Quota for women

Mere crumbs of power

CAMIL PARKHE
Thursday, March 17, 2011 AT 09:05 PM (IST)
Tags: Reservation for women, Women-Politics, Maha govt, Camil Parkhe
It is nearly two decades since Maharashtra implemented 33 per cent reservations for women in local self-government bodies. The gender-based special quota was meant to politically empower women and to increase their participation in decision-making process in village panchayats, taluka panchayat samitis and zilla parishads. With the passage of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution, the 33 per cent reservation for women with quota for SC, ST and OBC women in local self-government bodies has come into existence all over the country. Ideally, the past two decades should have been enough to show positive results in women's empowerment. But that does not seem to be the case in Maharashtra or other states.

The 33 per cent quota has ensured a third of membership for women in these institutions. Many of them have occupied the coveted posts of sarpanche, municipal council presidents, mayors and zilla parishad presidents. In most cases, the nominations of these women came from politician members of their families. The sole intention was to retain the political power in the family. The tenure in these institutions should have served women as a training school for a never-before political career. Maharashtra's former chief minister and now Union minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, had begun his political career as a sarpanch of Babhalgaon village in Latur district. Former Union home minister Shivraj Patil had entered the political arena as president of the Latur municipal council. Former chief ministers Manohar Joshi and Narayan Rane too had launched their political careers as members of the municipal corporation of Mumbai.

Some women politicians have risen from the roots to occupy high political posts. Shobhana Phadanvis, sitting BJP MLC and former Maharashtra minister, had started her inning as a member of the Mool village panchayat in 1968. She was elected as Chandrapur zilla parishad member in 1977. She won state legislative assembly polls thrice. Former minister of state for health, Shobha Bachchav, began as a member of the Nashik Municipal Corporation and director of Nashik District Central Cooperative Bank. Fauzia Khan, who took over as a minister two years back, is NCP's MLC from Parbhani. Most other prominent politician-women carry the political legacy of their families. They include MP Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP chief Sharad Pawar; minister Varsha Gaikwad, daughter of Congress MP Eknath Gaikwad; MP Pankaja Munde, daughter of BJP leader Gopinath Munde; and Priya Dutt, daughter of former Union minister Sunil Dutt.

The question is how many of the women who availed of the 33 percent quota and served as members of panchayats, municipal councils, corporations and zilla parishads or as sarpanches, mayors and zilla parishad presidents have graduated to the posts of legislators, MPs, state or Union ministers in two decades. The answer is disappointing. Hardly any women have been achieve that transition. The political parties which had elected them as members or heads of local self-government bodies did not find them good enough to nominate them to the higher posts in assembly, legislative council or Parliament.

Prithviraj Chavan is the 15th politician to occupy the chief minister's post in Maharashtra. It is sad that not a single woman has occupied this post since the formation of this so-called progressive state in five decades. Nor is there a woman claimant to the job even now. The women politicians, who came closest to claiming the post, were former revenue minister Shalinitai Patil, wife of former chief minister Vasantdada Patil, and Premlakaki Chavan, mother of the present chief minister. Premlakaki, a loyalist to Indira Gandhi, was president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee when Congress veterans, including Y.B. Chavan and Sharad Pawar, had left the Congress boat after the Emergency.

So far, only one woman politician in Maharashtra has risen high to occupy various political and constitutional posts. President Pratibha Patil was first elected an MLA at the age of 26. She has served as a minister, deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha and governor of Rajasthan. Patil's is an exceptional case. The number of women MLAs, MLCs and MPs has never touched the two-digit mark. Shalinitai Patil was the last high profile woman politician, and that was 25 years ago! At present, there are only two women ministers, both hold junior posts.
With this dismal picture, the increase in the women's quota in local self-government bodies is unlikely to achieve the desired goal of political empowerment of women. The rural elected bodies or the civic bodies in small towns hardly enjoy any political or financial powers. So the legislation to increase the quota of women will be supported by most political parties without any hesitation. The same political parties will, however, continue to vehemently oppose the passage of the long-pending legislation on reserving 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies.
The ruling and opposition political parties, all dominated by male politicians, know it all too well that real political power lies in state assemblies and Parliament and with ministers at states and central levels. The goal of political empowerment of women can be reached only with reservation of equal number of seats for women in state assemblies and Parliament. But in view of the strong and adamant stance of most political parties, that seems to be a very distant dream.

