Women Participation And Decentralised Politics

The position of women in politics was analyzed a number of years ago in the well-known United Nations study edited by Maurice Duverger. Men continued to believe that political activity was a masculine Prerogative. The old theory of female incapacity had been replaced by a „functional‟ theory about the division of aptitudes, which is necessarily reflected in the division of labour. In its modernized form, this kind of functional theory recognizes the right of women to work outside the home and to participate in civic and political affairs, yet emphases their special concern with „home policy‟ matters, i.e., motherhood and its problems, education and the family. Women‟s political activity becomes channeled into these areas rather than into political parties, trade unions and the life. The best way to judge the position of a nation is to find out the status of women. In reality the status of women is the measuring rod for assessing the standard of culture of any age. The social status of women is a country- represents the social spirit of the age

Women Representation and Rural Politics

The Panchayathraj system has been playing an important role for development of the social economic and political life of the rural Women representation of rural politics. Village is the basic unit of social life in India. This is fact that more than three-fourth Indian population still lives in the villages. The concern of the government for the life, liberty and prosperity of the rural masses, soon after independence, was reflected in various measures adopted by it to better their lot. As a matter of fact, the prominent leader‟s freedom struggle such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jai Prakash Narian indicated that the major task of Independent India would be to take democracy to the grass-roots level and to involve the rural masses in the task of national reconstruction. According to Mahatma Gandhi, true democracy could not worked by twenty men sitting at the Centre. It has to be worked out from below by the people of every village. The author concludes with a suggestion that the village Grama Panchayathiayats are not the relic of tribalism of feudalism but are the results of mature political thinking through ages. Village Grama Panchayathiayats in India could really succeed in bringing about decentralization of economic and political power under the conditions of social and equality. Firstly, interaction between enlightened rural women and illiterate elected one‟s should be encouraged. Secondly, these women could be taken out to the urban areas and their interaction with educated urban elected women representatives be arranged