Rights and Survival of the Girl Child and the Role of Panchayats

by Bidyut Mohanty and Bijayalaxmi Nanda

Introduction

In a patriarchal society like India, the dominant ideology has been to devalue women in economic, social or political institutions. The normative value systems give sanctions to such guiding principles through socialisation, rituals, narration of epics, etc. Within the categories of women, the girl child and women having only a girl child and widows get raw deals. The behaviour of parents/in-laws or other blood relatives indicate that girl children/ women having only girl children or widows are less valued and can be spared. The reasons behind this kind of discrimination are traceable in economic factors that are embedded with cultural factors. In the present century Indian society is facing a gradual depletion of girl children in spite of having entered the category of the ‘emerging economies’. Ironically, prosperous States like Haryana and Punjab have very low sex ratios, particularly in the age group of 0-6. In addition, the girl child also faces discrimination in terms of access to healthcare and education though the gap between the male and female ratio is decreasing.

In order to rectify the structural constraints against women and girl children, the Govern-ment of India has adopted many girl child-friendly schemes both at the Central at the State levels. These schemes relate to survival and nurturing the girl child. Besides, women have been given political space, particularly at the local level, in order to rectify their invisibility in the political decision-making process. Similarly, the programme of micro finance among the women’s groups has been introduced to augment some additional income for the poor women. In spite of all the proactive gender-friendly measures, the fate of the girl child seems to be sealed.

In the face of this grim scenario, one may ask: what can more than one million elected women in three tiers of governance system do to rectify the looming demographic crisis? Before one even speculates on the remedies for all the maladies of society, one should be aware of yet another type of structural constraint faced by the elected women representatives, namely, devoid of any power to the panchayats. The panchayats, for example, have been assigned with 29 develop-mental subjects ranging from sanitation, drinking water, food security, health and malnutrition, among other things. In these respects, children in general and girl children in particular, are the sufferers. But still children are invisible subjects in the panchayati raj system since they do not count as voters. At the same time one important point to note is that Ministry such as that of Women and Child Development, Economic Survey, Planning Commission etc., have tried to chalk out the roles of the panchayats in relation to children. However, since all the schemes are run on a silo basis, the panchayats have no role to play except to monitor or supervise various social sector schemes though it is the prerogative of the scheme-related functionaries to take note of that or not.

In the present paper we will discuss these issues and try to suggest how to come out of this vicious circle.

Status of the Girl Child in India

The achievement of human development rests on the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment of which the protection of the rights of the girl child is a key component. Internationally, India has made strong commit-ments to promote the rights and well-being of the girl child and women through several instru-ments like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminations against Women (CEDAW), and as a signatory to the Programme of Action (POA) of the Inter-national Conference on Population and Develop-ment (ICPD, 1984). Moving towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requires a focus on the girl child for achieving universal primary education (MDG 2) and promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment (MDG 3). At the national level India has adopted the National Policy for Children (NPC) 1974, the National Charter for Children (NCC) 2003, and the National Plan of Action for Children (NPAC) 2005—all of which have elements committed to the protection and promotion of the rights of the girl child in India.

The Constitution of India enshrines many provisions, most important of which are Articles 14, 15 and 16 that focus on equality before law, prohibition of discrimination and equality of opportunity. Article 21 discusses the right to life which has been interpreted broadly encompassing the right to free, secure and enabling conditions for a dignified human life.

Constitutional Provisions:

”The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India” (Article 14)”The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them”. (Article 15)”There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens... No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be... discriminated against”. (Article 16)

India is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-level society. The status of the girl child and women in India with all their intersecting identities is an important indicator of human development in the country.

India has shown positive trends in certain spheres during the last few decades. The female literacy has increased from 53.70 per cent to 65.50 per cent between 2001 and 2011. (Census 2011). The crude death rate has declined from 10.3 to 7.00 between 1991 and 2007. The IMR has improved from 80 to 44 per 1000 live births between 2001 and 2011. (SRS/SRS Bulletin, October 2012) The MMR has decreased from 398 in 1997-98 to 212 per 100,000 live births in 2007-2009. (SRS) Although the overall sex ratio has improved from 933 in 2001 to 940 in 2011, the child sex ratio has declined sharply from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011. Several surveys and studies note that all indicators of the status of women and girl children in India (namely, literacy, employment, sex ratio, high fertility rates, age at marriage, health and nutrition) have shown only marginal improvement. For instance, the sex disaggregated IMR indicates that the IMR in girls is much higher compared to boys, as the male IMR is 49, whereas the female IMR is 52. (SRS 2010) This disparity is greater in many States. For example, in Rajasthan the male IMR is 52, whereas the female IMR is 57. (SRS 2010) An analysis of various indicators would throw more light on the plight of the girlchild.

