Hiranmayee Mishra
I got my MPhil Degree long back in 1992 and joined a college as a lecturer. It was a rural based college and I had to stay there. As I was brought up in an urban society, a whole new world of experiences was unfolded before me. In 1992, the 73 rd Amendment to the Indian constitution provided for a one-third reservation of seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions, Indian brand of rural local self government units. Speculations about this huge number were on the air as women were just pushed into the politics on seats on quota, to maintain the hold of the traditional male power holders.
Living in a rural area and teaching to young rural girls gave me the rare opportunity to observe keenly and from a very close angle the gradual revolution in the minds of those rural women which came as a result of this important intervention of the state. The rural women of India, who were mostly poor and illiterates were determined to change their images of docile, voiceless and submissive second class citizens and with the help of their male members of family were coping magnificently with their new responsibilities. The observations of the researchers of the beginning years that they were ‘proxy women’ (controlled by male family members) were proved to be wrong and this created an interest in me to come back to my studies as a regular student after a long gap of fifteen years.
I qualified for a fellowship of the International Ford Foundation which brought me to United Kingdom. I felt privileged to get to opportunity to work with my supervisor, Prof. Haleh Afshar and joined CWS, as a PhD. Student in October, 2007. I am looking at the different barriers faced by women of rural India in exercising their power in the decision making level in the lowest level of Panchayati Raj Institutions (the Gram Panchayats) along with their effectiveness with a guaranteed number of seats on quota for them and their struggles to make this quantitative representation into a qualitative one. The experience of the last two years, here at CWS has been really rewarding and amazing for me.