Ideal Khap Panchayat

Ideal Khap Panchayat
CAMIL PARKHE
Friday, July 23, 2010 AT 09:25 PM (IST)
Tags: Khap Panchayat, Gawaki, Camil Parkhe

What is wrong in having khap panchayats or other bodies to set norms for members of a particular community? Some recent events in north India have brought a bad name for such "extra-constitutional" bodies. Jati or jamat panchayats have been a characteristic of ancient Indian society and they have served their purpose well. The genre of the khap panchayat itself should not be condemned per se.

I recently read a souvenir, commemorating the 50th anniversary of a "gawaki" (a sort of a khap panchayat, shall we say?) in the Vasai taluka of Thane district. I was pleasantly surprised to know that a body framing rules for its community members can also play positive roles. The Pali Wadwali Christian Samaj "gawaki" of three villages -- Wadwali, Gorodi and Karijbhat -- established in 1959 has framed rules for its members to come to the aid of those in mourning following a death in the family, to felicitate successful students and to honour senior citizens on reaching age milestones like 60, 75 or 80 years.

The "gawaki" is empowered to impose a penalty in the form of fines on persons who fail to abide by its rules. To this date, its authority has not been challenged by any of the members.

Incidentally, people who follow the diktats of the "gawaki" are no illiterate persons. The community is generally called East Indians and claims to be the original inhabitants of Mumbai and Thane. Most of them are financially sound and many of them travel to Mumbai daily to earn their bread.

One of the gawaki rules is that at least one male member in each family must rush to the house of a bereaved family in the village within half an hour of the death and also attend the funeral whenever it is held. The "gawaki" offers incentives to those who contact community members on the demise of a member, may be Rs100 as petrol expenses.

Those who fail to turn up at the house of the deceased and for the funeral have to pay a fine of Rs50. The members of the bereaved family are thus saved the trouble of running around to secure the death certificate and make all the arrangement for the final rites at the church and the cemetery. The survival of the "gawaki" for 50 years speaks volumes for its utility. There are more "gawakis" functioning in other villages in the Vasai taluka. I wish the tribe of such "gawakis" may increase elsewhere too in the new avatar of housing societies, and associations of employees or communities.

Tiff with Kiran Bedi

Tiff with Kiran Bedi

CAMIL PARKHE
Sunday, August 01, 2010 AT 06:44 PM (IST)
Tags: Kiran Bedi, Goa
I was a cub reporter in 1983 when Kiran Bedi was posted at Goa as deputy superintendent (traffic). Goa was then chosen as the venue for the Commonwealth heads of governments meeting (CHOGM) retreat. In those days, Goa had very little vehicular movement. Portuguese-built Potto Bridge was the only spot in the Union territory where a constable monitored traffic. Bedi's task was to monitor traffic during the three-day Goa visit of 39 heads of states including Margaret Thatcher, Robert Mugabe, Bob Hawke and the host -- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Our newspaper had only three reporters -- chief reporter, a senior reporter and I. Crime was one of the many beats I handled. Bedi was among the police officers I met every evening at the police headquarters. Sometimes, she would take me along in her Gypsy for conducting rehearsals, with instructions flowing on a walkie talkie set from Panaji to Dabolim airport and to Fort Aguada beach resort, the CHOGM venue.
CHOGM being a very, very high security event, government offices were to be closed for three days to minimise people's presence on streets. One day, Bedi gave me a press note regarding traffic restrictions during the retreat. As a routine affair, I published the press note. Next day, Bedi asked me to repeat the same press note on three consecutive days. I laughed at her suggestion and told her that newspapers never publish the same press note twice. I told her the same press note can appear umpteen number of times but only as an advertisement.
Bedi pondered for a minute and said she would have a word with my editor. Despite my protests, she almost pushed me into her jeep and took me along to visit the editor. 'Ki khabar,' my editor asked her in Punjabi as we entered his cabin. I was left astonished and sulking when he, without any hesitation, agreed to repeat the press note for three days.
Later, when I protested, he said, "Come on, have a heart! It's not very often that Mrs Gandhi, Thatcher and several other presidents and premiers come for a retreat in Goa. Besides, in your journalist career, you would very rarely find an officer as charismatic as Kiran Bedi. Let's give her some concessions!”
Three decades after the incident, I believe my first editor was very right in his statement as also his judgement.