Situational Analysis Through Select Indicators

In the socio-political milieu of India gender discrimination against girls and women occurs at every stage of their lives. The girl child is discriminated against at home, in school and the community, by the state and society at large. Socio-economic background, disability, and residence (that is, rural-urban) further compound her vulnerabilities.

Survival Indicators

Deep-rooted preference for sons and aversion to daughters, aided by technological advances in reproductive technologies leading to sex determination and sex selective-abortion and weak implementation of laws to protect women and the girl child, have led to a steep decline in the child sex ratio (CSR). Census 2011 highlighted the increasingly adverse child sex ratio (0-6 years) in India by showing a 13-point decline to 914 girls per 1,000 boys from 927 in 2001. This continuous decline in girl children over at least the past three decades has been a matter of serious concern. While in the earlier Census this decline was sharp in the northern States, that is, Punjab 798 (82 points), Haryana 819 (59 points), Himachal Pradesh 896 and Chandigarh 845 (54 points) and Gujarat 883 and Delhi 868 (50 points) between 1991 and 2001, there has been an increase in Punjab by 48 points, Haryana 11 points, Himachal Pradesh 10 points, Chandigarh 22 points and Gujarat three points. Delhi has shown a further decline of two points. Although there has been a moderate increase in CSR in Punjab and Haryana, it continues to be below 850 thereby revealing that the girl child is still at peril.

This dangerous trend has been noted in the CSR of Jammu and Kashmir in the 2011 Census from 2001 where it has declined to 859 (82 points). In Uttarakhand it has declined by 22 points, in Rajasthan by 26 points, 20 points or more in Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and by 10 points in West Bengal. Although the urban areas are worse than the rural areas, the divide is unfortunately decreasing. The upwardly mobile aspirations of the rural population have led to them adopting the practices of the urban and prosperous population. The urban CSR stands at 902 compared to the rural CSR of 919 now. Table-1 below indicates that while the CSR in urban areas has declined by six points from 2001, the CSR in rural areas has fallen by 15 points between 2001 to 2011.

Table 1

Child Sex Ratio (girls aged 0-6 per 1,000 boys aged 0-6) by residence, India, 1981-2011

 Total Rural Urban

Census 1981 966 964 973

Census 1991 945 948 935

Census 2001 927 934 908

Census 2011 914 919 902

Source: Computed from relevant Census of India tables.

Continued emphasis of the government on the two-child norm is also a cause of the skewed child sex-ratio, since the desire of families to beget a son is enhanced when the family-size is reduced. Disincentives in the areas of political participation, maternity benefits and other government schemes indirectly reinforce son preference.

There has been a decline in both the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) in India but the rate of decline among girls is less. Persistently high levels of U5MR among girls indicate continued neglect during infancy and early childhood. According to SRS 2011, the female U5MR was 59 deaths per 1000 live births compared with 51 deaths per 1000 live births for males. The female IMR was 46 compared with 43 for males. (SRS 2011/SRS Bulletin October 2012) As children get older, females have 36 per cent higher mortality than males in the post-neonatal age but 61 per cent higher mortality than males at age 1-4 years. (NFHS-3, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GOI) In terms of socio-economic characteristics, peri-natal mortality (still-births) was higher among children of rural mothers, mothers with no education or less than five years of education and mothers in the lowest wealth quintile. (NFHS-3, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GOI 2007, Table 7.5, p. 188) According to
NFHS-3, the IMR and child mortality rates are considerably higher in rural areas than in urban areas, especially in the 1-4 age group. However, there has been improvement since 2000. In 2000, the IMR for rural areas was 74 compared to 44 in urban areas, it declined to 58 in rural areas and 36 in urban areas in 2008. (Sample Regis-tration System Bulletin, April 2002, and Sample Registration System Bulletin October 2008, Sample Registration System, Office of the Registrar General India, GoI) Despite some marginal improvements the gender gap in terms of survival of the girl child persists.

