...most severely (the Taliban Afghanistan, for example), but it is also a powerful factor in many other countries such as Japan (where there is still a strong expectation that when women marry, they will leave full-time employment outside the home). (1) Moreover, the impact of home-centered roles for women is not restricted to non-Western countries. The view that "a woman's place is in the home" prevailed in Western societies well into the twentieth century and, as this article will demonstrate, it still bears significant influence. In so far as such roles, which include the constellation of norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and actions are accepted, they will continue to inhibit women from participating in politics.

In India, a large number of women do not work and, by implication, spend much of their time at home. In 1991, only 22 percent of the women were in the workforce as compared to 52 percent of the men. In 1961, only 28 percent of the women were in the workforce (Gopalan and Shiva 2000:119). Many of the women in 1991, however, worked in the unorganized sector and did not have regular employment. While 28 percent of the men were employed with "casual wages" (i.e., did not have a permanent job), 39 percent of the women were casual wage employees (Gopalan and Shiva 2000:119). In the organized sector, where there is greater job security, the proportion of women employed to total employment was only 16 percent in 1996, up from 11 percent in 1961 (Gopalan and Shiva 2000:344). Given that few women are in the workforce, women's participation in political life is fairly limited (Burns, Scholzman, and Verba 2001). While a large enough proportion of women turn out to vote and the gender gap in turnout has dropped to single digits in the 1990s (from almost 20 percent in 1971), women still are not well represented in political life which requires them to be active in the public sphere--such as membership in Parliament and in State Legislative Assemblies. To redress the low level of participation by women in deliberative bodies, the government of India amended the constitution in 1992 (73rd and 74th amendments) so that a third of the seats in the Panchayats (local governments), including the chairpersonship of these local bodies, would be reserved for women. As this constitutional amendment mandates that women be elected to local office, it offers us a chance to assess which women become politically active. (2)

This constitutional amendment has indeed brought women into local bodies (Gopalan and Shiva 2000), but which women have been able to take advantage of their new entitlements? Are women aware of the changes that were introduced by the central government? Further, are there significant inter-community differences in terms of awareness and responsiveness to these changes? The answers to these questions are interesting from a theoretical standpoint. Prominent arguments, both in India and elsewhere, have suggested that women's participation is generally lower either because they have been "socialized" differently (especially as far as marriage, motherhood, employment, and property ownership are concerned), or because they have fewer resources (Schlozman, Burns, Verba 1994; Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 1997b). An implicit assumption in these sets of arguments is that the lower level of participation of women is mostly the result of a process of socialization that leads them to think of political activity in a different way than men. In other words, women don't take as active a part in political life because they don't think (as autonomous actors) that political participation is important. An implication that follows from this line of reasoning is that women do not think that entering political life would necessarily be advantageous. If they did, they would participate as autonomous actors.

This paper suggests that a far less benign interpretation may account for the lower level of political participation. by women in India. (3) It observes that women are aware of the advantages that politics brings, but are still not active participants in political life. This lower level of participation is not only a consequence of the resources that women possess, it is also a result of the role of women in the family. It is argued that those women who can negotiate independent space for themselves within the household are more likely to participate in political life. This factor (the ability to negotiate within the household), the paper will argue, retains its significance, even controlling for the societal and individual characteristics that explain participation such as a respondent's socioeconomic status.

The paper begins by describing the position of women in public political life in India--particularly in their virtual absence in legislative bodies--at the state and at the national level. It is surprising that the proportion of women in the legislature remains low even in those states where women have a better quality of life in terms of access to education and life expectancy (Kerala, for example). Since women in India have little place in the public arena, they also express less faith in the political process. The second part of the paper discusses the findings from a six-state post-election survey conducted in 1996, and a survey of women in a northern Indian state that assesses women's involvement in political life subsequent to the adoption of the constitutional amendments guaranteeing women a third of all places in local bodies. The third section outlines the argument that describes the link between political activity and status within the household. The next part analyzes a survey designed specifically to assess which women are contesting elections for local bodies seven years after the amendment (which gives women guaranteed seats in local bodies) was adopted by the national government. This section observes that five years after the adoption of the amendment, women's participation in local politics remains below that of men and that women were not even aware of their new entitlements. Further, neither a woman's caste affiliation nor socialization could adequately account for their low level of awareness of the 73d amendment. Whether women knew of the amendment or not was largely determined by their levels of education, family income, and whether they belonged to a "political family" (i.e., someone in their family had partaken in electoral politics). The more important finding relates to which women choose to contest elections. Whether a woman contests local elections or not depends, in addition to socioeconomic status, on her position in the household. Women who can negotiate independent space for themse lves are more likely to be active participants in the political process. The penultimate section of the paper examines whether these findings are unique to India or if similar phenomenon can be detected in other parts of the world as well. The paper concludes with some caveats and suggestions for future research.

Women in the Indian Legislatures

As in other parts of the world, few women in India find a place in the lower house of parliament--the Lok Sabha in India. The Lo11c Sabba in 2002 had 8.8 percent women placing India 82nd of the 180 countries for which data on women in the lower house is reported by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. (4) There is also gender gap in national elections in India, just as there is in countries like the United States. Women have also turned out at lower rates than men for elections to the Lok Sabha. As Table 1 indicates, in all elections in Independent India, women have consistently turned out to vote less than men, though the gap has become lower in the last two decades. Similarly, the presence of women in parliament has remained remarkably stable at 5 percent until the 1 990s when it averaged around 8 percent.

The smaller proportion of women who have a place in the Lok Sabha is replicated in...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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