 "Umar Mohammed, Haryana")
The Supreme Court on December 10 upheld a law passed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana government that lays down educational qualifications for those who contest village council, or panchayat, elections. Thus, a general male candidate must have studied till class X, female and Dalit male till class VIII and Dalit female till class V.
This has set alarm bells ringing in the Mewat region of Haryana that borders the national capital. At 54.1 per cent, Mewat has the poorest literacy rate in the state - Haryana's average, according to the 2011 census, is 76.64 per cent. The empowerment of the educated threatens to alter the social dynamic here, and is therefore being resented on the ground: those who don't have the right educational qualifications see power slipping out of their hands.
Umar Mohammed lounges on a jute cot inside Adbari village's baithak, the compound where the panchayat conducts its affairs. Although not a member of the panchayat, Umar is a part of the biradari - elderly men and some women who counsel the villagers on everything from marital discord to land ownership. A hookah by his side, the 64-year-old fixes his turban before addressing me: "It is still early days but I can sense a certain resistance. This is bound to happen when you fix a problem with an abrupt solution."
While the government and the courts may believe that educational qualifications will bring in a system of merit, Umar presents a strange corollary to this. "We would choose deserving candidates based on the merit of the work they do for the village. Now, we have no choice but to choose the educated candidate, irrespective of whether he or she is worthy of being a panch or not," he rues. The village metaphor, I am informed, is that everyone here is an anpadh (illiterate) PhD - uneducated but wise.
Ali Mohammed, 78, pipes in with more scepticism. "Progress has been held back in our region because of corruption. I'm not sure if education can fix all issues. We need people who are street smart and wise," he says, swatting flies that an adjacent open drain attracts. It is possible that their anxiety stems from a disdain for education, which is not misplaced given the rot in schools, but it is more likely that they fear loss of authority - and the social prestige that comes with it.
The gender token
Standing at a distance and waiting for his elders to finish talking, Farid Ahmed can see the change coming. "The young will take over officially and take the village forward." But are enough women eligible to contest the reserved seats, and will enough educated women want to contest elections? He falters before responding, "Of course, they will fight these elections. They will do everything for the village, besides household chores."
Umar mentions the fallout of the new rule that many commentators have labelled elitist: "It is hard to get your daughter married, especially if she is educated. Now, if your daughter is at least a class VIII-pass, prominent families in the villages nearby will vie for a match for their sons so that she can win elections for them," he laughs.
Umar, who has an educated unmarried daughter, looks unsettled when I ask to speak to her. "What is she going to say to you? I speak for her," he pronounces.
Men often speak for their women across the region, which gives away the chilling reality that women in panchayats are little more than rubber stamps.
When I call Mewat's zila parishad (district council) chairperson, Hazra Begum, her phone is answered by a male voice, who informs me that he will speak to me the next day. Ten minutes into a conversation with Aman Ahmad, Begum's son, it becomes clear that he is more than just her spokesperson. He announces that his mother is aged and cannot speak on the phone, and that he speaks for her.
"Mewat does not even have sufficient schools and we have a government that makes educational qualification a criterion. What can be more ironic than this," he says. To support his argument, Ahmad cites an improbable reason: "An uneducated member of the panchayat will be scared to mishandle any funds. The same cannot be said about educated, shrewd candidates." Desperate situations often lead to desperate arguments.
Young foot forward
The sarpanch of Adbari agrees to a meeting in Nuh, a small town. A 30-year-old, dressed sharply in a shirt, white trousers and a Nehru jacket, greets me. Seeing my confusion, Sabeer Ahmed explains that though his father, Yameen Ahmed, is the sarpanch, he is the one who does the actual running around.
With the new law in place, he hopes to run the panchayat all by himself - not as a proxy. "The educational qualification will only formalise what has already been happening and allow the youth of our villages to take charge."
Is he worried that they may not be able to fill all 20 seats for the village panchayat? "The rich have always been underplaying the number of educated people in poor households to make sure they remain backward. There are enough educated people in our village to contest elections," he asserts.
Sabeer echoes Umar's views on the effect these changes in panchayat rules will have on marriages. "Mewat has a widespread dowry problem. Even the poorest households pay Rs 3 lakh and a motorcycle as dowry, and those with more means may even have to shell out Rs 5 lakh and a Scorpio car," he says. "But now, families will waive this dowry as long as their future daughter-in-law is educated."
But what of the women who wouldn't want to contest elections. "Why wouldn't they," asks Sabeer, perplexed at the very possibility. Patriarchy has strong roots here. While his wife does not qualify to contest elections, he has enrolled his children in the village school. "Even though we may see some teething problems this year, the face of Haryana will change in the next five years," he says.
Om Prakash Dhankar, Haryana's minister for development and panchayat, says panchayats in the state already have mostly educated members. "Out of the 66,000 council members, only 20,000 will not qualify under the new criteria. But that does not mean there aren't enough people to replace them with educated candidates," he says over the phone from Chandigarh.
Dhankar also explains that those who contest panchayat elections belong to the village's elite 10 per cent. "There are other criteria that the government has introduced, such as a toilet at home, an electricity connection, no loans or criminal records, which, when looked at as a whole, are all designed towards the Prime Minister's various schemes and vision for India."
Just the toilet criterion, he says, will allow Haryana to have 100,000 additional toilets, taking the Swachh Bharat Mission forward.
His arguments don't cut much ice in Mewat. Ahmad, the zila parishad chairperson's son, predicts there will be empty seats in many panchayats after the elections scheduled for January. "They should have conducted a survey and spoken to the stakeholders."
Dhankar says a survey was indeed conducted. "We have a local administration that can step in, in case a panchayat is not formed, but I doubt that will happen," he says. Dhankar believes that marriages will solve the problem. "When families begin to see their daughters' and daughters-in-law's education as an asset, it will bring about social change," he says.
Not all are opposed to the new law. Sunil Jaglan, the sarpanch of Bibipur who started the "selfie with daughter" campaign, strongly believes that this is a "progressive" step. "The fact that people are resisting the educational qualification criterion should tell you the dire straits that Haryana is in. How can you expect an uneducated sarpanch to successfully implement schemes such as the Jan Dhan Yojana, especially when he cannot even sign on his own name?"
He adds that education will further help Haryana to combat its dismal sex ratio and female illiteracy rate.
Going by the suspicion palpable in Mewat, it won't be an easy transition.