Health and Nutrition Indicators

In India, more than one-third of women in the 15-49 age group have Body Mass Index (BMI) less than 18.5 kg/m2 and 55.3 per cent have anaemia (India: Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 2011, p. 122) Amongst the top ten causes of death in India in the 0-4 age group, nutritional deficiencies figure in the top seven causes of death. While both girls and boys are equally undernourished, 3.2 per cent of girls die of nutritional deficiencies compared to 2.4 per cent of boys. When it comes to congenital anomalies, 3.0 per cent of boys die compared to 2.3 per cent of girls. Similarly, 36.9 per cent of males die of peri-natal conditions compared to 29.2 per cent of girls. (Report on Causes of Death in India 2001-03, Registrar General of India, GOI, March 2009, p. 19) The above statistics clearly bring out the fact that while the girl child has better chances of survival owing to natural propensity, their negligence in terms of nutrition reverses those chances. Although male-female differentials are not available in terms of data, under-nutrition is noted to be substantially higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Under-nutrition has a strong correlation with the mother’s education. The percentage of severely underweight children is almost five times high in case of children whose mothers have no education, compared to children whose mothers have education. (India: Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2011, Ministry of WCD, GOI) Girl child neglect in terms of food, nutrition, denial of basic healthcare has also been revealed in numerous studies.

Other Social Indicators

The mean age of effective marriage in India for females is 21 years. (SRS 2010) However, a closer look at State-wise data reveals that every fifth female in Rajasthan (21.9 per cent), for example, was married below the legal age of 18 years, and the proportion was much higher in the rural areas (26.8 per cent) than in urban areas (nine per cent). According to NFHS-3, overall in India, one in six women (16 per cent) aged 15-19 years had begun child-bearing; 12 per cent had become mothers; and four per cent were pregnant with their first child at the time of the survey. The percentage of girls who got married before their legal age has been significantly reduced. In 1996 the number stood at 17.8 per cent and in 2007 it stands at 7.6. The rural-urban divide still remains with the rural at 9.3 and the urban at 3.3. (See Table 2 for details) The data shows that challenges still remain in the area of early marriage. Early marriages are associated with many health problems among adolescent girls as it leads to early pregnancy. Early pregnancy not only leads to a high risk of miscarriages, but also causes severe reproductive and other forms of health damages to the adolescent girls.

Table 2

Percentage of Females Who Married Before the legal Age at Marriage by Residence, India,
1996, 2001, 2006, 2007

Year Total Rural Urban

1996 17.8 20.9 8.2

2001 12.7 15.0 4.9

2006 9.1 11.1 3.8

2007 7.6 9.3 3.3

Source: Compendium of India’s Fertility and Mortality Indicators, 1971-2007, Registrar General, India

Education Indicators

Even though the school enrolment at the primary level for girls has risen considerably, the gender gap still remains. In 2010-11, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for girls was 83.1 compared to 87.7 for boys in elementary education and 60.8 for girls in secondary stage education compared to 69.0 for boys. (Statistics of School Education (Provisional), MoHRD, GOI) However, the gender gap increases with the level of education across all social groups. The gender gap in school drop-out rates among the 11-14 year age-group and school attendance in the 14-17 year age-group in the rural areas are particularly significant. In 2006-07, 61.47 per cent girls were out of school compared to 58.62 per cent boys (India: Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2011, Ministry of WCD, GOI, p. 170) There is a gross shortage of secondary schools for girls, particularly in north India leading to extremely high drop-out of girls after elementary school. (11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012), Volume 11, Social Sectors, Planning Commission, GOI, 2008, p. 15)

Ensuring education for girls is a major concern of the government but the education sector continues to be challenged by the socio-economic norms that discriminate against the girl child. While intra-household discrimination, girl child labour and child marriages continue to affect the girls’ schooling, the schemes and activities aimed at improving girls’ education continue to produce sub-optimal outcomes. Although female literacy levels have improved, the gender gap persists.