Bitter test of first newspaper assignment

Sakal Times
Point of view
Bitter test of a first byline
Camil parkhe

My first newspaper reporting assignment and my byline carried along with it has left behind a bitter test in my mouth to this date. I have destroyed the not even A newspaper editor had promised me a job and when I visited the newspaper office that morning, I was asked to rush to a school and to file a story. The nature of the assignment indeed baffled me. A school teacher had assaulted a fifth standard school with a ruler and a leader of a students union had approached the newspaper editor to publish a news item. When I wondered what was wrong with a teacher punishing an errant student, the editor said that corporal punishment was against law and we must highlight this incident.
Along with the students union leader, I rushed to Ribandar, a couple of km from Panaji, where the school was located. The teacher couple who had founded the small school were surprised when I, along with a photographer and the student leader, approached them to seek their version of the assault. The husband who was his early sixties was too shocked to react to see newspaper persons arriving at doorsteps to give a bad publicity for his reputed school. His wife who was in an aggressive mood saw nothing wrong in punishing the child who, she said, was at that time attending her classes, having fully forgotten that she had been punished the previous day. When I briefed the newspaper editor about the visit, he excitedly said that there was a good 'copy' for publication. The next day the story written by me and heavily edited by the editor was published with my byline. The same day, the editor told me that I had been hired as a reporter with one day retrospective effect. The joy of getting a first job had no bounds. But I had a nagging feeling that I had committed some of kinds of injustice to the school's dedicated founders.
In my journalism career, I have had some proud moments and some not so proud moments. Some of the incidents have gone blur in memory with the passage of time and it is only when I wipe off the dust from the file of my old newspaper cuttings that faint memories of these incidents are revived. After a few years, I destroyed the clipping of my first byline but I have not managed to wipe out that incident from my memory.

Panch Haud Church tea party stirs storm in Pune

Panch Haud Church tea party stirs storm in city

CAMIL PARKHE
Sunday, August 08, 2010 AT 08:01 PM (IST)
Tags: Panch Haud Church, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahadeo Govind Ranade
Lokmanya Tilak and some other prominent Puneites had to pay a hefty price for attending a tea party hosted at the city's Panch Haud Church, which is celebrating 125th anniversary of its foundation on Saturday.
'Pune Vaibhav', a Marathi periodical, had published names of 50 persons who had allegedly attended a lecture and subsequent tea party at the Church of Holy Name in Panch Haud in October 1890, sparking a major storm in Pune's puritan social circle.
Some of those present at the tea party did not drink tea for fear of being defiled. Nonetheless they were held guilty of entering a church. Tilak and Justice Mahadeo Govind Ranade, a front ranking leader of the social reformers, were among those who had drank tea at the function.
Consumption of tea and biscuits at the church was then considered akin to renouncing Hinduism and therefore the fundamentalist leaders had demanded social and religious boycott of all those who dined with Christians.
It is said that it was Gopalrao Joshi, maverick husband of Dr Anandibai Joshi, the first Indian woman to secure a doctor's degree abroad, had arranged the sting operation of a lecture and subsequent tea party at the church.
'Pune Vaibhav' however had also published names of some people who had not attended the tea party. These people filed a defamation case against the periodical's editor. A court held the editor guilty of defamation and imposed on him a fine of Rs 200.
The matter however did not end there. Some persons approached the Shankaracharya to punish those who had drank tea at the church. Two representatives of the Shankaracharya then arrived in Pune and conducted hearing in the case at the Sanglikar Wada near Shaniwarwada.
Tilak, an authority on Hindu scripture, defended himself against the charge and argued that he had obtained a certificate of doing Prayachitt (penance) in Kashi. That did not satisfy the fundamentalists and Tilak had to face the threat of social boycott on him and his family members.
Narhar Raghunath Phatak, who has written Tilak's biography, has said that the veteran political leader had even feared that he may not get a Brahmin priest for a religious function during the social boycott period.
The row over the tea party in the church continued for over two years and met a silent death only in December 1892.

