Training first-timers

At first, when the door is opened, the caged bird stays inside, frightened. Mental enslavement, reinforced by a social structure, is a cage for women. It takes time for the bird to gain confidence in the power of its wings even after someone has opened the door of the cage. Therefore, the idea to give the first-time elected women sarpanches of the Jatland some ‘psychological training’ on ‘empowerment’ reeks of patriarchal patronage. If ‘rightful’ men can’t become sarpanches, they can ‘train’ the ‘weak sex’ in their frame of empowerment! 

From Maharashtra to Odisha to Rajasthan, stories of local bodies’ efficient work abound. Wherever women are given an opportunity to be at the helm of affairs, they show more resilience in dealing with issues that concern their immediate environment without outside ‘help’. The ‘disempowered’ women — which in urban parlance means illiterate — of Beem, a small town in Rajasthan, fought for 14 years to empower the countrymen with the powerful tool of RTI Act. The Dongria Kondh tribal women living across 120 settlements in the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha stalled a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation as well as government exploitation of their habitat for commercial gains. These women came from 12 gram sabhas of the most backward Raygada and Kalahandi districts. 

Such display of benevolence towards women’s ‘weakness’ lends legitimacy to gender-related injustices that stem from restrictions on their choices. It distorts their growth. In the latest political scoop that involves Saritha Nair with several politicians of Kerala, it became evident that the patriarch of the family did not let Saritha take up her dream job of airhostess, which led to her vulnerability that was exploited by a corrupt system.  The suggestion of 'psychological training' of women, which has come from the intellectual high ground of a university, makes one wonder if the testosterone-driven local body governance that bred power abuse for years also concerned the ivory towers of scholarship to offer some help, ever!