Violence Indicators

Besides experiencing discrimination in intra-household distribution of food and other resources, and differential access to healthcare and education services, girls are also subjected to violence, abuse and exploitation both within and outside their homes. The patriarchal culture and the prevailing practices (for example, the system of dowry and poor implementation of the laws on inheritance) have also led to widespread prevalence of marital violence. About 46.3 per cent of ever-married women reported experiencing spousal violence in NFHS-3. The highest prevalence of sexual assault was during adolescence (15-18 years). Almost two out of five married women are subject to spousal violence. Approximately 87 per cent of spousal violence begins within five years of marriage. (NFHS-3) According to the NCRB data, every fifth survivor of rape in 2010 was a girl below the age of 18 years. About 36 per cent of girls/women in the sex trade have entered the trade before to attaining 18 years of age. There are regional variations linked to socio-economic and cultural conditions that affect this phenomenon. States where several adolescent girls are inducted into the trade include Madhya Pradesh (72.8 per cent), Bihar (72.3 per cent), Rajasthan (66.4 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (55.6 per cent) and Jharkhand (50 per cent) (Girls and Women in Prostitution in India: A Report, Gram Niyojan Kendra, pp. 174-175) Child sexual abuse and child labour also continue unabated at the cost of the girl child.

Government Schemes and Supports

There are numerous government schemes and programmes aimed at improving the situation of the girl child in India. The Department of Women and Child Development, the Department of Health and Family Welfare and others focusing on social justice and empowerment initiate most of these schemes. Some are Central Government-sponsored programmes and others are supported by State governments. These include the Dhan Lakshmi scheme, Ladli Lakshmi Yojana (MP), Ladli scheme (Haryana), Ballika Samriddhi Yojana, Balri Rakshak Yojana (Punjab), Mukhya Mantri Kanyadan Yojana. These are mostly cash transfers supposedly to alleviate the burden of having daughters. The amount varies from Rs one lakh when the girl reaches 18 years to as low as Rs 5000. The schemes require a set of documents that includes birth certificate, domicile, income, sterilisation, immunisation and completion of a certain stage of education as part of the various conditions to access the schemes. The paltry sum, contradictory conditionality and maturing of the scheme at 18 years are seen as the reasons for the failure of the schemes to bring about any change in the status of the girl child. (T.V. Shekher (2010), “Special Financial Incentive Schemes for the Girl Child in India: A Review of Select Schemes”, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai)

The girl child is on the margins of society and any analysis of the egalitarian nature of a society needs to give full consideration to her intersecting identities. The experiences of the girl child and women are characterised by marginalisation, disadvantage and discrimination. Clearly, all stakeholders—panchayat leaders including women and duty bearers—in India need to acknowledge these aspects and make concerted efforts towards empowering her by recognising and addressing barriers that make her vulnerable and lead to her marginalisation.

Women’s Presence in Panchayats

Towards Equality (1974) on the status of women depicted a very grim picture on the status of women in India but still the report rejected the seat reservation for women even at the level of the local government, though two important members had submitted their dissent note. But later on The National Perspective Planning—1988-2000 recommended 30 per cent reservation of seats for women at the local government level. In 1993, however, the 73rd Constitution Amend-ment Act reservednot less than one-third seats for women in all three tiers of panchayats. This provision was again revised to fifty per cent recently resulting in more than one million elected leaders at the grassroots level. The presence of many women in the public place has resulted in a kind of social mobilisation which is unprecedented in the history of the women’s movement. In a way it surpassed the freedom movement.

After the passage of two decades since 1993, still more than 85 per cent of the women panchayat leaders are first timers. (Jayal 2008) Secondly, most of the women leaders who stand for election do so at the behest of political leaders of a higher level, landlords and male relatives of the family, etc. In other words, not many women come forward to contest the election of their own choice. In spite of the above background, in many places women leaders backed by other women’s groups, have made a difference. (Duflo and Chattopadhya, (2004), (Mohanty, 2012) But still in many other places women panchayat members in general and that of Dalits in particular are non-performers due to ‘clientcapture’. (Bardhan, 2010; Pai, 2004) This non-performance is due to the double burdens of women, that is, rearing of children, looking after the old and infirm and other related chores in the home front. Their time spent on the domestic front is far too high provided they have to go to distant places in search of water and fuel wood. The government has given reservation of seats but has not offered any other facilities to ease their drudgery. After the completion of the domestic work for which they do not get any credit, very little time is left for doing panchayat work, let alone acquiring the knowledge regarding the working of panchayats.

