It is widely acknowledged that women’s empowerment helps in the achievement of critical development goals. If there are a greater number of women in politics, there is a concomitant increase in the level of attention given to gender-specific policy and planning. However, the number of women taking leadership roles in India is rather small compared to the global average. The representation of women MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha has seen an improvement from 11% in 2014 to 14% in 2019, but it is still lower than the world average of 24.3%. In 2019, 715 women candidates contested the Lok Sabha election, while the number of men who contested stood at 7,334.
Odisha may be seen as one of the underdeveloped States in the country and a laggard in terms of some human development indicators. However, other States could take a cue from the Odisha government’s model for women’s empowerment. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-led State government was among the first to reserve 50% of seats in Panchayati Raj institutions for women. Further, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik nominated women for one-third of the seats in Lok Sabha election. Thus, seven candidates out of 21 fielded by the party for the 2019 election were women. The success rate among the women candidates was higher than for men, as five out of seven won the elections.
The power of self-help groups
Besides empowering women politically, the BJD government has been organising women into self-help groups in order to empower them economically ever since the BJD assumed power two decades ago. As of now, Odisha has six lakh self-help groups with seven million women under its flagship ‘Mission Shakti’ programme. The programme aims at empowering women by helping them start income-generating activities. The self-help groups are linked to the Odisha Livelihoods Mission and Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society. Members of the self-help groups are encouraged to sell products at fairs and exhibitions organised by the State round the year. This gives them an opportunity to travel across different parts of the State and gain greater exposure. The State government had announced an interest-free loan of ₹3 lakh in January 2019 to each of the self-help groups. This amount was increased to ₹5 lakh just before the general election. The Women and Child Development Department has been rechristened as the Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti Department.
The nomination of Pramila Bisoi, a self-help group leader, by Mr. Patnaik as a candidate for a Lok Sabha constituency might have come across as a surprise to many. But it could be seen as a deliberate and strategic move to bring self-help group members to the forefront of public life. The decision also sent the signal that rural women can also aspire to reach higher echelons in politics.
Many sops
In a bid to win the trust of women and also to empower them, the Naveen Patnaik government has announced several sops like smartphones, award of work contracts, and higher entitlements in the State’s health insurance scheme, arguably superior to the national level scheme, Ayushman Bharat. The State government has announced an accident insurance scheme for all members of self-help groups. It is no wonder that all this has paid rich dividends and helped propel the BJD to its fifth straight term.
Ananya Behera is a former UGC Senior Research Fellow and a Ph.D. in Sociology