Be more sensitive to challenged persons

Be more sensitive to challenged persons

Sakaal Times
Friday, September 17, 2010 AT 07:33 PM (IST)
Tags: Disability, Physically challenged people
How sensitive are we to the problems faced by the disadvantaged and the physically or mentally challenged people? Most of us will consider ourselves to be 'fairly' sensitive. A couple of recent incidents has made me wonder if it is really the case.
Last week, I was waiting to get into a city bus as a group of rural folks struggled to alight from the rear door of the bus. A young woman was helping an elderly blind couple to get out and jostling with commuters impatient to get in. “Can't you people alight from the front door,” shouted one irate passenger at them. The woman, who had managed to lead the aged couple out, retorted, “Can't you educated people allow some leeway to the old and the blind?” The illiterate woman's remark left us dumb, too stunned to react.
An incident narrated by my teacher wife has lingered in my mind for long. She and some teachers were waiting for a physically challenged student to complete writing his answers during the SSC examination. All other students had left the examination hall after the expiry of the examination period. This student was given an extra half an hour in accordance with the rules of the secondary education board. The school teachers were not aware of the fact that physically challenged students are entitled to an extra half an hour during examination until the student had produced the board's letter to that effect.
As the boy hurriedly continued to draw graphs holding the scale in his deformed hand, the teachers waited impatiently. “Kay katkat ahe, nahi (What a nuisance)! By now, we would have left for home but for this boy...” one of the teachers said.After a few minutes, the boy finished his paper, looked quite apologetically at the teachers who had taught him for the past few years and said, “Miss, I would not seek extra time for the language and social science papers. It is only for science and geometry papers where I have to draw figures and for that I need extra time.”
My wife recounted that tears came to her eyes as she heard the boy's apologetic remark. “No beta , you take your own time, we won't mind,” she said. I, too, was moved greatly when I heard about the incident. Indeed, we surely need to willingly make an extra effort and be sensitive too all children, especially to the disadvantaged ones.

Uttam Kamble is Marathi sahitya sammelan chief

MARATHI SAHITYA SAMMELAN GETS A BOLD NEW FACE

CAMIL PARKHE
Friday, October 01, 2010 AT 01:40 PM (IST)
Tags: ABMSS, Uttam Kamble, Sakal Media Group, Camil Parkhe
Uttam Kamble, chief editor of Sakal Media Group, who has been elected president of the 84th All India Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, has mooted the idea of having a corpus fund to help the needy littérateurs who may need financial support.
Kamble is one of the youngest littérateurs to be elected to the coveted post of the Marathi literary conference in recent times. For the past few decades, rarely has a person below 60 years of age been elected to preside over the Sahitya Sammelan, and the average age of the president of the literary conference has been 70 years.
The next Marathi Sahitya Sammelan will be held in Thane in December, this year.
Speaking to Sakal Times, Kamble said that many veteran Marathi writers and poets have died in penury and some of them could not even afford medicines during the last stage of their life.
Stressing the need for having a permanent fund to support these littérateurs, Kamble said industrialists, social organisations and others could contribute towards creating a corpus fund.
Kamble also said that he will welcome various streams of Marathi Sahitya Sammelans, including rural, Dalit and Vidrohi Sammelans into the mainstream All India Marathi Sahitya Sammelan. Representatives of various Sammelans should not view each other as enemies, and be complementary to each other, he said.
Sakal Media Group chairman Prataprao Pawar and Managing Director Abhijit Pawar congratulated Kamble on his election at a function held at the ‘Sakal’ office on Thursday afternoon, which was attended by heads of departments in Sakal Media Group.
ELECTED WITH OVERWHELMING VOTES
Kamble was elected with an overwhelming 411 first preferential votes. Chandrakumar Nalage won 101 votes while Girija Kir polled 95 votes. Wamanrao Pathak and Dnyaneshwar Kulkarni polled 10 and seven votes, respectively, while 18 votes were declared invalid.
Kamble has 39 literary works to his credit including two novels, three autobiographical books, two poetry collections and five research books. Some of his books have been translated into Hindi, Kannad, Telugu and Malayalam languages. Some of his writings have been included in the syllabus of some universities in the State.