Recently, it has been noticed by the ILO that the women’s work participation rate in the world has been declining since they do not get any support on the home front. Hence in most cases the young mothers decide to abandon their work in lieu of rearing their children. In other cases, the young mothers also opt for not having children. (Banerjee, 2013) Besides, women themselves carry biases towards the girl children being influenced by patriarchal values.

Dalit women members are subjected to yet another form of subjugation namely, the working of the high caste patriarchy. The high caste elites try to keep the Dalit women members under their control and as a result the women leaders spend time by doing nothing for the entire period. Many experts like Radha Krishna (2010) have pointed out that incidence of child malnutrition cannot be attributed to the poverty situation alone. Ignorance and social practices also contribute appreciably. Even though the idea of creating a million women leaders was to get rid of ignorance and social practices, the Indian experiment has failed miserably in that respect. Coupled with this kind of constraint, the above innovative experiment has also met with another type of systemic cons-traint to which we turn next.

What is Ailing Our Panchayats?

 It was realised by the policy-makers that the fruits of growth are not reaching the poorest of the poor because the policies are made in Delhi’s Central Government and executed from top to bottom. Hence the beginning of the panchayati raj system was ushered in. The idea was that with the introduction of the panchayati raj system, the administration would come to the door-step of the villagers because the panchayats would plan, execute and monitor the development plans as per the requirement of the area. In addition, the gram sabhas—consisting of all the adult members of the panchayats—would participate in the planning and thus the interests of all the members, including those of the children, would be reflected in the annual planning. However, panchayat members are devoid of capacity as well as real power to carry out their responsibilities. In addition, the political institutions do not have enough power to raise their own resources and depend on the financial resources of the State and Central governments. The resources allotted to them are mostly scheme-related tied funds and they have to spend under the instructions of the BDO, junior engineer, rojgar sahayak or district collector, etc. Even the higher level political leaders are quite hostile to the grassroots leaders.

Thus panchayats have only been assigned to implement and monitor the service delivery such as sanitation, drinking water, food security and health issues. But in reality they have become only monitoring agencies.

 Interestingly, children are not mentioned anywhere in the Seventy-third Amendment Act, except perhaps in case of registration of births and deaths. In reality though, children in general, and girl children in particular, are discriminated against in terms of access to healthcare as well as education and food security. Also in terms of protection the girl child is the most vulnerable. With regard to the registration of vital statistics, we have analysed the registering agencies assigned in different States. It was noticed that out of 28 States, 14 States have assigned the panchayats to register births and deaths and in other States panchayats play no role. In 2005 the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) has been assigned the role of registering all the pregnancies with an effort to reduce the incidence of female foeticide. This happily could have taken care of complete birth registrations in a gram panchayat. But in the ISS survey(2013) conducted last year, none of the elected women representatives informed us that ASHA has been looking after the registrations of births.We conducted the survey among 400 elected women representatives from 18 States. (Mohanty, 2013) Besides ASHA, the information about the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is very scanty. About 87 per cent of elected women representatives in Haryana are not aware of the NRHM. At the national level, 50 per cent elected women representatives showed ignorance.

About the role of panchayats in implementing and monitoring health, one came to know that the Standing Committee on Health and Sanitation comprise members of panchayats and self-help groups who take decisions regarding all health issues. Asked about the activities of the Standing Committee on Health, about 83 per cent of elected women representatives from Bihar replied that they do not have any Standing Committee on Health. At the national level, however, 45 per cent of the total respondents replied in the negative. (Mohanty, 2013)

But one good point to note is that in many places women panchayat members actively campaigned for vaccination and polio eradication. The scene of the linkage between education and panchayats is equally bleak. In 1997, we scanned through the provisions for primary education relating to panchayats. It was noticed that it was restricted to only the monitoring and supervisory role. (Mohanty, Roy and Gupta, 1997) Interestingly, it was pointed out last year that the teachers of Madhya Pradesh revolted against the panchayats when the government tried to devolve the control of teachers’ appointments to the panchayat leaders. (Suraj Kumar, 2012) Similarly it can be cited for many other schemes which affect children and adults alike but panchayats are still kept out of planning and spending money directly. Like that of health, women leaders on their own keep monitoring mid-day meals and the working of the anganwadis’ activities. (It is interesting to note an advertisement on the national television channel encouraging women sarpanches to monitor the mid-day meal.)

