Husband empowerment

April 16-30 Governance Now

Though she is the sarpanch, it is her husband, the “sarpnach pati”, who calls the shots

One fine morning in March, I landed in a village named Kalipali in Orissa’s Ganjam district. Nestled in the midst of kewra shrubs and fertile farmlands, this village has been living on the edge for close to 13 years. The government acquired a part of the village for the Tata Steel’s Gopalpur plant and then forgot all about it. I went looking for the sarpanch’s house where a middle-aged woman responded and ushered me into the bedroom. An old man, her husband, was lying on the bed, immobilized. The woman said not to ask “saar” anything as he was very ill. Disappointed, I tiptoed out. The woman saw me off at the verandah. Outside the house, I inquired from the villagers who had gathered around by then if I could meet a panchayat member. Someone from the crowd pointed straight to the very same woman and said “but the sarpanch is standing right behind you!”

In sheer disbelief I asked her if indeed that was the case and she said yes. Why did then she take me to the old man? “But saar looks after everything”, she said innocently. I went back in and said I wanted to talk to her about the Tata project. She looked unsure but offered me a chair and sent someone to call her son and son-in-law.

While waiting for her son and son-in-law, I started talking to her and inquired for how long she had been the sarpanch. She looked at her daughter-in-law who stood in a corner of the room and said “three years” at her prompting. Soon I gathered her name is P Revati Reddy and she is a matriculate. For the moment I forgot the Tata Steel’s project and asked her if the village had schools for the kids, primary health centre and clean water etc etc. Every time I inquired from her she would look blank, turn to her son and son-in-law, who had arrived by then, who would do the talking.

Soon the topic of conversation turned to the Tata project. While leaving the house, I wanted to find out why she had given up her privilege of running the panchayat affairs to her husband. She admitted candidly that she had been attending to the home and the hearth all her life. It was the “saar” who took care of the outside world.

This wasn’t my first experience of a woman sarpanch. A couple of days earlier I had another chance encounter in the same district but in a different block, Aska —which used to be Biju Patnaik’s constituency and his son Navin Patnaik represented this parliamentary seat thrice before becoming the chief minister. (Incidentally, Orissa was the first state to grant 33% reservation to women in panchayats during during Biju Patnaik’s regime in 1992. But Karnataka was the first one to set aside a quota (25%) for women way back in 1987).

I was in Khukundia village of Bangarada panchayat to find out about the condition of the migrants who had lost their jobs in Surat and had returned home. After hearing their plight I wanted to meet the sarpanch to know about various social support schemes like PDS and NREGS. I was told the sarpanch was away. At various times a “gram saathi”, a panchayat official, and an ex-sarpanch called up the sarpanch and found out that he was in a nearby town. A meeting was fixed at a local market mid-way. After spending nearly three hours, during which time I visited the panchayat office and inquired at the PDS outlet, I left for the meeting place. The man arrived on a bike and introduced himself as Gaurahari Behera, a school teacher. As I started asking for details about inadequate PDS supply and delayed payment for NREGS, he fumbled again and again. I wondered aloud, how was it that the sarpanch didn’t know what should be on his finger tips. I wasn’t prepared for what was in store. He said: “I am not the sarpanch, my wife is.”

For a moment I was in a shock and did not know how to react. Then I felt outraged but wasn’t sure whether it was because I felt cheated or that the husband was openly masquerading as the sarpanch. “Why didn’t you tell me that at the beginning?” I demanded to know. He kept mum. I took the social activist escorting me aside and whispered: “Didn’t you know he is not the sarpanch?” He said everybody treated the husband as the real sarpanch and went on to explain how none even in his village referred to his wife when we were fixing a meeting with the sarpanch. “Such a husband is better known as sarpanch-pati”, he explained. The sarpanch-pati later said since his wife didn’t know how to deal with official documents he had stepped in. I found out her name is Basanti Behera and she is 9th pass. I would have liked to photograph her but I was desperate to reach another village to complete my assignment.

“Sarpanch-pati” wouldn’t leave me in haste, though not the kind I met so far . This time it happened in the village of Dongaria Kondhs, one of the most primitive tribes who live on mountain slopes of Niyamgiri (the same one that the Vedanta wants to mine for bauxite) and the surrounding hills. It was in Kurli village of Bissam Cuttack in far away Rayagada district. Subardani Wadaka is a Munda (another tribe from Keonjhar district) and is married to a Dongaria Kondh, Suresh Kumar Wadaka. Subardani was a social worker after completing her plus-2 when he came in contact with Suresh. They fell in love and married in 1999.

She first became the sarpanch in 2002. It was a reserved seat then but her good work saw to it that she defeated all her male competitors in 2007 to retain her position. Unlike the other two she seemed well versed with the panchayat affairs. In fact, I found her working in the panchayat office, along with her husband another panchayat official. She had all information on her finger tips. Like many others she was also worried about the mining project, though village wouldn’t be directly affected. Her thoughts drifted to the springs, the fruit trees and other forest produce that sustained the tribals. I was glad to meet a woman sarpanch who embodied all that policy makers dreamt while fashioning the women’s quota in the panchayats. I compliment her for the active role as I prepared to leave and narrated my earlier experience. To which she replied how everybody treated her husband (who had been grappling with files all the while) as the “sarpanch-pati” too.
A sad comment indeed the way the society treats a woman even when she takes charge of her life and life around her.

All these accounts are by no means representative. They were mere chance encounters in course of a week. But instructive in the way women have fared after reservation provided them space in the local government bodies. Will their fate be any different after seats are reserved for them in legislative bodies? Difficult to tell.