party than their castes and class.

The studies by Palanithurai (2005) and Buch (2000) reveal that after being members of grama panchayat, women improved their standard of living and developed leadership qualities like relationship with officials, family friends, party members, association with SHGs/youth and improved their contact with other social group.

Decentralisation had enabled the delivery of public goods to the disadvantaged groups by women and SC representatives who were found to be investing more on infrastructure preferred by women (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004). Female leadership is expected to perform well and provide services that are beneficial to villagers. Studies reveal that women leaders try to address issues relevant to women, particularly poverty, inequality and gender justice (Reddy 2003), provide better educational facilities, perform better than male members with less corruption (Dollar et al 2001; Swamy et al 2001; Duflo and Topalova 2004). However, according to Hust (2002) appears to be institutionalised in the panchayati raj as men and women leaders and officials work hand in hand to provide services. But, he found that women were more inclined to do something specifically for women or children, like better implementation of the widow pension and programmes benefiting girl children, or the establishment of women’s groups.

Prasad (2011) in his study on Bihar finds women doing better than men by prioritising issues of education, health and providing basic services leading to betterment of community lives. But, according to the study by Ban and Rao (2008) carried out in four southern states, women who have political experience perform better than men, while otherwise they find performance of women to be on par with male and wherein, both provided similar services. But, their participation was found to be low in panchayat works and meetings (Jafri 2006).

The female presidents were observed to perform poor in the initial stages but, later with political experience they performed better than unreserved presidents (Afridi et al 2013). The provision of quotas for women and the marginalized has generated widespread awareness and has enabled inclusion and participation of dalits, adivasis and women in political administration (Jayal 2006). Srivastava (2006) argues that socio-economic conditions and patriarchy encourage dominant caste members to proxy lower caste members and women. The participation of women members in panchayat activities was found to be higher in GPs with women presidents.

7. CONCLUSIONS:

Decentralisation process initiated in mid-eighties has spread across the country and there is an enhancement in the share of reservation to women, which has been raised from 33% to 50% in some states. Gram panchayats in some districts like Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka have sometimes 85% seats occupied by women, as they win from both reserved and general seats. However, there are mixed opinions from the literature about the involvement of women in the decentralisation process. Although their entry in to politics has been ensured through affirmative action, questions arise on whether this has resulted in their political participation and inclusive development. This review has tried to look in to this holy nexus through the literature in the Indian context. As indicated by many studies affirmative action has given the marginalised communities a sense of empowerment though they are yet to reach an equilibrium level. The review suggests that the benefits are not reaching the marginalised to the expected level due to their low social status and lack of awareness. Unless awareness is created on a large scale they are likely to remain on the periphery on account of illiteracy, proxy candidature, poverty, dependence on dominant classes for work, etc. The short tenure of the president and money required for contesting elections have also been the hurdles in their continued participation. Decentralisation has helped women and the marginalised to come out of closed societies, work for their own upliftment and benefit of the society.

Although there are hurdles and many stories of spouses being proxy for women representatives and poor participation of women in panchayat activities and trainings, there is a silver lining promising gradual but steady changes in near future. There are stories of incredible rural India facilitated by the footsteps of these emerging leaders. Currently, these foot steps are a few, but a beginning has been made.

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Received on 03.02.2025 Revised on 24.02.2025

Accepted on 10.03.2025 Published on 02.06.2025

Available online from June 05, 2025

Res. J. of Humanities and Social Sciences. 2025;16(2):119-124.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5828.2025.00020

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