What do Other Ministries and Departments think about Panchayats and Child Rights?

 It is well known that all the service-oriented Ministries and departments work in different silos and there is hardly any communication among them. It was visualised earlier that the panchayats can act as a convergence point at the grassroots level. But in reality only one member from the panchayat is represented in the various Standing Committees such as Education, Health Drinking Water, etc. In other words, the panchayat plays a very minimal role. If the panchayat member is not very active, then the message never reaches the panchayat hall.

Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD)

The Ministry of WCD has prepared a Handbook on Child Protection which is meant only for panchayat members. It runs into 88 pages narrating different aspects of child rights and how best the panchayat members can protect their rights. (http://wcd.nic.in/panchayat-membershandbook.pdf. This was jointly prepared by the UNICEF and Ministry of Women and Child Development with a view to help the panchayat members to understand their responsibilities and take appropriate action to protect the children. It was hoped that that would result in “better convergence of programmes and increased allocation of resources to address child protection issues” as no less than the then Minister, Ms Renuka Chowdhury, wrote in her preface. The areas of protection ranged from access to basic services to trafficking and other types of harassments. It was expected that panchayat members should be aware of the children’s problems and would create an enabling environment for the future of the country.

Similarly, the

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)

points out that for the members of gram panchayats children are not merely ‘statistics but real names and faces’ at the neighbourhood. “They have authority to engage with officials of all concerned departments and the constituency in the best interests of children.” (http:://www.ncpcer.gov.in/childrights_panchayat.htm) The NCPCR has cited some examples where the State governments have taken the initiative to involve the gram panchayats to take some protective measures. However, the Commission has not provided any details of their activities. In general of course it is noticed that children all over India are a neglected lot since the panchayats are devoid of their rights and are also not aware of those rights. It will be clear if we analyse the writings of other Ministries of the Indian Government which follow shortly.

Economic Survey (2012-13):

This year’s Survey, for example, pointed out that “Another area needing attention is decentralisation. While plan programmes are designed with a bottom-up approach, and are panchayat- and PRI-centric, they are actually implemented in a top-down manner and do not effectively articulate the aspirations of the local people, especially the most vulnerable.” However, they have blamed the ‘inadequate capacity’ of the panchayats but they are silent on the attitude of the bureaucrats.

The Twelfth Five Year Plan:

The Planning Commission also echoes a similar view regarding the weak capacity of local governance. The Commission admits that the local government leaders in general lack local empowerment. Hence special programmes, such as Backward Regions Grant (BRGF), Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput (KBK), have been introduced with the aim to reach out to the poorest of the poor. But the weak structure of the third-tier government is unable to perform efficiently because of the above problems. (An Approach to the Twelfth Five Year Plan: Faster, Sustained and More Inclusive Growth, 2012-17)

Way Forward: The Role of Panchayati Raj

Thus it is noticed that the status of children in general, and that of the girl child in particular, is not worthy enough to be emulated. Indian culture adores children. People worship various goddesses so as not to remain barren. India also boasts of being a demographically young country. But the incidence of IMR, malnourishment, bondage childhood, trafficking etc. is very high. The degree of deprivation is even higher in case of the girl child. It is even higher than any of the other poorer South Asian countries. Be it sex ratio, infant mortality rate, dropout rate, percentage of malnourishment. etc., the status of the girl child is worse than that of the male child.

Unfortunately, the girl child’s status is closely linked to that of the Indian women that again is not worth citing! This is to be expected in a stratified patriarchal society like India. In order to rectify the invisibility of women’s real worth, the legal provision of seat reservation in the third-tier local governance system has been made. This has resulted in generating a large number of women leaders. That, in turn, has created social mobilisation. But most of the women panchayat leaders are first-timers and under the patriarchal control of family, caste and class. In other words, by being elected as leaders has not led to raising their status in the family and society since their work is still devalued and they have become beasts of double burden. Further, the early socialisation process is so entrenched in the minds of rural women that in spite of being political leaders, their attitude towards the girl child has not changed.

