February 16, 1998

Is the balance of power across the gender and rural-urban divides shifting? Yogendra Yadav draws attention to recent findings.

A silent revolution is taking place in the arena of electoral politics. New patterns are being woven in the social fabric. Gender divide and urban-rural divide have begun to make a difference. Though not quite visible yet, as they haven't been harnessed effectively, mobilisation along these lines could change the face of Indian politics.

It is easy not to see these signs; to say that the assertion of women is confined to a few privileged by birth or circumstances. Sonia Gandhis, Jayalalithas, Lakshmi Parvatis and Mamata Banerjees do not represent the ordinary Indian woman. It is also easy to see the assertion of the ruralites as more a matter of style than substance. Electoral statistics and survey data from National Election Study of 1971 and 1996 at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), however, show that these changes may not be without foundation.

Invisible Rise in Women's Participation in Politics

Are more women taking part in elections than before? Answers to this question tend to focus on two facts: either everyone talks about how many women get elected, or they focus on the proportion of women that turns out to vote. None of the two fully reflect the changing pattern of women's participation.

The percentage of women who turned out to vote in various elections increased in the first two decades. After that it has fluctuated without any systematic trend. But one thing has not changed: there has always been a gap of 8 per cent to 11 per cent between men's and women's turnout. While 49 per cent of the names on the electoral rolls are those of women, they constitute only 44 per cent of those who queue outside the polling booths.

As one might expect, the states which record the lowest turnout of women are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. These are also the states which record low female literacy and high female infant mortality. Women's turnout seems to be particularly sensitive to mid-term elections. The gender gap in turnout increased in 1971, 1980 and 1991. Women appear to be the first ones to be affected by the popular indifference to politics. If the same trend continues, the 1998 election will not only see a lower turnout of women, but it may also widen the gender gap.

If we look beyond the turnout figures, we get a happier picture of women's participation. The two comprehensive national election surveys conducted by the CSDS in 1971 and 1996 reveal a significant rise in the proportion of women among the politically active class of citizens. Of those who now take an active interest in the campaign, more than one-third comprise women. Their level of identification with parties has gone up. Their share has more than doubled among those who attended election meetings and those who are members of political parties. To be sure, their level of participation is still very low as compared to the men. Women are still less than one-fifth of the party members. Politics and elections are still considered to be a man's domain. If you ask people whether women should take part in politics, everyone, including the men, says yes. But when it comes to their actual participation, there are still a number of invisible barriers that block their entry. While a change has begun to take effect, the political voice of Indian women is still muted.

Politicisation of Rural India

If urban India recorded a higher turnout in the first two decades, it was in keeping with the politics of that time. Cities sent a disproportionately large number of MPs to the Lok Sabha and were the sites of political protest. The rise of the ganwar, literally the villager, began sometime around the end of the '60s. Hopelessly divided and almost always at the receiving end of the fury of the English press, the silent assertion of the villages has turned the tide during the last decade.

It was in 1989 that for the first time since Independence, urban constituencies recorded a lower turnout than their rural counterparts. Since then, the gap has grown wider, with the urban turnout falling much below that in rural constituencies.

Corresponding to this change is the shift in the political preferences of the urban and the rural voters. Earlier the Congress gained its votes evenly from the urban and rural areas, while the Jan Sangh and the communist parties were mainly dependent on urban voters. The Congress support base has not changed despite its decline. The BJP has developed a substantial rural base which the Jan Sangh lacked, but in terms of proportion it is still as urban as its predecessor. The Left parties have changed their profile dramatically. Most of their votes come from rural areas now. The same is true of the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party.

As in the case of the gender divide, the political potential of the urban-rural divide hasn't been fully exploited yet. The rural voters have been mobilised in the name of agricultural interests or backward castes, but never successfully on the difference between Bharat and India. Issues like urban prosperity, educational opportunities and social status versus the rural picture of poverty and underprivilege provide scope for a new political agenda.

As participation and choice of the rural voter becomes more distinct, the prospect of a movement which can tap this possibility grows. The experience of the past two decades shows how difficult its mobilisation is. But the occasional successes of Charan Singh, Devi Lal or Mahendra Singh Tikait also show how electrifying it can be.

Independent and Different

Candidates, campaign managers and political parties believe women vote as instructed by their husbands. Survey research shows that there is little basis to this impression. An overwhelming majority of women did not seek anyone's advice before deciding who to vote for in the 1996 election. Less than half of the 35 per cent who did consult someone mentioned their husband as the source of influence. This does not mean that 65 per cent have defied their husbands and families. Normally, both men and women are indirectly influenced by their families. But the survey shows that women vote more independently than everyone likes to think.

Traditionally, the Congress attracted more women voters than the rest. All the 'opposition' parties from the Jan Sangh to Janata had disproportionate support from men. Upto the 1980 election, the Janata Party and Lok Dal got 60 per cent of their votes from men. In 1996, the Congress still enjoyed an edge among women voters, but the Left now had twice as big an advantage, and Laloo Yadav's Janata Dal in Bihar showed the same pattern. It may be premature to ascribe these small differences to ideological distinctions. As yet no party has carved out a women's constituency, for no party has worked out a distinctly pro-women policy package.

Uphill to Parliament

Notwithstanding rhetoric on the Women's Reservation Bill, none of the major parties is prepared to give a fair share of its tickets to women. The number of female candidates among the contestants for the Lok Sabha elections has remained around 3 per cent. In 1996, the Congress nominated the most women candidates -- 9 per cent. As nominations for the 1998 election close, it is clear that yet again the parties have been reluctant to give women a chance.

No wonder then there are very few women in the Lok Sabha. On the average, the last 11 Lok Sabhas have had 6 per cent women members, a terribly low figure. And worse, there is no trend in recent elections of a greater presence of women in the legislature. In fact, the number has declined after touching a peak of 8 per cent after Rajiv Gandhi's landslide victory in 1984.

If actually given a chance to contest elections, women tend to perform a little better than men, thus giving a lie to the excuse that women do not make "winning" candidates.

When parties say that they do not have prospective winners among women candidates, they only reflect a vicious cycle: not many women join parties, as a result of which few get tickets or manage to enter Parliament; in turn, the absence of women at the parliamentary level discourages other women from entering politics. The failure of those at the helm of the parties to encourage women's participation betrays a lack of will to break this cycle.

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