Bihar, a politically active state and always been a center of many political ideologies and has given great leaders to the country. Having a rich history of culture and being in advantageous geographical position gives it a very ideal position when it comes to national politics, thus any change reflects and influence reflects in national politics most of the time.
But not only this Bihar is also not very reputed when it comes to human resource and the status quo here remains bad for children and women majorly, their position is still under problem in society and they are deprived of rights in society.
Local politics and elections are building block of the anyone’s political career and carries a great significance for the people in rural areas or backward regions of the country where they get opportunity of representation and a platform to raise their voices.
Women Candidate or Just Puppets
Bihar local elections have a reservation system for women from 2006 which gives women reservation in 50% seats of the total local body seats i.e., no male candidates in 50% seats. It was done to ensure women community gets proper rights and representation, but this idea was on paper let’s look onto what actually happened on ground.
The reservation was made to provide representation to women but it in turn just favors men more and give them free levy to go on and establish their dominance.
But how?? There are many instances where a powerful male counterpart just gives a woman from the family a candidature to meet reservation criteria but takes away all the power and the women candidate is just for putting stamps or signatures but real power resides in hand of male.
Also, men do all kinds of administrative works by even sitting in the office which in reality belongs to his women counterpart and the result is more male dominance, less women rights, more difficult upliftment of vulnerable groups.
When we look into this becomes scarier because since local body elections are very important for the political future of candidates now since these kinds of things are going on the idea of more and more female representation in national or mainstream politics becomes very far-fetched and vague.
But still is there is some hope left as there are many women who know their rights and fight for them, hold offices and work for the society, they are the future torch bearers for other women.
Also, this case even became public and more talked about when Pinky Kumari, a ward member in Bhagalpur district actually filed a complaint against her own husband for barring her from doing her work and showing his dominance.
Is Reservation not working out??
When we look into larger picture it might seem that reservation is working in these areas and should be scrapped out but when we look into it from a closer perspective, saying reservation hasn’t worked out is not a right narrative to set but instead there is a lack of education which gives rise to less knowledge about rights to women thus, making them deprived of it.
At least reservation has provided them with a platform to represent themselves and raise themselves in society but the system needs to be more full-proof otherwise more problems will arise both social as well as political.
Published by:Â Shivani Bhalke
Edited by:Â Subbuthai Padma