Coupled with that the institutions—panchayats —are devoid of any real power and lack resources and functionaries. They depend entirely on the grants of the Central Government and State as well. In reality the panchayats have become only monitoring agencies. Ironically children are the most discriminated lot but they are an invisible group in the legal provision of the Panchayati Raj system. Hence the problems of children continue even though many child-friendly measures have been introduced.

One recommendation that has emerged from most of the consultations of both government and non-government organisations is to create a greater role for the Panchayati Raj functionaries by creating an enabling environment for women leaders. It has also been revealed through the data that the vulnerability of the girl child is further compounded by the specificity of her location. The intersectionality of class and caste become more evident in the rural population. The role of the Panchayati Raj in enhancing the status of the girl child is further necessitated by this. The NRHM does include some elements of this role and so does the ICDS. The role of the ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi workers is underlined here. But apart from that the capacity building of Panchayati Raj functionaries for monitoring and evaluation when it comes to issues around the girl child is important (survival, health, nutrition, marriage, education, violence).

[This was circulated as a background paper during the Twentieth Women’s Political Empowerment Day celebrations organised by the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi at the Constitution Club lawn,

New Delhi, April 22-23, 2013.]

References

1. Banerjee, Suparna (2013), ‘To Lean in Or Not’, The Hindu, April 12, 2013, Delhi edition.

2. Bardhan, K.P., Dilip Mukherjee and Monica Parra Torrado (2010), “Impact of Political Reservations in West Bengal Local Governments on Anti-Poverty Targeting”, Journal of Globalisation and Development, Vol. 1, Number 1

3. Census 2011, RGI, GOI.

4. Duflo, E. and Chattopadhya (2004), ‘Delivering Basic Services for the Poor—Impact of Reservation in Panchayati Raj: Evidence from the Nationwide Randomised Experiment’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, pp. 979-986.

5. The framework of this article is based on the first draft of the Rajasthan State Girl Child Policy, 2012.

6. India: Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2011, Ministry of WCD, GOI.

7. http://wcd.nic.in/Panchayatirajmembershandbook.pdf

8. Government of India (1974), Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (Ministry of Education and Social Welfare Department of Social Welfare).

9. Government of India (1988), National Perspective Plan for Women—1988-2000 (Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resources Development).

10. Government of India (2012-13) The Economic Survey, Ministry of Finance Department of Economic Affairs (New Delhi, OUP). 

11. Mohanty, Bidyut (2012), ‘Decentralised Governance and Community Participation’ forthcoming in E-volume on RevisitingMicro Credit/Micro Finance as a Development Strategy for an Inclusive Growth: A Global Perspective (Orfalea Centre, Department of Global and International Studies (University of California, Santa Barbara).

12. ————(2013), ‘Report of a Survey on National Rural Health Mission and Panchyats: To What Extent are the Panchayats Participating’, Mainstream, Vol. LI, No. 1, February 23.

13. —————(2005), ‘Panchayats, and Child Rights: Birth Registration as the First Right to Identity’ in Bidyut Mohanty and Nasreen Faiyaz (eds.), Women and Political Empowerment, Panchayats and Child Rights: Birth Registration as the First Right to Identity. (Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi).

14. ————(1997), ‘Panchayats, Women and Primary Education’ in Mohanty, B., Smita Gupta and Joya Roy (eds.), Women and Political Empowerment: Panchayats, Women and Primary Education (ISS, New Delhi).

15. NFHS-3, MoHFW, GOI.

16. Pai, Sudha (2004), ‘Social Capital, Panchayats, and Grassroots Democracy: Politics of Dalit Assertions in Two Districts of Uttar Pradesh.’ in Bhattacharyya, Dwaipyan, Nirja Gopal Jayal, Bishnu Mohapatra, and Sudha Pai (eds.), Interrogating Social Capital: The Indian Experience. (New Delhi, Sage).

17. Premi, Mahendra K., and Dipendra Nath Das (2012), Population of India 2011 (B.R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi).

18. SRS, RGI, GOI.

Bidyut Mohanty is the Head, Women’s Studies, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. She can be contacted at bidyutmohanty@issin.org Bijayalaxmi Nanda is an Associate Professor, Political Science, Miranda House, University of Delhi. She can be contacted at bijayalaxmi@yahoo.com