Despite quota, dominant castes call the shots in Haryana: Study

Sunit Dhawan

Rohtak, December 12

A study on the recently concluded elections to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in Haryana has revealed that the provision of reservation to women, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Backward Castes (BC) notwithstanding, the dominant castes still call the shots in the state.

PRI elections

The study revealed that factors like gotra, panna, patti and thola of villages continue to play an important role in the PRI polls. Money and liquor too play a role in the elections. — Study by Institute of Social Sciences

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The study found that most of the women representatives belong to the dominant castes and even the candidates from the SCs and BCs have generally been decided by dominant castes.

“The study was conducted by the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), New Delhi, through Haryana Institute of Rural Development (HIRD), Nilokheri, and State Institute of Community Development and Panchayati Raj (SICDPR), Nilokheri and Bhiwani,” said Prof Ranbir Singh, Senior Fellow, ISS.

Prof Ranbir Singh was in Rohtak to attend a workshop on the Haryana Panchayat Elections-2022, organised by ISS at the department of economics of the MDU.

He said the participatory observation method was used for the study conducted in different village panchayats and zila parishads across the state.

“The basic objective of the exercise was to find out the pattern of continuity and changes in the PRI polls conducted after the reservation of 50% posts for women and the introduction of reservation for the BC (A) category.”

The study revealed that factors like ‘gotra’ (sub-caste), ‘panna’, ‘patti’ and ‘thola’ of villages continue to play an important role in the election of sarpanches. Money and liquor also continue to play a role in the PRI polls, it stated.

“The encouraging trend that has emerged is that educated persons have contested these elections. The participation of women has improved, but the changes are quantitative and not qualitative,” it observed.

The participants at the workshop emphasised the need for capacity-building of the newly elected representatives by HIRD and SICDPR. ISS chairperson Dr George Mathew underlined the significance of district-level training institutes to provide hand-holding support to new women representatives.